1 Reincarnation
"W-Where am I?"
Bob was confused as to where he currently was. He didn't remember anything he did from the past two weeks except from that cheese accident. He had distinctively memorised the flavour of the heavenly liquid he licked off the cheese and dreamt of tasting that paradise again.
Although he was rather calm and collected, he did presume the possibility that he had just been kidnapped judging by the fact he couldn't see anything. Complete darkness. Other than his eyes, he couldn't sense the sensation of touch from his fingers and hear any sounds coming from his surroundings therefore it couldn't be kidnapping or any extreme cases.
However, Bob did hear some unknown muffled noises from what seemed to be the outside of his presumed room. The noises roughly resembled voices which he couldn't clearly understand.
Suddenly, he felt an unknown force grabbing onto him as it was pulling him out of his safe haven. Bob figured that he had nothing to lose from this experience and willingly accepted his fate. Besides, he was also slightly curious about the strange force.
It finally pulled his tiny body out and light shined brightly onto the eyelid's of his eyes. He tried to open his eyes but to no avail, his eyes were closed shut. He attempted to do it again but with all of his willpower and strength to open those drenched eyes of his but alas, it was useless. He inwardly cursed the eye muscles and focused on his hearing to perceive what could possibly be his surroundings.
As Bob did just that, he heard what seemed to be cheers and celebrations by a crowd. The sound of glassware clinking with other glassware, the universal sound of kids randomly crying. It seemed that the crowd was celebrating about something.
Bob didn't know why the crowd was suddenly celebrating and additionally, he had no clue as to what they were talking about. They were using a language completely incomprehensible to Bob which likely meant that he was in another country.
However, there was another possibility that he had just been reincarnated based on what he had just experienced. The random celebrations, the previous unlit room and etc. Nonetheless, he couldn't be sure about the reincarnation hypothesis for now.
An unknown woman entered the room and immediately started to mutter some unknown words. Bob had no clue as to who this woman was. However, judging by her coarse and rough voice, she was steadily becoming more worried about him.
There wasn't anybody besides the worried woman in the vicinity of the room. Therefore, he could clearly focus on his hearing solely on the whole room around him. He knew there was a room around him due to the short yet noticeable echos.
Testing whether his hypothesis of reincarnation was indeed correct, he presumed that the cause of her worries was how unusually quiet he was acting following the logic of an infant. So in response to that, he recreated the deathly sound that every infant had done in their pitiful lives. The sound of death itself.
Crying.
When he was still a naïve child back on Earth, he'd always exploit his parent's overprotective nature by crying as loud as he could. He even had certain precise techniques on how to create the most painful sounding cries. Unfortunately for little Bob, his parents were also quick-witted and caught on to his acts. They would just watch as he cries and ignore him while still pay attention to him.
Now that he's just a baby now, he can use his past experience of professionally crying up to the test.
He held his breath, attempting to remember the most cringiest moment of his life.
Suddenly, he had a flashback of him trying to buy meat in a specifically vegetarian shop. It would've been fine to just apologize but the store's owners and employees were extreme vegans. Truthfully, it was his fault to began with as he should've seen the enormous sign in front of the store, indicating it was vegetarian.
Upon seeing that pathetic flashback of himself, he felt the need to cry for real and let out the perfect cry. As he did that, he successfully relieved the woman of her worries based on the fact her once coarse voice began to become normal again. Only then did his eyes open in an instant for no particular reason.
'What?! Why did you glue yourself together when I wanted to open but open when I didn't?' He was annoyed by the fact his eyes randomly opening in such unusual times as if it had a mind of it's own.
'Well, I can't complain about this though because that would be rather stupid and also I could see my surroundings now.'
He was curious of what his birthplace looked like. The walls were made of what seemed to be straw, mud and other materials that Bob couldn't figure about. There was a small opening or what he thought would've probably been the windows on one of the walls. It was basically just a square hole with a trapdoor. Everything else wasn't too special. There was a table, a chair, a small cabinet with a piece of bread on top of it. There was also a burnt out torch sticking at the sad walls of the house.
Bob liked history but he wasn't too familiar with the early medieval ages. Still, he could tell that he was born into a peasant household. He also saw a herd of sheep pass beside the door and outside the house.
He was very disappointed with his luck and immediately added suicide to his wishlist of this new world
Suicide because first, he's a peasant. Second, he's a peasant.
Bob wasn't faking his crying anymore, he was actually crying for real by picturing his future as a peasant in the medieval times.
On the other hand, the woman wasn't too bad. She wasn't ugly but she wasn't gorgeous either. She had dark brown hair with black eyes. Her skin was probably white but it was slightly tanned from likely all the work from the farm fields she had done previously. She was also wearing a plain old gown which was slightly covered with dirt and dust.
"There, there.. little one. It's okay, your mommy's here." She said while holding him on her arms. At this point, Kaalsuo had already accepted the fact this woman was likely his mother or at least his caretaker. He didn't know what she was saying as he couldn't understand the language yet but judging by the tone of her voice, he knew he had to shut up
He stopped crying in an instant as he realised how ridiculous he looked. Clearly, he shouldn't cry because all he to do now was just drop down from his mother's arms and hope it'll kill him.
