Arc 1: First Life (and First Death)
Chapter 1: Awakening
Dying was sudden, it was the screeching of tires, the shocked screams of bystanders, the instant of blinding pain, and the taste of blood.
Living again was even more sudden, between one instant and the next I went from laying broken and bleeding in the street to opening my eyes in an unfamiliar room, in a bed with bars around it. My vision was unfocused, the sound around me distorted, my body didn't move the way I wanted it to. It was like being trapped in a fishbowl, I could only be grateful that there was no longer any pain. But I was incredibly confused and disorientated, where was I? It didn't seem like a hospital and surely after an accident as terrible as the one I was just in (was it just now? It feels like it was, but it could also have been a millennia ago.), that would be the only place that I could reasonably be. 'My family, how did they take my accident? They must have been so scared, I know I would be if I got a call that one of my family members had been hit by a truck and was in the hospital. Was my mom okay? I know she'd want to be here with me but she had five kids to look after, did she get one of the older kids to babysit them? What about her health? My mom has high blood pressure, I can only imagine what my accident must have done to her health, hopefully she hasn't been admitted into the hospital!' I try to push myself into a sitting position, but my hands won't press flat against the mattress under me, all I succeed in doing is pressing my forearms more firmly into the bed.
'What's wrong with my arms?!' I think frantically as my breathing starts to pick up, and I can feel my heart hammering in my chest. 'They don't hurt, they don't have casts on them, I can't feel anything restraining them, and I can feel the fabric on my skin so my nerves haven't been severed, so why won't they move properly?!' I try to raise my head to look at my arms but my head won't leave the mattress, the panic surges through me as I instead try to turn my head to the side and only succeed at turning it slightly. My gaze manages to land on one of my arms but they look fine, 'maybe I just can't see what's wrong with them because of my blurry eyesight? Where'd they put my glasses?!' I clumsily attempt to raise my left arm towards my face, but the joints don't bend smoothly and the entire action is far harder than it has any right to be, 'it feels like those times when I accidentally slept on my arm and cut off the circulation, is that what happened?' I eventually manage to get my arm into the air above my face, but I still can't see what's wrong with it, so I try to lower my hand closer to my face, however I end up smacking myself in the nose with my fist because I overestimated the distance between the two, and my joints didn't bend and roll as smoothly as they normally did. I gasp quietly at the pain but focus on moving my hand slightly into the air above my face, my breath freezes in my chest as I finally get a semi-clear look at my hand, it's not injured, not broken or twisted like I feared it must be. No it's far worse. Floating an inch or two above my nose is a hand that most definitely does NOT belong to me, the proportions of the fingers are completely off when compared with the hand, 'those short stubby fingers aren't mine! Those, those belong on the hands of a baby!' Sure enough the hand that I've raised in front of my face is that of a baby's. The skin is far paler and smoother than I remember my hands ever being. 'No!' I gasp as tears gather in my eyes, 'no, no, nonononono, NO! I can't be a baby! I can't be DEAD! My family… my friends, I left them. I can't have left them! How will they react? How will they cope with the death of someone important to them? My younger brother already has depression! I can't do this to him! My best friend used to cut before I met her… what if she starts again because of me?! How could I have let myself die? NO!' I scream, loud, and long, and piercingly to mourn my lost life, the friends and family that I will never be able to meet again, because even if I've been reborn into the same country, in the same year as I died, how could I ever talk to them again? Just walk up to them and say, 'hey, you remember your daughter/sister/friend that died somewhere around ten or so years ago? Yeah that's me. I've been reborn with my memories intact.' They wouldn't believe me! Not to mention that it would be callous and cruel of me to pry at their grief like that! So I scream, I scream my guilt, my sorrow, my loneliness, and my denial into the night.
'Why have I been reborn anyway?! I never believed in reincarnation, it didn't seem right that people we loved and lost would be reborn as new people. I also didn't think it added up with the increasing population of humans on the earth, so why have I been reborn? Why do I have my memories? Did my soul slip through the natural process of death (whatever that is), and end up taking over this body? Did I give an embryo that wasn't supposed to survive a soul? Or did I hijack the body of some baby who will never get to experience life now? Did some God out there decide to give me a new life without so much as a by-your-leave?! If that's the case, then why? Am I supposed to serve some kind of purpose? Or did they do it for their own twisted entertainment? If this was deliberate then couldn't they have had the decency to give me a heads up?!' Throughout my questioning I continued to scream and cry, so perhaps I should have expected it when the door to the room I was in (probably a nursery), burst open and two concerned figures rushed into the room.
They were a man and a woman, both of them were wearing sleeping gowns and had housecoats thrown hastily overtop. The clothes were silk, or maybe satin, and shimmered in the moonlight as they rushed over to the crib. The man reached in to pull me out, his hands and voice incredibly gentle as he lifted me to cradle against his chest, "oh darling, did you have a nightmare? It's okay, daddy has you, and look mommy's here too!" My hands automatically reach up to tangle in the man's long blond hair, I catch the momentary wince as I pull too hard while I continue screaming. The man's face is handsome, in a very fine, feminine way. He has high cheek bones, a thin nose, golden blond hair that extends down to his hips, and blue eyes. 'He looks very fae, or should I say elven?' I correct unconsciously as my eyes land on the long pointed ears sticking out of his long silken hair. Despite the oddity I am too distressed to ponder it more carefully. He looks frantically over to the woman, "what do I do? She won't stop screaming, her voice is starting to go hoarse!" He whispers desperately.
The woman is just as beautiful as her husband is handsome, her long brown hair has a slight wave to it and hangs as long as her husband's, even after having rushed to my room after being woken abruptly in the middle of the night, she still moves with an unearthly grace and poise, she also possesses long elven ears like her husband. Her brown eyes are warm and gentle as she reaches to take me from her husband, "perhaps she's just hungry dear, the physician did say that she will need frequent feedings for the first week or two, and that we should be prepared to be woken up during the night." She murmurs gently as she starts fiddling with her gown. I still abruptly, 'hungry? Feedings? Oh please tell me that she prefers bottles and formula.' I think frantically. I am immediately horrified as my hopes are dashed when she opens the front of her gown and repositions me against her chest. Unfortunately I AM hungry and apparently in possession of some sort of baby survival instincts as I shift automatically and begin feeding. 'Why?' My mind whines in mortification and squeamishness, 'why do I have to go through one of the things that have always horrified me as the worst possible participant?! I have nothing against mothers who breastfeed, I just have some sort of almost-phobia when it comes to pregnancy and breastfeeding. And now I am a baby. Who is breastfeeding. Who will be fed in this way many more times in the future. WHY ME?!' I whimper pathetically as I eat my fill. The drain from my emotional turmoil from earlier, and the soothing feeling of my new mother's hands stroking my head start putting me very quickly to sleep, just before I drop off I hear my new mother's voice murmur lovingly, "There we go, it's okay now. Mommy and Daddy will always be here for you, so rest well my darling little Zelda."