It was a dark night, with the moon completely hidden. A cool wind blew from the river, creating a serene atmosphere. But this serenity was shattered by a woman's loud, pained screams, which had been echoing through the village for the past two hours. The village was poor, and the small hut was even poorer. Inside, there was only one cold bed made of straw and animal hides.
"Push, Leli, push!" an elderly woman's voice urged. "We can see the head! Just a bit more! Push!"
"Dear, push," a male voice added, full of anxiety.
With a final, heart-wrenching cry, the woman's voice fell silent, replaced by heaving breaths.
Then a baby's cry filled the air. "Aweee! Aweee!"
"Give me the clean cloth," the elderly woman instructed, her voice calm and firm. A smile crossed her weary face. "Congratulations, it's a healthy boy! Hahaha, come, John, see your son!"
"Yes, yes!" a man's voice replied. "Look at him, he's so small! My sweet, sweet baby."
"Give him to me, let me see him," the frail lady on the bed said, taking the baby. "Aww, baby, my sweet angel." She had so much she wanted to say, but the words failed her. She forgot everything else, overwhelmed by the love she felt the first time she saw him. "He must be hungry. Come, eat and sleep." The baby quieted down, falling asleep as he fed.
The elderly woman, seeing the mother talking to her child with such warmth, quietly cleaned the bed so they could rest. Then she gathered her things and began to walk out. Seeing this, John went after her.
"Nana, thank you so much for helping us out—not just with my son's birth, but for everything you've done for us," he said. "Please, let me repay you. Let me sell..."
"Shhh," Nana interrupted with a gentle hand. "What are old folks for? It brings me joy. Don't think about it so much. You don't need to sell anything. You're the one who needs to heal first and fast. How else will you take care of Leli with that leg of yours?"
"It's fine, child. First, you need to think about that baby and Leli. You only started walking well a month ago. In the meantime, I'll talk with the village head and take care of your livelihood for a while. You and Leli rest well."
John, with his limping right foot, walked home. He slowly opened the door and saw his wife and son sleeping peacefully. He felt himself relax and fell asleep next to them.
The Next Day
"Aw, my baby," the mother's voice cooed. "Ha, see, John? Hadrian has eyes just like you."
"He'll be just and brave like his father, won't he, Hadrian?" John said with a rueful smile from behind her.
Meanwhile, somewhere unknown, a Hadrian was roaming in a river of sand, happily revisiting his past memories. It was tranquil and peaceful. Slowly, he was forgetting himself, like billions and trillions of others, never truly knowing what happened after death. But this one had a different fate.
Hadrian woke up with a painful headache. He tried to say, "Mom, my head hurts," but the words didn't come out right. It was the broken language of a young child. When he saw a woman hug him, it wasn't his mother, Rena. This woman was much younger and thinner, on whom time had not been kind, but her eyes were filled with the same love he had seen in his mother's eyes.
"Will he be fine?" John asked a temple priest.
"The child has been baptized in the holy water and blessed by God's helm itself," the elderly priest said. "Slowly, he will get better. Didn't you see the miracle of God? This child was asleep for three days, and before you came, he wasn't breathing. But see now, he can even talk! God has shown His miracle after many decades." The elderly priest continued to praise their god and talk to himself.
Hadrian watched all this with confusion, feeling very weak and sleepy. When he woke up again, he was in a shabby straw hut. The lady from the temple offered him a fruit similar to an apple, which he ate. He kept his mouth shut, still trying to process everything. He could find no trace of the man who had been with him in the temple.
"Hadrian, don't play outside until I come back," his new mother said. "I'll go talk to Nana. She'll be worried. Be a good boy and sit. Have some fruit."
Finally, I was alone. Now, let me think. The last thing I remember was sitting in the Multidimensional Frequency machine. Shit. I told Mom I always had a bad feeling about getting shocked, and it came true. Okay, so I got shocked. But why, instead of waking up in a hospital or being dead, am I here? This doesn't feel like a dream by any stretch of the imagination. It's so vivid and detailed.
I looked at the hut, then outside. This doesn't look like Earth. The trees are too strange, and that bull—if you could even call it that—is definitely not normal. If something like that existed, it would be all over the news.
And my name. Hadrian. They called me Hadrian. That's a little too convenient, isn't it? A coincidence? Or something more?
Okay then, so I somehow died from the shock and was reborn or reincarnated here. What now?