My eyes opened, and light stabbed through them like a divine punishment. I blinked; once, twice. My eyelids felt heavier than steel shutters. I tried to move my hand to shield my face, but what I saw instead...
Tiny.
My hand.. no, this... thing, was pale, chubby, and flailed helplessly above my blurry vision like a flapping dumpling. My mouth hung open in disbelief.
What... what the hell is this?
Then it hit me all at once. The cold. The wetness. The smell of wood, iron, and something warm. Blood, maybe? Sweat? My ears picked up voices, muffled and strange. A series of soft, flowing syllables that were completely unfamiliar. Not English. Not Japanese. Not anything I recognized. They were spoken quickly, but gently; melodic almost but completely incomprehensible.
Someone was holding me. Someone warm. Someone crying.
Why... why am I so small?
Then, my brain served up the cruelest realization of my life.
I'm a baby.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I tried to shout but all that came out was:
"UWAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!"
Loud. Horribly loud. That wasn't a yell. More like a helpless wail of a newborn soul ripped into the world against its will. I didn't want to cry. I didn't mean to cry. But my body was on autopilot. My tiny lungs ballooned up and let loose an unholy shriek that could probably summon wildlife for miles.
No, no, stop it. Pull yourself together, Paul! J-Just breathe. You're alive. You were on a plane a-and there were hijackers... and then...
Bullets. Screams. My chest bursting. I remembered it all.
I... I died.
...
My crying halted for a moment only leaving occasional sobs.
I'm sorry, father, mother...
Then, a voice that followed was soft and husky, almost songlike which broke my trance. Familiar in tone but utterly foreign in content.
"Yul-tha... en velni, Kyro..." the woman whispered.
I couldn't understand a word. But the way she said it was tenderly, like a prayer, it made my tears slow for a second. I tried to tilt my head toward the sound, but my neck had the consistency of mashed potatoes. Still, my view tilted enough to see her.
A woman with golden hair tied in a loose bun. Her green eyes shimmered with emotion. Her arms were strong; visibly muscular, scarred even but held me with a gentleness that cut through all the confusion.
She was crying.
Her skin was tanned and weathered, like someone who spent their life outdoors. Her body was powerful, statuesque in a way that reminded me of Olympians, but it was her expression that stunned me.
This woman loves me.
Even if I had no idea who she was... I knew that much.
My gaze turned to her tits.
Woah... big.
A large figure knelt beside her. It was a man with short, ocean-blue hair and warm rose-colored eyes. He didn't speak much. Just rested a strong hand on her back. His other hand gently touched my tiny head. His face looked like it had seen battles, but his touch? Gentle. Careful.
This had to be... my father.
Movement behind them caught my eye. A girl stood in the wooden doorway, arms crossed, leaning against the frame with practiced ease. She looked no older than nine or ten.
Sky-blue hair flowed down her back, and her bright yellow eyes, almost golden, were locked on me. Curious, sharp, assessing. She didn't smile, exactly. More like... smirked. The confident kind that told me she wasn't impressed, but maybe... intrigued?
She looked like she was already planning to boss me around.
My sister?
I didn't have one before. My mother in my past life had a miscarriage. The loss devastated her. Eventually, my parents fell apart. I grew up an only child, full of regret and guilt I didn't earn.
But here, in this unfamiliar body, in this strange wooden home, I wasn't alone.
The girl, my sister I assumed, tilted her head slightly and spoke something with an amused tone.
"Keirvon es ti, Laya," the mother replied, her voice firmer now.
The girl shrugged, eyes still locked on me, and added something else. The way she gestured, pointing at me, then wrinkling her nose was universal enough to translate.
She was teasing me or insulting me; either way, my pride flared and then so did my lungs.
"UWAAHHHHHHH!!"
No. Nooo. Come on. Not again!
I was a grown man! Forty-seven years old! I'd once lectured undergrads on thermal conductivity and ionic bonding! I paid taxes! I had two shelves of manga!
Okay, not recently, but still!
Yet here I was, wrapped in cloth, flailing like a broken Roomba, sobbing like someone stole my credit card and deleted my cloud saves.
The worst part? I couldn't stop. My mind was sharp, but my body was helpless. Primitive instincts ruled everything.