He was about to do that exact move for a second but something mystical had happened.
Her mother casted a completely different kind of gibberish he had heard earlier, weaved her hands in a short period and tiny sparkles of light flew gracefully throughout the room. It wasn't anything special to his mother, it was just a simple illusion spell to create tiny spots of light flying around.
However, in contrary to that, the spell he had seen felt so mesmerising and special to him that the mere thought of him considering suicide was pathetic in itself.
He curiously watched the tiny lights randomly flying across the room for a good few minutes until the lights eventually became dim and disappeared spontaneously.
'Holy crap, there's no logical thing but to consider that what I used to love read about. Magic.' Bob declared. Her mother gently placed him on the floor with a blanket knitted from the wool of the sheeps and happily proclaimed.
"Your name will be Kaalsuo."
He still couldn't clearly understand her words but the last word she had spoken was distinguished from the rest thus he assumed that the last word was indeed his name. He knew that it was immature but at that point, he just didn't care anymore as this wasn't Earth anymore. It was now an fantasy world.
'Kaalsuo huh. Sounds nice, I'll take it' He thought.
His mother laid Kaalsuo on an amateurishly crafted wooden crib with the blanket he had, gave him some wooden toys and quickly rushed to the entrance of the house also known as the front door.
'Kaalsuo, I'm going somewhere. Okay? Don't cry.' His mother took a bowl with her and rushed off somewhere.
Now that Kaalsuo was alone, he could just relax and sit back while he brainstorms for an potential answer to what on Earth he had just witnessed.
He knew that the marvelous show he saw earlier was magic but he was convinced that he should think this more thoroughly before assuming things.
He couldn't find any ideas on how that phenomenon had happened. It was just too out of this world.
'It couldn't be some kind of hologram is it?' Kaalsuo thought. He paused for a second to revise what he had just thought earlier and inwardly facepalmed. Holograms as of the time he had died wasn't even invented back on Earth when he was alive and humanity on Earth was a millennium ahead of this world in terms of technology. So he just threw that idea straight to the trash bin and incinerated it as a whole in his mind.
By the time he finished incinerating the trash bin metaphorically, his mother had already arrived back home.
Kaalsuo pretended to be tired to fend off suspicion and this mother lifted him up and onto her arm.
She tried to made him drink from the bowl which was now full of goat milk, presumably from the goats strolling around the background earlier. But she had almost forgotten to heat the milk up so she simply chanted a few lines and the milk was beginning to become warm.
She finally made him drink the milk for several minutes before eventually laying him back down on the wooden crib.
Kaalsuo couldn't do anything in the crib but either watch his surroundings or sleep like a sloth. He hated spectating as he always loved to follow people do anything for fun so he chose the latter option.
* * *
'Ah, Day 1 complete.' Kaalsuo conceived as he was being carried by his mother with her arms. The bright orange rays of lights and the position of the sun indicated it was the early hours of the morning.
He was brought outside to accompany his mother with the house chores to do the dishes outside.
It was still very early in the morning as the livestock of sheep and goats were still quiet and very few of the mentioned livestock were seen to be gazing around the place.
Albeit with his pathetic vision, he could tell that his surroundings were absolutely gorgeous. It was the equivalent of Switzerland in his mind. Vast fields of crops, an abundance of thick forests, mountains as high as he could possibly see.
He expected the village to be better than his house but he was dead wrong. The houses in the village were basically the same like the house he was residing. Sad hollow lumps of earth and wood, peasant houses.
He was confused to why this beautiful landscape was composed of really poor inhabitants.
Kaalsuo had an idea that came up to his mind which was that the likely governing body of this region probably didn't even care about this region's inhabitants.
He tried to look for more details of his surroundings but sadly, his mother was already finished with the dishes.
She lifted him and brought him back inside the house.
Her mother gave him the bowl of milk from yesterday and he was hesitant to even attempt to drink it but he saw a few tiny shards hanging off the bottom of the bowl.
Kaalsuo then presumed that the shards could be ice and assumed it to be some kind of ice magic straight away.
She heated the bowl of milk by chanting a set of gibberish and the milk began warming up.
He drank the milk for a few minutes before eventually laid down onto the crib and sleep. He always liked sleeping when he didn't have anything to do with his free time back on Earth.
Although the crib's he slept in was hard from the wood, the fact he was a newborn ignored it.
He went to sleep on the oddly hard crib. However, sleep seemed to be drugs for newborn infants thus following that logic, he knew that he'll get addicted.
The satisfaction he felt when sleeping was marvellous.
He imagined that he could've slept forever if the satisfaction was any higher than it already is. He didn't know how fast time was moving but he didn't care. All that he cared was just sleep because well, there was nothing he could do anyways.
He could learn the language now if he wanted to because he was a uncannily quick learner but he had the time of the world and there was no need to rush things so quickly.
