My name is Leo Lush, though most people at my school just call me Plush since I’m always carrying around a stuffed toy, I don't really mind it though, in fact, I kinda like it, I mean, at least it's easy for my classmates to not get me confused with all the other brown haired, generic looking boys in the class. (Yes, I have a stuffed animal even though I’m 18, it's a memento, bite me.)
I’m mostly a pretty easygoing person, other than when the accident happened, I try not to really worry about a lot of things, I usually do my best to go through life with whatever hand it decides to deal to me and not complain along the way, but now I've got something that I kinda can't help but t worry about.
You see, our class was going on a trip to the zoo and in order to get there we needed to take the train, so I and the rest of my class were standing on the train station platform while waiting for it to arrive.
And it was then that it happened, it was just as the train could be seen in the distance that I noticed that my plush was missing.
That's when I heard someone shouting from the other side of the plateau.
“Oooi , plushguy, this yours?”
There I see one of my classmates waving his hand around with my stuffed animal in it.
I raise my hand and shout back.
“Yeah, that’s mine alright, mind tossing it over?”
And so he did, he performed a simple overhead lob that let the plush sail slowly through the air, and yet even though I caught it, for some reason it didn't stop, even though I’m relatively fit, somehow this plushy that couldn't have been going faster than a plastic bag without a breeze carried enough force to not just pull my arm, but to also pull down my entire body onto the tracks just as our train came by.
You can probably guess the rest, but if you couldn't, I died, simple as that.
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How ironic, I was killed by both my namesake and the one thing I tried to properly take care of.
I even kept the plushy in my bed while I was sleeping.
Well... there's not really a whole lot that I can do about now is there?
So now then, I’ve always been curious about the afterlife, I mean, just what happens? Were any of the known religions accurate with their portrayal of the life thereafter? Now I admit, although I wasn't exactly expecting to be picked up by Valkyries or for my soul to be dragged off into the sky by a grandiose beam of light, I definitely didn't think the transition to be so smooth and seamless either, one moment my back was stinging with pain from falling a meter onto the iron rails, and then I was sitting in a tranquil forest where the trees were four times as tall as any I'd ever seen before. And yet, here I am, leaning on a boulder and hearing birds chirping all around. At least I seem to have died instantly and without any of the pain.
But now here’s where I got worried, when I was getting up my hands and feet felt really weird, like something was wrong, or as though something was missing.
After I got up I decided that I needed to try and find out why it didn't feel normal, and so I looked downwards at my body, something I have a habit of not doing for whatever reason, and discover that I only have three fingers and a thumb on each hand, and only three toes on my feet. Also the fingers and toes weren’t exactly normal either, they all ended in what looked like a sharp point, like claws.
My entire body was dark purple and my limbs looked weird, whenever I bent them the didn't bend like they had elbows or knees, istead they bent like they didn't have any bones at all, like a squid tentacle.
Either that or they had way too many bones, like a snake or an animals tail.
I looked around a bit trying to find something reflective so that I could see my face, but no luck. Although when I shook my head I did notice that I seem to have red hair, and I don’t mean red as in ginger-orange, but wine red.
Since I couldn’t find anything to see my face in I was tempted to simply touch it to find out the general shape of it at least, but I realized I may just end up clawing out one of my eyes sine I'm not to used to this body and decided againt it.
Well, I guess all those religions that talk about reincarnation were right, and whatever i reincarnated into seems to have hands and feet made for hunting so i should at least have an easy time surviving at least.
'Actually, how sharp are these claws?' I touch them to find out.
“...!?”
'This feeling!'
'There's no denying it, this unmistakable feeling!'
My "claws" were soft.
My hands were soft
My arms were soft.
My entire body was soft.
'It feels exactly like a stuffed toy!'