Chapter 1
A Birthday Gift I Wasn't Ready For
January 22, 2025.
The date blinked back at me from my phone screen like a mocking countdown. I was officially twenty. They say this is the "Golden Age," the threshold of adulthood, the prime of one's life.
To me, it just felt like another lap completed on a track that led nowhere. Another 365 days spent spinning my wheels.
The vibration of my phone broke the silence of my cramped room. It was a text from Mom. A request for a family dinner. I stared at the screen until the light dimmed. I didn't want to go. I wanted to crawl under my sheets and let the day dissolve into the next. But her "please" carried a weight I couldn't ignore.
"Sigh… I just hope nothing goes wrong this time," I mumbled to the empty air.
The air grew colder as I approached the familiar gates of my childhood home. I stopped ten feet from the door, my feet feeling like they were cast in lead. Maybe I should just turn around. I could tell them I caught a fever.
The door creaked open before I could retreat.
"Happy Birthday, Otto," Mom said, her voice soft but laced with an immediate, sharp concern.
She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes scanning my face. She didn't finish the greeting. Instead, she just stepped aside and ushered me in. Was I really looking that haggard? I wondered, catching a glimpse of my reflection in the hallway mirror—pale, dark-eyed, and hollowed out.
In the dining room, Dad was already seated. He didn't look up from his paper at first, but when he did, his gaze pierced right through me. A sharp, rhythmic glare that usually preceded a lecture.
"Are you sick?" his voice boomed, devoid of the "Happy Birthday" I didn't want anyway.
"No. I'm fine," I replied, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears.
He grunted, clearly unsatisfied. He looked like he wanted to say more—likely about my posture, my lack of a career path, or the general aura of defeat I carried—but for some reason, he held back.
The silence that followed was heavier than the winter air outside. I sat down, the scent of home-cooked food filling the room, but my stomach remained tied in knots.
Twenty years. And this was the gift I never wanted: a mirror held up to my own stagnation.
The clinking of silverware against porcelain was the only soundtrack to our "celebration." It was a heavy, rhythmic sound that made the silence between us feel even more suffocating.
Mom had made my favorite—Chicken And Rice. The steam rose in fragrant plumes, but as I looked down at the bowl, all I saw was a reflection of a life I was barely living.
"You should eat more, Otto. You've gotten thin," Mom said, her voice a fragile bridge across the table.
"I'm eating," I lied, stirring the broth into a whirlpool.
Dad finally set his spoon down with a deliberate clack. He crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing as they locked onto mine. "Twenty," he stated. It wasn't a celebration of the milestone; it was a verdict. "When I was twenty, I was already working twelve-hour shifts and planning for your future. Do you even have a plan for next week?"
The air in the room felt like it had been sucked out.
"I'm... figuring things out," I mumbled.
"Figuring things out?" Dad's voice rose a decibel, the familiar edge of his disappointment sharpening. "You've been 'figuring things out' since graduation. Time doesn't stop just because you're lost, Otto. The world keeps moving. While you're sitting in that room of yours, the rest of your life is passing you by."
"Dear, please, it's his birthday," Mom whispered, her hand reaching out toward him, but her eyes were on me—and they were full of a pity that hurt worse than Dad's anger.
I stared at a piece of car . He's right. That was the worst part. Every word was a strike against a nail that was already driven deep into my chest. I was a protagonist in a story that had stopped moving, stuck in a prologue that refused to end.
"I know," I said, my voice barely a whisper.
I looked up, and for a split second, I saw something flicker in Dad's eyes. It wasn't just anger. It was a terrifying reflection of my own fear—the fear that I really was broken.
"I'm not hungry anymore," I said, standing up so abruptly my chair shrieked against the floorboards. "I think I should go back."
"Otto, wait! You haven't even had cake," Mom pleaded, rising halfway from her seat.
"It's fine, Mom. I've had enough."
I didn't mean the food.The walk back to my apartment was a gauntlet of ghosts.
Every step echoed on the pavement, dragging up memories I had buried under layers of apathy. Ten years. It had been exactly ten years since that birthday dinner. I could still see my ten-year-old self, swinging my legs under the table, eyes bright with a fire that hadn't been smothered yet.
"I'm going to be a game developer!" I had declared.
I remember the way Mom had beamed and how Dad had clapped me on the back. Back then, "potential" was a word that felt like a superpower. Now, it was just a reminder of a debt I couldn't pay back.
I betrayed him, I thought, looking at my trembling hands. I betrayed that kid who actually believed in something.
I didn't want to do anything. I didn't know how to do anything. The "future" had transformed from a wide-open map into a blank, suffocating wall.
"Is there even a point in living like this?"
The mumble vanished into the humid night air. It was 11:00 PM. The streets were mostly empty, illuminated by the sickly orange glow of flickering streetlamps. I looked up at the sky, searching for a single star—something to prove that there was light somewhere far away.
But the clouds were thick, a heavy grey blanket masking the universe.
Heh. I'm not even worthy enough to see the stars, huh? I let out a sharp, self-deprecating laugh.