I was cleaned. Dried. Wrapped again. The world swirled and blurred as I was laid against the woman's chest. Her words became background music and they were soft syllables whispered into my ear that meant absolutely nothing, but felt like safety.
I tried to respond. To say anything.
Instead, I produced the dumbest sound ever recorded:
"Bweeh..."
I hate this body already.
Eventually, the pain of being dulled into an aching throb, and my cries faded into sad little hiccups. My breathing steadied. My vision adjusted.
The ceiling above me was wooden, beams overhead, no wiring in sight. The light came from hanging lanterns with flickering flames. The walls were stone and timber. No electronics. No screens. No medical monitors beeping softly behind me. Just firelight, shadows, and warm breath.
No tech.
No AI assistants. No fans humming. No glow of a phone charging nearby.
This wasn't a hospital.
Where am I?
That, I don't know.
All I know is I'm here, in a wooden interior of a house. The smell of herbs. Straw floors. A faint draft of clean mountain air through wooden slats.
I was reborn.
I'd read stories like this; novels where some poor sap dies and gets reborn in a magical kingdom. Back then, I thought it was all delusion. Escapist trash for NEETs... like me.
Now?
Now I was living it.
My head lolled to the side again. I saw my father speak, his voice low and resolute. I didn't know the words but the way he spoke them made me feel like things were going to be okay.
And then, from the doorway, my sister's voice cut in one last time.
"Ja ven, ko-uh yobolta!"
Sharp. Firm. A short sentence, as if declaring something to the world.
I didn't understand it.
But I felt it.
Her gaze locked on me, her mouth curling into something fierce and proud. I could almost guess what she meant.
Something like: "I hope he grows up strong."
Yeah?
...Me too, sis.
Because I don't want to be a crybaby forever.
***
The following weeks passed in a strange, quiet rhythm, a blur of warmth, softness, and helplessness.
I spent most of my time trapped in a crib fashioned from wood so sturdy I doubted even my adult self could break it, let alone this tiny potato of a body. It stood just a few feet from what looked like a modest fireplace, the only source of heat in the home. Smoke drifted up into a small chimney made of uneven stone, and the scent of burning wood lingered day and night. No gas lines, no vents, no knobs. They cooked here by stacking firewood and setting it ablaze.
Primitive. But efficient.
The living room, or at least what I assumed was the main room, was built with cobblestone flooring that clicked under every footstep. I could hear it clearly every time someone walked past. A lot of the furniture, such as chairs, shelves, cabinets was hand-carved, slightly uneven, and rough around the edges. But functional. The walls were wood. The beams above me were wood. The staircase I saw in fleeting moments? Also wood.
I'd gotten a glance at the second story one morning when someone had left the door ajar. The upper floor was planked with timber, likely where the bedrooms were. Sometimes I could hear muffled footsteps above. My guess? My parents' room... and probably my sister's too. Lyra, the little terror.
The crib was placed near a square window, small, openable, without glass but covered by a thick cloth curtain during storms. From there, I could see the sky. That was all. No ground. No horizon. Just the wide expanse of blue, sometimes dotted with lazy clouds drifting by like curious giants.
It was beautiful in its simplicity.
Every morning, sunlight filtered through the curtain and bathed me in a golden hue. I couldn't move much. Tummy time was a struggle but I could smell. And what a world of scent it was.
The air here smelled alive. Wheat and dust, smoke and morning dew, and something else, something soft and sweet: freshly baked bread, most days. I didn't know the word for it, but my body did. My stomach gurgled every time that scent came near. I knew that scent meant lunch was close.
Sure enough, not long after, she'd come.
My mother, Reyna, would appear at the edge of the crib. Tall, strong, with hair like flowing sunlight and eyes that shimmered green like polished jade. She always smiled when she looked down at me, even when I was crying like a banshee.
She would gently lift me, whispering soft words I couldn't begin to decipher. The language was beautiful, melodic but sharp, like a blend of Elvish and Scandinavian tones. Completely alien to my modern ears. But her tone? Always warm. Loving. Firm when needed.
Feeding time was still an awkward affair. Breastfeeding. I tried not to think about it too much. It was natural. I just... I wasn't mentally a baby, alright?
