I was of a faith where, when one died they were reborn. No heaven, no hell, just a simple, constant cycle of life. It was not my original belief, however after what I had lived, after my second death, not much was considered impossible to me. After all, if rebirth is impossible, I would not have had a second life much less a sixth.
Throughout all my rebirths, I was the only one whose memories seemed to remain intact. Nobody else I met and spoke to, recalled their previous lives. Through this, I quickly surmised that I was being reborn into the very books that I read during my previous life.
This, no doubt, may sound amazing, except it was not the cool - I transmigrated into this novel - sort of rebirth.
I was originally born in South Africa in 2003, and it was just my luck that I happened to be forced to go to school to learn. Stay with me here. I was fifteen when I died in that life, and my first rebirth, was into my ninth grade History textbook. (I learnt my lesson immediately.) It did not matter which books I read or when I read them, it was picked by random and it could be a history textbook or a language reader. Therefore, from my second life onward I only read documents that were exempt from the rebirth rules, such as law and science textbooks, and math worksheets. Screw my other grades (not that they would matter in the long run any way.) if I read a technology textbook, I could be reborn into the industrial revolution or the apocalypse! My life was more important than that, the only other things I would read were happy stories and novels.
Unfortunately for me, all my hard work was not enough for my first few lives.
My luck only changed for the better in my sixth life. 'Finding Love in A Darkened World' sounded like it would be a scary story and I did think to stay away from it in the beginning, but the reviews won me over. It was a best-selling novel in my fifth life and it caught my attention when most of the reviews had nothing but good to say. It was actually only a little bit scary and was mostly a sweet book. It was a heartwarming tale - if a bit basic - of heroism, discovering one's true family and finding love in world of danger (the scary bit was only a plot device!) Despite the story line being a tad bit boring and unoriginal, it won hearts by being one of only stories without any actual villains. There were monsters, war, political missteps, heart-ache and injuries, but there were no corrupt family members or jealous maidens. It was a nice respite, especially because the novel instead highlighted actual issues like poverty, slavery and even prostitution. However, my favourite aspect was how each of the four main characters, and even some side characters, were well thought out, detailed and the relationships between individual characters were beautiful to read. This family-oriented book was the only one I wanted to be reborn into.
Honestly, I wished so hard for it that it was genuinely shocking when it actually occurred.