It was a slow day. Gray skies, chilly air, and people hurrying to get home before the inevitable storm hits.
The Matron sighed as she finished putting up the last bunch of laundry she had left outside to dry. Of course, her plan was ruined by the weather, but there was little point in getting angry over that.
She steadied the bundle in her rough and well-built arms before stepping back inside the dingy orphanage that she was in charge of. The moment she was fully under its roof, she was immediately set upon by the children she looked after.
"Matron!" one young boy with snot smeared all over his face hurriedly tugged on her skirt, "Tina said that my parents left me because they didn't want me!"
The Matron turned a disapproving glare towards the offending girl. Tina simply turned away and grumbled, "It's not like I'm wrong."
"Even so," the Matron took a wet towel and gently wiped the snot off the boy's face, "There is no need for you to hurt others like that. Life is hard enough as is without making it harder for both ourselves and others." The Matron tossed the towel into the half-full laundry basket and picked Tina up in her arms.
"That's why it's important to be kind to those around you," she tweaked the young girl's nose, "Otherwise..."
"Otherwise what?" Tina's eyes widened curiously.
"Otherwise you'll get spun around like this!" the Matron suddenly began spinning in place with the girl screeching with excitement in her arms.
"No fair!" another young boy spoke up with an indignant look, "I want to get spun too!" The other kids in the room began clamoring in agreement.
"I wanna go next!"
"Me too!"
"Me, me!"
The Matron tiredly chuckled and put the girl down. "Perhaps later. I still need to prepare dinner for all of you hungry liddle rascals, and all of you wouldn't like being hungry, hm?"
The orphans all quietly considered this for a moment before shaking their heads.
"Then all of you go play and let me make some tasty food for you all, for goodness sake!" she jokingly scolded them.
"Yes, Matron!" the children all happily said before going off to entertain themselves.
The Matron waited until they all dispersed before heading over to the storeroom to see what was available. Upon immediate inspection of the pantries, she noticed that she had completely forgotten to pick up enough vegetables for the day.
She let out a small sigh. It appeared that she would need to go shopping. Hopefully, the impending storm would be polite enough and wait until she got back. Gathering up her resolve, she went up to one of the older children in the orphanage and gently got their attention.
"Erigor," the youth opened his eyes from his meditation—the Matron assumed it was for improving his magic one way or another, "Could you look after the orphanage while I go and buy some produce for dinner?"
Erigor nodded and got up from his sitting position, "I got it." The Matron smiled at the white haired youth. He was oftentimes grumpy, but could always be relied upon when it came to looking after the kids while she stepped out. She did wish they didn't have to age so quickly though.
The Matron wryly smiled before heading out the orphanage and closing the door behind her. Just as she was about to hurry down the road leading to the grocer's market, she heard a faint cry come from the side of the orphanage.
Curious, the Matron cautiously approached where the sound was coming from and found a living, barely breathing, little baby. She knelt beside the little thing in consternation as a pair of big brown eyes opened to watch her every move.
The Matron felt a surge of anger wash over her. The child had done nothing yet had already been abandoned by his...her parents. Truly, the age they lived in was an enlightened one, but irresponsibility would always plague society.
She knelt down and took a closer look at the child. The baby looked almost...perceptive she supposed. Typically, babies would cry when a stranger came near them, but not a single cry or even the slightest whimper arose from this little one. She wiped the baby's matted hair away from its face and reached up to gently grab the baby's tiny hand. It was then she realized, this small baby was different. The baby shivered helplessly as she looked at her in the eye with a look that was hard to describe. It was as if the baby already knew what had happened to her.
"Hello. Don't be afraid," the Matron smiled. She was surprised any words came out around the lump in her own throat.
The Matron saw the baby visibly relax as if it could understand her. Perhaps it did, the Matron mused and said nothing but kept the baby's tiny hand wrapped around her finger.