Still. I'd be lying if I said it didn't comfort me. The warmth. The closeness. The steady beat of her heart and her humming, low, earthy melody that vibrated in her chest more than it carried through the air. It made me feel safe, even if I didn't understand a single word.
It was during one of these feedings that I finally caught a glimpse of the world beyond.
She walked to the window and leaned beside it, adjusting the cloth curtain. Through the open pane, I saw it: a sprawling field of golden wheat, swaying in rhythm with the wind. Beyond it, a simple wooden fence marked the edges of the property. No road, no cars, no signs of modern life. Just land. Farm land.
So. A farmhouse, then.
We were far from any city. That much I was certain of. Maybe even isolated.
This wasn't just a different time, but a different world.
Lyra would sometimes join us during these moments. She'd peek over the side of the crib with a mischievous grin. She'd stick her tongue out at me. Puff her cheeks. Flick my forehead when my mother wasn't looking.
I didn't know what she was saying, but her body language was fluent in all the universal dialects: sibling mischief, smug superiority, and genuine curiosity. Her gestures, her eye-rolls, her crossed arms — they told me enough.
She didn't hate me. She just wasn't used to me yet.
There were times she'd hold my hand when no one was watching. Or gently brush a blanket over me when it slipped off.
Other times, she'd poke my nose until I sneezed and laughed like it was the greatest thing she'd ever seen.
I had no clue what she was saying, but her bright yellow eyes sparkled like suns in the morning light. Sometimes fierce, sometimes gentle. She was wild, like her mother. Unapologetic. Honest.
I admired that, in a strange way.
But more than anything, I watched. I listened.
To their voices. Their movements. Their lives.
And slowly, I began to learn, not the language, not yet, but the rhythm of this place. The beats of its days and nights. The way the sun rose and fell. The routines of my new family. The creak of the stairs. The clang of wooden plates. The hush of whispers by candlelight.
It wasn't much. But it was a start.
And I had time.
Plenty of it.
*7 Months Later*
I couldn't walk. I couldn't talk. I couldn't even hold my pee.
And yet, somehow, I had mastered the fine art of vanishing.
It took me months. Months of dragging this lumpy baby body around like a lazy sack of meat but I finally figured out how to crawl. Not shuffle, not flop. Crawl. Military-style. Elbows. Knees. Determination.
My prize?
Freedom. Exploration. Mild panic from my parents.
I could get around the house now, well, mostly. My world had expanded beyond the confines of the wooden crib and into the first floor of our cozy, rustic cottage. And after a dozen failed attempts and a bruised forehead or two, I even figured out how to climb the stairs.
Barely.
Those cursed stairs.
They were steep and wide, and my short limbs made every step feel like scaling a mountain. But I was persistent. Stubborn. My knees were constantly scuffed, and there were days I'd sit at the bottom of the staircase, glaring up at it like a man at war with gravity itself.
Eventually, I learned a trick: momentum.
Get enough crawling speed, latch onto the stair lip with both hands, plant one knee and heave. I'd flail like a turtle trying to climb a rock, but eventually I'd wiggle my way up. One stair at a time. Twenty steps. Twenty battles. Every morning. Every night.
Sometimes I'd pause halfway just to breathe.
Sometimes I'd cry from the sheer indignity of it all.
But I always got to the top.
My parents: Reyna and Thorskil.. They didn't take it well.
I'd hear them muttering in that language I still didn't understand, their tone always a mix of concern and exasperation whenever I "disappeared." I mean, to them, I was just a curious one-year-old with no sense of self-preservation. To me, I was a grown man in a baby's body, desperately trying to feel in control of something in this second life.
I learned the layout of the house intimately.
The downstairs had the cobbled floors, the fireplace, the kitchen area with its big clay oven and hanging pots, and a sitting area with stuffed woolen chairs and a big wooden table. One room led to the pantry. Another, I guessed, was a washroom or storage.
Upstairs was trickier. My parents' room was the largest. It had a proper bed, old iron frames, and a desk covered in maps, papers, and odd tools. My mother's sword rested on the wall, crossed with a spear. I think they were both warriors, maybe retired?
Lyra's room was smaller and chaotic. Cloth dolls. Wooden training swords. Bits of wheat on the floor from whatever imaginary game she played that day. Her bed had carvings on the legs. Scratches. Scars.
