Chapter 3
I stared at the creature in the mirror, the creature in the mirror stared back in steadily growing panic. It had been a few months since I had resolved to try and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and i had managed to confirm that i was still in fact a girl shortly after my mini panic attack and mastered the vital skill of sitting up on my own! I know, I know please hold your applause until the end of the show, but seriously I was unreasonably proud of myself for that tiny feat. Do you know how hard it is to sit up on your own without the proper muscle mass and an oversized heavy baby head? Very. attempting it was an exercise in frustration and humiliation but i had managed it well enough… eventually. My first few 'successes' were more of a drunken lean on the bars of my crib. I had also learned to roll over and how to worm wiggle. Very impressive i'm sure. Oh! I had also started to decipher my new mother tongue. The language is beautiful but confusing, I was actually proud of myself for deciphering a little of the new language without a reference. Baby talk was actually rather helpful in that task, but all of that is superfluous.
I stared at the little alien in the mirror and resisted the urge to start crying. It wasn't that i didn't look like my old self, that was ok. I had half expected that to be the case. I was panicking because I DIDN'T LOOK HUMAN.
Now all babies looked a little alien at first before they got to their cute, chubby stage. That's not what i'm talking about. I did not look human. I had freaking cosplay elf ears attached to my head! My hands clumsily rose to my ears and tugged at them with the hole of my feeble baby strength, and a sharp pain radiated across my head. I had already been overwhelmed by my chaotic emotions, the introduction of pain as well had been a little too much for my fragile psyche and baby body. I immediately burst into tears wailing my little head off. My caretaker for the day, a kind looking grandmotherly woman rushed to my side and scooped me up, cooing. I squinted past my tears and poor vision and looked directly to the left of her face. Sure enough there was a fleshy blur that looked like a pointed ear. A new wave of tears burst from my eyes.
How had I not noticed this before I wondered staring once more into a mirror. Beyond the startling ears there were several other factors that didn't look exactly normal to an observant eye, faces a little too even, eyes a little too big, skin a little too smooth and blemish free outside of the occasional birthmark or set of freckles. The last week had been spent furiously studying anyone and everyone that had entered the small nursery i had been interned in, everyone including my mother had been combed over with a fine toothed comb (as much as one could with my. Stupid. Freaking. Baby. Eyes. At this point self mutilation was being considered, no vision would probably be better then these discount, bargain bin, rip off excuses for eyes. But that might just be the bitterness talking.). And the small details that had previously eluded me now stood out in blaring blinding clearness. No human's face was perfectly smooth or perfectly even without the assistance of some serious cosmetic surgery or makeup on a level that would have even the most skilled beauty guru foaming at the mouth in envy. Their eyes weren't quite at the level of an anime character, but they were slightly larger then one would usually spot on a humans face. It wasn't that everyone was inhumanly attractive, they weren't. I had seen one or two plain looking people passing in or out to clean the room or change my diaper and feed me, but there was a certain perfection and symmetry to their features that had put them a step above.
And as i stared once more at myself in the mirror i could spot all of the commonalities in myself as well. My eyes were far too large for the common infant, my skin was free of the blemishes and acne babies would get in their first few months. There was a damning perfection and symmetry that had never been present on my first face. sure there were some surface level similarities, i had tufts of the golden blond my hair had been in my youth and my eyes were still blue, But both of those were subject to change. Baby blues were never set in stone, and My hair had darkened to a dirty blond as I had grown older, whereas the color of what little hair I had shown was far too true for that to be likely in this case. The only familiar spot of this foreign face was a little bird-like birthmark above my right eyebrow.
I was aware that I had started to hyperventilate but wasn't quite in the proper state of mind to calm myself. Everything i had assumed, everything that i had taken for granted was now up in the air. I was not human, or at least the human I knew, no wonder I couldn't recognise the language! Frantic ideas ran rampant across my mind. What sort of sci fi, fantasy bull was this! The insidious voices that had been lurking, whispering in the back of my mind were now screaming, malicious glee filled every syllable. Thoughts of secret societies, alien races and, fantastical magical races assaulted my brain. The ideas that had once enthralled and tempted me in my first life were now terrifying. The ugly truths of those realities featured in every frightening fantasy. Secret societies were plagued with dangers different and unique to those of the already danger filled world, space soap operas often spotlighted upon terrifying conquering armies and malicious alien life, fantasies of magical races were erased with the cruel knowledge of hate and fear humans were cruel enough to their own species for slight cosmetic differences. I didn't want to imagine what the world would be like if there were actually entirely different species of sentient life! My breath was getting short and my head was becoming fuzzy unconscious tear drops started to roll down my cheeks followed by gasping sobs. My mother picked me up muttering worried words in my ear bouncing me up and down. That only caused me to sob harder, I had known that along with reduced sight baby's sense of hearing was also greatly reduced but from the moment of my birth my hearing had been just as astute as they had been in my last life. I was scared in a way I hadn't been since my inception in this new life. I had lost my life, I had lost my family, and now I had lost my humanity. I clutched my mother close while I sobbed, clinging to my only rock in this storm.