She gently took the baby into her arms. The poor thing was so frail that she thought she would accidentally snap her into pieces. Most of the babies at the orphanage had weighed more than this one did.
The baby's skin was cold, and her feet blistered and bruised, but those were the least of the Matron's concerns. The piece of cloth the baby wore was too thin and couldn't even shield her skin from the cold air. The Matron observed the basket and found that there was nothing else there. She looked at the baby again and saw that her first two fingers together were approximately the size of the baby's wrist. Truly, the child was fortunate that she had found her before it began raining.
The Matron swallowed hard as she held back a few tears. It was not the first time she had seen such an awful sight, but it never got easier.
"You're safe now," she murmured as she cradled the child in her arms. "Everything will be okay."
The Matron made her way back to the orphanage with brisk steps. The moment she was back under the roof of the humble shelter, the sky thundered and rain began pouring down in buckets.
"Back already?" Erigor asked as another smaller child screamed from atop his shoulders, "That was real fast."
"Ah!" the Matron shook her head in dismay, "I've completely forgotten about the groceries. We'll have to use the ones stored up from the garden today," she headed over to the beds where the especially small children were kept and laid the shivering infant down on the worn but clean sheets.
"What's that?" Erigor peaked around her.
"A child that I found when I stepped out. Ah, could you be a dear and grab me a towel please?" the Matron gently removed the rags from the child as Erigor ran and came back with a dry towel. The Matron patted her dry with a towel before clothing the child in clean white baby clothes. "Truly, the behavior of some people in this city is absolutely shameful…"
"Oh, okay," Erigor took one last glance at the baby that was now staring back at him with her large eyes. "This baby seems weird—"
"Erigor! Anna stole my choo choo!" someone screamed from the hall.
"Ugh..." Erigor winced and looked apologetically at the Matron, "Sorry, I think I gotta go!"
The Matron waved her hand. "Thank you for helping, Erigor. I can handle the rest from here."
The white haired youth nodded and ran off to deal with the horde of excited children. The Matron smiled proudly before turning her gaze back upon the attentive baby. "Now for you, I'll come back once I've finished cooking dinner, okay?"
With that, she picked up the baby and carefully placed them in a worn out cradle—giving them one last pat before she walked out of the baby's sight.
Baby POV
Admittedly, today was not the best day.
I vaguely remembered dying but couldn't quite place my finger on the cause. Of course, that was already quite troubling, but my attention was currently focused on how I was still alive.
And wet. And cold. Very, very, very cold.
I attempted to prop herself up only to find that my very adult limbs were now replaced by a frail pair of tiny baby arms. In fact, I didn't even have the strength to lift them up.
I—Elizabeth, my name emerged from the still foggy recesses of my memory—attempted to move my legs and found to my horror that the best I could manage was a small wiggle.
It seemed like I was tightly wrapped by something.
I forced my eyes wide open, but the only thing I could see were big blurs of color, much less fine details or even any sort of features that would help me comprehend what I was looking at.
Suddenly a big black blur approached me at a speed I couldn't comprehend. Needless to say, I was fairly scared considering my current capabilities or lack thereof.
Then this black blob picked me up and made sounds that may or may not have been English. So far, it didn't sound vaguely like any language I was aware of.
'Well,' II thought to myself. 'This is not very good.'
I couldn't quite recall what happened next, but I did know that I was now in someone's arms.
The black blob reached out its fingers—were they fingers?—and placed them on my forehead. Despite being a complete stranger and maybe not even a person, the warmth felt surprisingly comforting, so I started leaning into the touch.
The black blob had brought me away from the cold place to someplace that was far warmer. This time I saw another blur, but in light blue and smaller than the black blur.
I wrinkled my eyebrows. Just what were these blurs?!
'It's really frustrating not being able to see more clearly…' I knew that babies were underdeveloped, but it was another thing entirely to experience it for myself. Furthermore, I was utterly incapable of performing any sort of meaningful activity apart from crying.