My room? Smaller still. Just a crib and a rocking chair. And a mobile made of carved birds that still creeped me out a bit.
I couldn't open doors, I can't even reach them! Even if I could, my little fingers just couldn't wrap around the knobs, let alone twist and pull.
Every time a room I wanted to explore was closed, I'd flop to the floor in defeat, drooling from effort and frustration.
And don't even get me started on bathroom issues.
I knew I had to pee. I could feel it coming. I'd try to hold it, clench whatever muscles this pudgy body had but it was like putting tape on a dam.
Sure, my father, Thorskil, always the one who had me on diapers, but it feels so weird having your shit hit your butt-cheeks. Wet. Warm. And sticky shit.
Eugh.. I could only jerk from disgust. And let's just say I've had more baths this year than in my last ten as Paul.
It was humiliating. Worse than any exam. Worse than rejection emails. Worse than that time I tried to fix my sink and flooded the house.
I kept telling myself: It's just biology. It's just being a baby.
But that didn't make it easier.
Still, I was learning. Every day.
About the house. The family. The pace of life here.
I'd figured out a few more things too.
We were on a farm, that's confirmed. I'd seen the wheat, the fences, even a distant hilltop where a few cows grazed. My mother often carried me out during chores, and I'd catch glimpses of tools, wagons, and other homes in the distance, maybe two or three others. A small village, perhaps.
No electricity. No pipes. No cars. But plenty of life.
Plenty of peace, even.
Even if I was still peeing myself every other day and I do mean every other day. I managed to achieve something miraculous.
My first real word.
It happened during one of those afternoons where the world felt strangely peaceful, birds chirping, breeze blowing, and me drooling in a wooden crib, contemplating the existential dread of baby life.
That's when my mother walked into the living room... with an axe.
Not a metaphorical one. A very real, heavy, wood-cutting axe slung over her shoulder like she was about to fight a small war. She was covered in sweat, bits of bark in her hair, and she tracked a trail of sawdust across the floor.
And for some reason, when I looked at her, this sweaty, fierce woman radiating power and pine-scented exhaustion and suddenly, my mouth moved.
"Mama."
It came out clear. Not a gurgle. Not a squeal. A word.
My mother froze mid-step. Her eyes widened. The axe slipped from her fingers and slammed into the cobblestone floor with a dramatic crack that would've made a carpenter weep. She turned to me slowly, like she was trying to confirm she hadn't just hallucinated it.
Just then, I said it again, on purpose this time.
"Mama."
Then, she sprinted. Yes, sprinted, just to call my father.
He came barreling in like there was a fire. His eyes scanned the room for blood, intruders, maybe a bear. But instead, he found me. Sitting there like a smug little goblin with applesauce on my chin.
I looked up at him, tilted my head, and hit him with the combo:
"Papa."
He blinked. Then burst out laughing, scooping me up like I'd just solved math.
He turned to Reyna, "Haf ga non, Reyna! Bos du papa!" warm rose-eyes sparkled.
Mom and Dad were over the moon. By the time Lyra wandered in. She was probably wondering what the noise was and they were practically tossing me between them like I was the Holy Grail.
"He said Mama! He said Papa!"
"Did you hear it? Say it again!"
"Come on, say it for your sister!"
Those are my guess on what they're saying, based on their reaction and body language.
Lyra just stared like, What is wrong with you people? And to be honest, I kind of agreed with her.
Still, it got me thinking.
Maybe "Mama" and "Papa" were just hardcoded into every baby's software, a kind of universal failsafe. Like how cats know how to land on their feet, or how people know instinctively not to trust clowns.
Whatever the reason, I had spoken. And judging by the look on my parents' faces, you'd think I'd just invented something revolutionary.
*Two and a Half Years Later*
I'm three years old and I could walk perfectly fine now.
Walk, stumble, fall and then walk again. Y'know, like most kids do. And above all, I could reach door handles now.
With effort.
Stretching on my toes, fingers straining, tongue sticking out in concentration... I'd fumble with the latch like a medieval thief. Some doors still resisted me, old wood swollen in the frame or latches rusted stiff. But I could open them. I could open doors.