I stepped onto the asphalt of the main crossing, my mind a thousand miles away.
Then, the world turned white.
A roar of an engine. The screech of tires screaming against the road. A pair of headlights blinded me, turning the shadows into jagged knives.
THUD.
The impact wasn't like the movies. It wasn't a sudden blackness. Instead, time seemed to shatter into a million slow-motion fragments. I felt my body leave the ground, the cold air rushing past me as I was tossed like a broken doll.
And in that moment of suspension—between life and whatever comes next—the apathy vanished.
Wait.
The heart that I thought had gone numb began to hammer against my ribs with terrifying force. My lungs burned. A primal, ugly instinct surged through me, drowning out all my poetic sadness.
I don't want to die.
The thought was a scream in my head. I'm scared. Please, I don't want to die! I haven't done anything! I haven't fixed it! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—!
I was begging. I was pathetic. I was terrified of the very emptiness I had been courting just minutes ago.
My back hit the pavement. The world tilted. The smell of burning rubber and metallic blood filled my senses. I tried to reach out for the sky, for the clouds, for anything... but my vision began to fray at the edges, dissolving into a cold, heavy static.
I don't... want... to...
Then, the static took everything.
Mom
The front door clicked shut with a finality that made the whole house feel cavernous.
I stood in the kitchen, my hands still hovering over the pot of stew. It was supposed to be a celebration. I had picked out the freshest vegetables, the best cut of meat... all for a son who could barely look me in the eye.
"You shouldn't have scolded him on his birthday," I said, my voice sounding small against the hum of the refrigerator.
I turned to look at my husband. He was still sitting at the table, staring at the empty chair where Otto had been moments ago. His large, calloused hands were folded, but I could see them trembling slightly.
"I don't want to scold him," he grumbled, his voice thick and gravelly. He sounded older than he had this morning. "I just... I'm worried, Martha. I'm worried about what he'll do with his life. He's twenty. The world won't wait for him to find himself."
I set the ladle down and walked over to the table. I understood what he meant. I really did. My husband showed love through stability and hard work; to him, Otto's stagnation looked like a slow-motion disaster.
"I know," I whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. "But I know our son is trying hard. I don't properly understand those things he does on his computer... those lines of text and logic... but he has a spark. I just want to support him."
I looked at the birthday cake sitting on the counter, the "20" candles unlit and cold.
"I hope everything works out in the end..."
As the words left my mouth, a sudden, sharp ache blossomed in my chest. It was an instinct—the kind only a mother has. A sense that the air in the room had suddenly turned thin.
Tears began to stream down my cheeks, hot and uncontrollable. I reached up to wipe them away, surprised by the dampness on my fingers.
"How long has it been since I cried?" I sombered.
The silence of the house was suddenly shattered. Not by a voice, but by the shrill, intrusive ringing of the telephone in the hallway.
Ring.
In a house this quiet, it sounded like a scream.
Ring.
My husband and I locked eyes. Neither of us moved. In that split second, the worry in his eyes shifted into a raw, naked terror. We both knew.
Somehow, we both knew that the birthday gift was finally being delivered.
....
One moment, I was floating in a dark, weightless void. I was convinced I was heading for the afterlife. Definitely hell, I thought, a bitter, hollow laugh echoing in the silence of my mind. If I had actually done something with my life—if I hadn't let that spark die out ten years ago—maybe I wouldn't be facing this darkness with so much baggage.
I was a mess of regrets. Thousands of "what ifs" swirled around me like stinging insects. But the weight of death was pulling me in, like a fish caught on a reel, dragged upward so fast my consciousness simply shattered.
...Warm.
That was the first thing I felt. A warmth that didn't belong on a January night.
I slowly regained my senses, but the world was a kaleidoscope of blurry shapes and muffled sounds. A face appeared above me—familiar, yet impossibly different.
Mom?
The word died in my throat. I couldn't speak. I tried to move my arms, to push myself up, but my limbs felt like leaden weights, clumsy and unresponsive. I felt a pair of arms—warm, steady, and terrifyingly large—scoop me up.
Mom was... huge. No, that wasn't right.
The realization hit me with the force of the car that had just killed me. I wasn't small because she had grown; I was small because I had shrunk. I was cradled against her chest, wrapped in a soft blanket, looking up at a version of my mother who looked twenty years younger, her eyes bright and free of the exhaustion I had put there.
I returned to the day I was born?
The sheer impossibility of it made my head throb. This couldn't be reality. It had to be a dream—a dying brain's last-ditch effort to find comfort. But the smell of the room, the heartbeat against my ear... it was all too vivid.
I thought I died on my birthday. And in a twisted, cosmic sense, I had.
Reborn on my death day... Talk about the most unexpected birthday gift ever, I thought, my mind already growing hazy.
The sheer mental tax of being in this tiny, fragile body was too much. The questions, the confusion, the lingering fear—it all faded into a sea of white noise. My eyes fluttered shut, my tiny heart beating a rhythmic "thump-thump" against the world I had been given a second chance to inhabit.
I slept, too exhausted to even wonder what I would do when I woke up.