In retrospect, I suppose I was very lucky that someone—I assume it was a person, but who knew?—had bothered to pick me up from where I was. It really was all very confusing.
What if I was having one big psychotic breakdown? I couldn't recall displaying symptoms of any sort of mental degradation, but then again, psychiatry was never my specialty.
'I think… I ought to review what I do know,' I thought to myself. I didn't quite feel qualified to perform psychotherapy on myself, and I probably still wouldn't have even if I did feel like I did. With that in mind, perhaps the best activity right now would be to remember as much as my past life—were they even my memories?—as I could.
'I was a doctor. A general surgeon to be specific. My name is Elizabeth. I lived in the United States. I...' a sudden wave of drowsiness overcame me. 'I...'
'I should just sleep...' the warm room lulled me into the sweet downlifting sensation of relaxation and I wandered off into dreamland.
….
It was another typical day. Somewhat sunny with a few clouds lazily drifting across the blue sky.
Elizabeth took a sip from her coffee and winced at its heat. She put the cup back into her car's cup holder as she drove down the highway.
The screen that sat at the center panel of the car changed from the stupid local radio station to a familiar ringtone. She smiled at the sight and turned the volume up before picking up the call.
"Eli-eli, my little lily!"
She gave a short laugh, "Hi mom!"
There was a sigh at the other end, "My little Lily all grown up, and a surgeon too," mom faked a sniffle.
"A general surgeon, mom. Just a normal, classic, general surgeon," she emphasized once more. Not that there was anything like an unspecialized surgeon anyways. She'd always wondered why they called it "general."
"Hush and accept the compliment."
She laughed again. "Alright, alright," she relented. Her mom always won after all.
"Now, how come my sweet Lily never comes to celebrate anything at home? I only knew that you finished your residency through your aunt. Your aunt!"
"But mom, I already became a general surgeon three years ago."
"Excuses!"
Elizabeth smirked. Classic, meddling mom. "You just said that so you can get me to come home to celebrate my birthday this year, didn't you?"
She could practically hear the blood rush to her mom's cheek as the older woman spluttered, "You—That's—Geez! It's supposed to be a surprise party, okay!"
"It's not really a surprise if Aunt Jen told me about it yesterday," she replied cheekily. Her response prompted a groan at the other end of the call, causing her to snicker at her mom's dismay.
"I knew I shouldn't have told Jennifer," mom fumed. "She always blabbed about everything back when we were kids..."
"Mhm," Elizabeth nodded and carefully took another sip from her coffee. It was a lot more bearable this time.
Suddenly, another voice popped up from the background accompanied by the sound of heels clapping against the floor.
"Is that Eli? I want to talk to Eli too! ELI! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Aunt Jen cried, nearly shrieking over the line.
"No! You babble-mouth! Only I got to call her Eli!" Mom responded firmly, but knowing Aunt Jenny…
"I know your mother meant for it to be a surprise, but I just couldn't help but to tell you,' Aunt Jen cheerfully continued, 'I do hope that you'll be able to come back home this year.'
Elizabeth wryly smiled, "Actually, I have some time saved up, so I'll be able to visit."
"Really?!" Aunt Jen and Mom both shouted over the call, "Are you sure it'll be okay with the hospital though?" her Mom asked worriedly, "We wouldn't want to intrude on your work this early on..."
She smiled because she was secretly looking forward to a visit back home as well. She knew that medical school and residency would be tough, but what was even tougher was that she had no time to visit home due to her busy schedule.
"Yes, mom. Don't worry, I'll start driving over after I finish my morning shift."
She took another sip of coffee as she glanced into the rear-view mirror. A delivery truck seemed to be tailgating right behind her. She stepped on the accelerator and put a safe distance between the two vehicles.
"So, I'll be there just before dinner," she said. The truck wasn't slowing down. In fact, it was now swerving left and right across the road.