It may not sound like much, but when you've spent years as a crawling prisoner in a wooden box of a home, every unlocked door feels like a revolution.
That's how I learned we had a library.
Small room. Wooden walls like the rest of the house. Dusty. Quiet. One window facing the wheat fields outside. No curtains. No shelves, really, just a crooked bookstand and a single cabinet.
I found... four books.
Four.
Could you really call this a library? This is more like a study room rather than a library.
Not exactly the treasure trove I'd hoped for, but in this world of wood-burning stoves and swords on walls, I figured four books were already a luxury.
Samsworth. That's our family name. I figured that out last week.
Mother said it once, clearly, slowly, while talking to me when I was a bit younger. "Samsworth. Reyna Samsworth." She gestured to herself, then to my father. "Thorskil Samsworth." Then to me. "Kyro, Kyro Samsworth."
Kyro Samsworth.
It sounded noble. Powerful. Too refined for someone who spent half the morning picking grass out of his teeth after tripping on a tree root.
Still, it was my name now.
Kyro.
They called me that often. Sometimes gently, sometimes sternly, like when I wandered too close to the hearth or tried to follow my sister out the door.
Speaking of which.. Lyra Samsworth..
She was louder than ever. Fierce, proud, loud-mouthed Lyra. Four years older, and she wielded her age like a sword.
She was always outside now. Running around with village kids, shouting, laughing, and getting caked in mud. Sometimes she'd bring them inside, and they'd stomp through the halls like a herd of goats. I'd sit in the corner, quietly watching.
They barely noticed me.
I wasn't interesting. I didn't talk much. Barely made a fuss. Just stood there, still, wide-eyed like a puppy that didn't know how to bark.
I could understand some words now. Not many. But enough.
Simple things: eat, sleep, no, come, careful, wheat, sun, rain.
Words tied to daily life. Repeated. Spoken with gestures or emotions I could decode. But conversations? Stories? Whole sentences? Still like trying to read through fog.
My silence unnerved them, I could tell. My parents would exchange worried looks over dinner. Reyna would place her hand on my head sometimes and whisper things I didn't fully grasp, but I could feel her concern. My father would try to make me laugh by lifting me up and pretending to drop me. I'd smile. A little. It seemed to reassure him.
And Lyra?
She teased me endlessly.
"Kyro the quiet," she'd say, ruffling my hair. "Maybe your voice ran away when you were born."
Or: "Maybe he's a squirrel pretending to be a boy!"
The other kids laughed at that one.
I didn't respond. Not because I couldn't
but because I didn't want to.
Words were precious here. Still foreign. Still brittle on my tongue.
Say one thing wrong, and they'd tilt their heads, correcting me gently, like I was a broken toy learning tricks.
And to be fair... I was afraid to speak.
Spend twenty years locked away in your room, only talking to your mother and even then, just barely, and it does something to your brain. You start treating conversations like minefields. Every sentence feels like a test. Every word feels like it might blow up in your face.
And honestly? This might sound strange, but... I still see them as strangers.
Yeah, I know how that sounds. Thorskil's the one who changes my diapers. My mother breastfed me, though, she recently stopped. And Lyra? She's made it her life's mission to annoy me into an early reincarnation.
But even with all that, they don't feel familiar.
Especially Reyna.
She may be my "mother" now, but she's not my mom. Not the one I knew in my old life. And I know that's not fair. I know she's kind and warm and doing her best, but... it still doesn't feel the same.
I try not to think about that part too much. It makes me feel guilty, like I'm holding her at arm's length when she's just trying to love me.
But that's the thing about starting over. Sometimes, the hardest part isn't being a baby again...
It's pretending you're not haunted by the last time you grew up.
...
Anyways,
Now, I'm standing in the study-room.
It wasn't much. The books were thick, old, leather-bound. I couldn't read them, yet, but I could touch them. Hold them. Flip the pages carefully and look at the strange letters and faded ink.
One had drawings. Illustrations of animals. Wolves. Birds. It captured me.
For the first time since being reborn, I felt something stir inside me: curiousity.
This was something I could do. Something I could control. Learn. If I couldn't speak their language yet, maybe I could read it. Letters didn't tease you. They didn't pity you or expect smiles. They waited patiently on a page, ready to be understood.
