The last thing Ayra , relentless, gnawing at her chest, her lungs, her limbs. Every breath was a struggle, every heartbeat a reminder that her body had betrayed her. The hospital smelled of antiseptic and iron, clinging to everything—the walls, the sheets, even her own skin. Machines hummed tirelessly, monitors beeped, and lights flickered. All of it felt distant, almost irrelevant. Outside, life went on: birds called to one another, cars rumbled faintly in the streets, people laughed, cried, lived. And she… she was leaving it all behind.Her memories came in fragments. Hallways she had walked a thousand times, the whispered tones of nurses, the anxious expressions of her parents.
all replayed in vivid detail. She remembered the stacks of books on her bedside table, the hours spent buried in their pages, traveling to distant kingdoms, solving puzzles, learning the impossible. She had lived countless lives in her mind, adventuring, imagining, conquering worlds no one else could see. Yet her body had been weak, fragile, incapable of keeping up with her mind.She remembered longing, acute and bitter. The ache of wanting to run, to climb, to feel the wind on her face. The frustration of watching other children play while she remained tethered to a bed or a chair. Envy for the strong, the healthy, the carefree. Her mind had been sharp, precise, capable. But her body had been a cage, cruelly unyielding.And yet… even in the pain, there had been beauty. Moments she had cherished: the smell of rain on the pavement, a soft voice lingering longer than it needed to, the quiet satisfaction of finishing a story. Nights had been the most precious: staring at the ceiling, tracing constellations, imagining worlds beyond reach, savoring the thrill of possibility.Time did not wait for weakness. Her body, delicate and failing, gave out. Machines beeped in unrelenting rhythm. Her parents' hands shook, clutching hope that was already gone. Nurses whispered apologies, charted the inevitable. And then, at last, she let go.Warmth. Soft, gentle, unfamiliar. Her first awareness of this new life came as a pulse of life through her small, fragile body. Limbs moved awkwardly, stretching and kicking. Tiny hands brushed against the rough surface beneath her. Every sensation startled her, but her mind cataloged it all with precision.Light spilled through a narrow window, golden and soft. The air smelled of wood smoke, damp earth, and fresh bread. Voices floated from a distance.
familiar, caring, soothing. Somewhere, someone hummed a tune. The rhythm was comforting.Her reflection caught her attention. Black hair, soft and straight, framed her tiny face. Sapphire-blue eyes stared back, unnervingly aware. Even as a newborn, she understood that these eyes were unusual—not for their color, but for the mind behind them, sharp and observant.Days passed slowly. She discovered textures.
rough straw beneath her, smooth wood, uneven floorboards. Warmth, cold, pressure, motion.
all cataloged in her mind. Though small, fragile, and dependent, she was alive, and her mind was fully awake.She noticed patterns in the simplest things: how candle flames trembled when touched by a breeze, how light shifted subtly when she moved her head, how warmth radiated from surfaces. She did not yet know magic. She did not yet know the world would have laws and rules she could manipulate. But curiosity stirred.
an insistent, unrelenting need to observe, understand, and experiment.Evenings became her sanctuary. She lay awake in the quiet of her crib, tracing the shadows stretching across the walls, listening to the soft rhythms of the inn, thinking. Her parents slept nearby, unaware that their infant daughter carried the mind of a girl who had already lived.She pressed her tiny hands against the mattress, flexing her fingers, feeling textures, noting the difference between soft and hard, rough and smooth. She was small, fragile, dependent.
but her mind was alive, active, and analytical.She cataloged, she observed, she imagined. Even without the ability to speak or move freely, she understood the world in ways those around her could not. She remembered her first life in painful, precise detail.
the moments of suffering, the moments of joy, the unfulfilled curiosity. But she did not mourn. She marveled.She had been given a second life. A world full of possibility, waiting for her to explore. And though her body was small, her mind had already begun to plan, to imagine, to question.Her senses sharpened with each passing day. She listened to the voices of travelers at the inn, noting patterns of speech and behavior. She watched the way sunlight moved across walls. She discovered that she could sense subtle differences in texture, pressure, temperature, and light in ways most infants could not. Every movement, every sound, every smell was a clue, a piece of data to store and analyze.She began to test cause and effect in small, personal experiments: dropping objects from her crib, observing how sound changed depending on the material, pressing fingers against the straw beneath her, tracing lines and edges with precision. Even in her helpless form, she felt the thrill of learning, of discovery, of understanding the patterns of the world.Her previous life's intellect guided her. She thought about survival, observation, strategy, even social dynamics.
all before she could walk, before she could speak. Though she was small, fragile, and dependent, she was already extraordinary.Ayra Veylen, reborn. A girl carrying the memories of a past life, a mind sharpened by struggle and observation, ready to learn, to explore, to test the limits of her new world.She would not waste this life. For now, she was small, fragile, a baby in every sense. But her mind was awake. And that was enough.