"Alright. Come soon and safely okay? We all miss you darling."
She gritted her teeth and made a turn to get down from the highway. This route would take longer, but she wasn't reckless enough to risk her life driving next to someone who was very likely having a seizure. "Okay, see you soon mom. I love you~!"
Mom huffed a soft laugh, and Elizabeth could hear the smile in her voice.
"I lov—"
The call suddenly cut off as her car slammed off the highway, her airbags inflating as the sound of metal screeching against metal faintly rang in her ears.
She could feel blood dripping down her head as her vision slowly grew dimmer and dimmer.
'I fucking hate trucks.'
…
Small hushed voices filled the room, waking me up from my nap. I stubbornly sought to keep my eyes closed in annoyance, but I could still hear a faint thrum in the air, like a few murmured voices were near me.
There wasn't much of a point trying to see what was going on, but curiosity killed the cat, and so I opened my eyes and tried to make out my surroundings.
The light was blinding, lancing through my eyes, slightly searing my sensitive retinas, and I snapped them shut again, arm reflexively—mechanically and very awkwardly—rising slowly to shield my stinging eyes.
A draft crossed the room, and I unknowingly shivered. It appeared that my blanket had been removed and my arms were now bare. I didn't have much time to contemplate this however as the sounds of coos surrounded me.
"Awwww, look at her, she's so adowable!"
"She's so tiny! Look at her big head!"
Voices I didn't recognize. A language I didn't recognize either.
I frowned. This whole situation was turning out to be very troublesome. I hadn't bothered to learn a second language in my past life—in fact, I was still trying to come to terms with that though it felt easier to just push it out of mind—and I had no illusions regarding how difficult it would be.
I squinted at the skin toned blurs hovering over me. I assumed they were people, but upon noticing the big colorful blurs that accompanied the skin colored blobs, I could be very easily mistaken.
I tried to groan lowly, but the only thing that came out of my throat was a high pitched squeal. It felt tight and raw.
"Stop it, you guys are scaring her."
I heard another voice, sounding much older, much more mature than the others. Whatever he said was met with a bunch of whining. I knew whining when I heard one, language barrier or not.
"Awwww, you're no fun Erigor!"
"You should tell mother she's awake."
"Mothhheeeeer! She's up, she's up!"
One of the small blurs seemed to have run away while screaming nonsense and I twitched in annoyance.
After a few seconds, a taller black blur appeared, one that seemed vaguely similar to a No-Face from Spirited Away, quite similar to the one I saw before falling asleep as well. It appeared to be trying to quiet the smaller blurs around me. Maybe.
Then when the room was all cleared out, and I was being left all alone, I thought deeply about my current predicament.
'Is the black blur the boss or something? An adult?' I pondered. 'Hopefully, I'm not part of some slavery or organ harvesting scheme.'
Either way, it was best to think positively for now. I was dead and was now alive again, albeit with severely impaired motor functions, next to no speaking ability, underdeveloped vision, aaaand I could feel her butt getting itchy and the smell of my...excrement wafting in the air.
Am I a baby?
I inwardly groaned. Being reincarnated was something that I believed was relegated to fiction or various other religions. To think that I had actually been reincarnated…I fought back the urge to sigh.
I hope that mom was alright. I suddenly felt very sick in the stomach. It would be years before I could grow up enough to go search for my family again, and who knew what they would do in the meantime?
How long has it been since I had been… reincarnated? What if I wasn't immediately reincarnated after death? What if I got placed into a different time period? What if mom had already passed away?'
A lot of thoughts ran through my mind, and I felt completely and utterly helpless. My medical degree really wasn't useful at all in this situation.
Even if I was just an infant now, I would be a legal adult at eighteen, assuming wherever I was operated under US standards. I could ask for emancipation, however, a traveling by myself in an unknown land was something I would really like to avoid.
'Let's brainstorm.'