I'd come back here. Every day if I had to. Until I understood these books. Until I understood everything.
And so, week after week I would sneak inside the study room.
*Reyna*[1]
Kyro started walking at eight months. A little early, but that wasn't the part that worried me.
It was what came after.
He vanished more and recently, he's three years old, he now knows how to open doors.
Not literally vanish-out-existence, of course, but the moment he could toddle on his own two feet, it was like he developed a sixth sense for escape.
Before he could walk was already a disaster.
One moment he'd be in my arms, drooling on my tunic, the next he'd be crawling into a corner with a book too heavy for him, or crawling up the stairs when no one was looking. We had to block the staircase three times before he figured out how to climb around the blockade.
At first, I chalked it up to curiosity. After all, Thorskil was the same at his age, constantly exploring, constantly getting stuck in things. But with Kyro... it felt different.
And now, just as I said, he vanished more often.
He also barely talked to us. Not even childish babble unless he wanted food or help. He didn't cry much either, just... observed. Like he was always watching us.
And despite being our son, despite growing in my belly for nine months, there was this invisible distance. A wall I didn't know how to climb. I'd catch him looking at me sometimes, not with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, but like... like he was studying me.
So today, I decided I'd finally find out where he keeps disappearing to.
I waited by the garden with my hands in the soil, pretending to prune my tulips. When Kyro waddled past the hall with that suspicious glance over his shoulder, I gave him a few minutes before I followed.
Quiet. Careful.
Up the stairs. Down the hall.
He pushed open the door to the old study on the second floor. We hadn't used it in years, it was just a glorified bookshelf graveyard now. I crept to the doorway and peeked in.
There he was.
Sitting alone in the dusty little library. Legs crossed, posture stiff, a thick book in his lap. The open window poured golden light onto his white hair and the floor, giving the whole scene this peaceful, almost sacred atmosphere. He didn't even flinch when he turned a page.
My heart ached.
I didn't know whether to be proud... or worried.
He looked too small in that chair. Too alone. Too quiet.
Then...
"Rey?"
"Gah—!" I jumped and spun instinctively, my fist flying through the air.
WHAM.
A solid thud as Thorskil hit the wooden floor with a grunt.
My eyes widened. "Oh no — Thors! I—I'm so sorry!" I dropped to my knees beside him. "Are you okay?!"
"Me?" Thorskil blinked up at me. Then he grinned like a fool. "I'm in heaven. Perfectly fine."
I followed his gaze... directly to where his face had landed. Right between my breast.
"You pervert." I blushed, smacking the top of his head with a light fist.
"Hey," he chuckled, laying his head on my lap with zero shame, "you're my wife. You're a pervert too. Especially in bed—"
"Shut up." I slapped his forehead again.
"Ow— Okay, okay! I'll stop teasing." He rubbed the spot, then tilted his head back slightly. "What's going on anyway? You looked worried."
I hesitated. Then looked back at the door to the study.
"It's Kyro... He barely speaks to us, Thors. Only when he needs something. He walks around like he's older than both of us combined. And now I find him reading alone like some old scholar trapped in a toddler's body."
Thorskil didn't speak for a moment. Then he sat up, calm as usual.
"Rey... You know how you get when you're worried?"
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You tend to think something's wrong when it's just different. He's not broken. He's ours. Just... quieter. Smarter. Maybe a little odd, yeah, but odd doesn't mean bad. It just means we've got a unique one."
I stayed quiet.
He put a hand on my shoulder. "We don't have to pull him out of his shell all at once. Let him be. Be near when he needs us. He'll find his way to us in time."
I sighed, then looked back into the room. Kyro hadn't moved. Still reading. Still alone.
But I smiled.
Maybe Thorskil was right. He usually was, beneath the nonsense.
I leaned against his shoulder, still watching our strange little boy bathed in sunlight.
"I just want to know what's going on in that little head of his."
Thorskil snorted. "Probably thinking we're all idiots."
"...Yeah, right."
We both chuckled quietly.
And for a while, we just sat there. Watching from a distance. Hoping the day would come when he'd let us in.
[End]
[1] It's a POV change. Expect something like this on upcoming chapters.