At the moment, I was partially blind so I couldn't see a lot. I'll chalk this off to baby vision and hope that it wouldn't be a permanent thing. Judging by the unfamiliar language of the blobs around me, I assumed I was reborn in a foreign country. The thing was, the language the blurs were speaking didn't sound at all familiar to my ears.
Over the course of my life, I had heard many languages. English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and many others. Of course, I didn't understand the vast majority of them, but at least I would know when someone was speaking a certain language, and what I have been hearing ever since my rebirth did not match anything I knew.
Maybe I was reborn in the outskirts of a small village or something? National Geography often did interviews of isolated tribes after all. It was possible that my situation was something similar.
Perhaps. I mean, who knew at this point. That being said, not knowing where I was did not seem like a great start.
Secondly, funnily enough, I still kept my memories from my previous life. It ran contrary to what I knew—or thought I knew at least—regarding reincarnation doctrine in various theologies.
I strained my underdeveloped baby brain in an effort to recall everything regarding the bare bones of medicine and surgery: diagnosing, suturing, incisions, bleeding control, laparoscopy, wound management, sterilization, microsurgery, triage, and ...
It wasn't going to be very helpful for now, but I'd be damned if I forgot any of my hard-earned knowledge just because some… some cosmic entity decided to plop me into a baby's body.
It all felt like one very bad joke.
My lower lip trembled.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The blurs immediately rushed back into my vision. They all crowded around me and poked at my frail body before the tall black blur parted them and stood right before me.
There was another more pressing matter at hand.
Would someone please change my diaper!
"WAAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAA! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
…
X775
It had been one whole year since I had been reborn.
There had been a lot of stuff I had figured out on my own, most of it regarding my new body.
Did you know that babies were practically blind for weeks and were unable to sit up without assistance? Most of it felt like common sense, but it was a whole other thing to experience it myself.
Either way, I understood that it was very difficult to empathize with someone unless you experienced what they had. And all I had to say on the matter was that being a newborn was both humbling and incredibly frustrating.
First of all, No-Face was apparently not a giant black blob spirit that spewed gold. But a woman.
The woman was the one who cared for me, fed me, bathed me, changed my diapers, and fed me again. Occasionally, one of the other children would help, but all in all, this woman was very kind to me.
I called her woman because I didn't know her name. Most of the other kids around her—I suspected I was in some sort of orphanage because there were way too many kids, and most of them looked very different from each other—just called her mother or matron.
When I was able to crawl, I started exploring. Only with the realization that my new home wasn't exactly...nice. Although the woman tried to make it as comfortable as she could, from what I observed as a baby, they were just living in a cabin. There were four rooms altogether. The kitchen also functioned as a dining room, the main room was also the children's playroom and classroom, and then there was also the children's bedroom and the woman's bedroom.
Right now, I was sleeping with the matron inside a crib that was next to the matron's room. The other children had to share scant few mattresses between them, but none of them seemed to mind.
But for god's sake, that was not even the best part.
The best part was regaining my eyesight.
It was as if the angels themselves had sung choirs and hallelujahs when I noticed that my vision was sharper and clearer than what I remembered. It was equivalent to watching Youtube in 240 px before upgrading to 1080 HD px. It was a difference as stark as the one between night and day.
Anyways, back to the woman.
The woman doted on me so much that it felt stifling. Certainly, I appreciated the concern and care the woman displayed, but in the end she wasn't my real mom and perhaps the woman was aware of that. Perhaps that's why her every doting action felt oddly uncomfortable in some way.
If I wanted to crawl, the woman would put a towel or a piece of fabric to blunt the impact if I fell. I would yawn once, and the woman would immediately take me up to the crib.
I also noticed that the woman was trying to teach me a new word, something that she always referred to herself as. But I ignored the woman's teaching, even if it really was the woman's name and not some derivation of mom. I wasn't exactly ready for a new mom in my life.
For now, I was determined to quickly grow up and find a way back to my family.
…
MATRON POV
She had taken care of so many babies, but there was no other baby like Liliana—a name she had decided upon after taking the child in. She was so...inquisitive.
Just the other day she was making her rounds to make sure that the children were tucked in their beds, and had found out that Liliana wasn't asleep. That being said, she decided on her age-old method of reading the baby bedtime stories in an effort to make them fall asleep.
But instead of going to sleep, Liliana had grown even more wide awake. Ironically, after her storytelling, she was the one who was tired.
"I'll read it to you tomorrow, okay?" she absentmindedly promised to the baby out of habit. She usually never really had time to follow up on said promises. After all, she had to maintain the orphanage, look after the children, and raise funds as well. There was hardly any time to keep promises like that.
A moment later, she sighed to herself, 'Liliana is just one year old. There's no way she would understa—'
Contrary to what she had expected, Liliana crawled her way off her shoulder and promptly fell asleep.
She chalked it off to coincidence.
The next day however, Liliana crawled towards her while she was wiping the children's bedroom floor, lugging with her the very same story book from last night.
She also chalked this off to coincidence.
Afterall, how could a one year old remember something so well? And how would Liliana know which book she was reading last night? The Matron was sure that she had put it up properly.
Perhaps Liliana remembered the color of the book cover. It was indeed a very striking baby pink. In fact, it was the only pink book in the orphanage.
Liliana tugged the end of her dress, interrupting her musing, and as soon as the baby got her attention, she immediately pointed a chubby finger at the book.
"Ah! Ah!" Liliana exclaimed.
"Sorry dear. I know I promised but I'm a bit busy at the moment," she sighed. Today was definitely a busy day seeing as she had laundry to hang, food to cook, and dishes to wash as well. She also needed to bathe everyone today which would take an inordinate amount of time as well.
Liliana looked at her with what could be described as a mixture of sympathy and disappointment. Was it possible for babies to display emotions as nuanced as such? More likely, it was just her projecting her own guilt on the child.
She sighed. "Alright, since I promised, but only for a few minutes, okay?"
Liliana beamed. It was a smile that made her feel like the baby was very…grateful?
She plopped Liliana on her lap as she sat on one of the children's beds, the book laid atop her knees so that both of them could read it properly.
In the first few minutes Liliana listened intently to the story, but soon after, the baby started pointing things out— things she tried to explain to the best of her capabilities.
"Da!"
"This word? It's maryoku, the magic power used by wizards."
"Da?"
"That one is Ēterunano. It's something that is in everyone," she poked the baby's nose. "Even you!"
The baby seemed to roll its eyes before continuing to point at the same word. "Da!"
"Yes, yes," she coughed into her hand. "Anyways, it's what wizards use to perform magic. When they run out, they passively gather more from the air around us."
"Ah?" the baby bunched her eyebrows together. "Adada da?"
"Hm? Yes, exactly!" She played along with a smile even though she didn't understand the baby babble. Of course, it was more than likely that she was reading too far into the situation. Liliana was just like any other baby. Curious and in need of social connections.
Her eyes landed at the clock, and she jerked slightly, scaring Liliana who let out a small "Wa!" She then stood up and put Liliana and the book in her crib before continuing what she had been doing earlier.
"Goodness, time passes far too quickly when we're having fun!" she complained slightly. It wasn't as if the baby would understand anyways. "We can continue later okay? I still have to finish up laundry and dinner!" And so she zoomed out of the room after finishing up the rest of the mopping there.
Just before she left the room, she saw Liliana staring at the book and seemingly reading along with it from the corner of her eyes. It sounded like the usual baby babble, and so she left the room without giving it any more thought.
Unbeknownst to her, Liliana actually understood what she had been saying. The baby had already understood it from a few weeks ago thanks to the children's story book within her collection.
But it wouldn't be until a few more years until the Matron would figure that out.
…
