Where am I?

lying in a pool of his blood. A boy with silky smooth straight long black hair and a feminine face, both dyed red by the blood around him, felt his eyelids flutter as darkness descended on his vision.

Although he knew his resistance was futile he couldn't help but instinctively cling to life as he slowly felt his consciousness fade into darkness.

"You know, you are beautiful even when you are dying."

Standing not too far from the boy was a beautiful and elegant woman, standing straight as she watched with a tinge of sadness as the boy slowly died in a pool of his own blood.

Despite the gory scene, she couldn't help but admit that the black-haired boy in front of her looked just as beautiful as he did when she had first met him.

"It didn't have to be you, you know."

"Why couldn't you have listened to me? Why did you not just sit still? Maybe then you would not have to die like this."

"Why does it have to be you?"

The decision that led him to where he was was a decision that would make anyone else want to run away.

Was it to be a hero?

Perhaps, no matter how much his heart was dyed black by the ugly desires of others, deep down he always had a naive sense of justice.

But whether he realized it or not, subconsciously, he knew that becoming a hero wasn't something worth working so hard for.

"You were perfect, more perfect than anyone. Your only flaw was that you never listened to anyone."

"XXXX"

'A voice?'

Although the boy could hear the voice of the woman, he couldn't be bothered to pay attention as he felt someone calling out to him.

"....A....r.....a"

'Is somone calling me?'

'Who is it that is calling out to me?'

The voice was not from the woman in front of him but somewhere else, somewhere far away.

Normally he would have thought that he was just hallucinating, but even at death's door, his instincts, which had never failed him and had acted as his guide for the past 18 years, were telling him otherwise.

"XXXX"

He slowly lifted his arm and reached out towards the darkness with the voice as a guide.

With a strong and pure belief.

With the will to never fall into despair.

He continued to struggle no matter how stacked the odds were against him.

for the sake of himself and others.

That was how he reached his end.

Or so it was supposed to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He didn't know when it happened, but he felt as if he were floating through space, his head foggy and unable to grasp anything.

He felt and saw nothing.

The next thing he felt was a tearing sensation throughout his body as if his mind, body, and soul were being ripped apart into a thousand pieces.

The pain and anguish were unbearable, and it wasn't until what seemed like an eternity had passed that the pain eventually faded.

Finally regaining himself, he found himself waking up in a dark but cozy old room.

"What happened?"

Still experiencing the aftereffects of the mind-breaking headache he slowly rose from where he lay, discovering himself resting on a makeshift old bed with a thin blanket covering his body.

"I thought I had died?."

"Hmm?"

Settling down his busy and active mind, he quickly noticed someone lying next to him.

"Who?"

In fact, he didn't just notice one person.

Looking around, he found himself in a fairly small-sized, rectangular-shaped room surrounded by several young and small children, of both gender, all of whom were fast asleep.

"Children? Where did they come from?"

Quickly counting all the heads in the room, he discovered that there were a total of 4 of them, excluding himself.

As for the room itself, it was practically empty, with two windows, a couple of candles used for lighting, and a handful of old, faded paintings hung on the walls around the room. Although small and not much, it gave the room a sense of warmth and security.

"Where am I?"

He whispered to himself.

"Did I somehow survive?" he thought for a moment "No, that's impossible. After all the trouble I caused them, there was no way they would let me live."

Thinking back to all the trouble he had caused and the injuries he had suffered along the way. His chances of survival were slim to none.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like he was going to get any answers from lying around, so instead of waiting, he decided to get up and look for the answers himself.

It was only after he started moving his body that he felt something odd about himself.

Looking down to get a closer look at himself, it didn't take long for him to realize that he wasn't simply imagining things, as he found his body considerably smaller than what he was used to, like that of a 13-year-old child.

"Huh? Did I get smaller? "

He felt more weak and fragile as if he were recovering from a severe bout of flu.

"My voice sounds different as well."

It sounded more childish.

Something didn't feel right.

"Did I get younger?"

Since when was modern science capable of regressing a person's body to childhood?

Bzzzt!

"Ugh!"

Finally, as if the scene around him was the trigger to something inside him.

He felt an electrifying sensation spread throughout his body, along with a mind-breaking headache comparable to the one he felt before he woke up.

Perhaps they were linked in some way.

Whatever the case may be, he couldn't bother thinking about it as all he could do was clench his head to relive as much of the pain as possible.

Quickly, memories started flooding in.

He slowly started to understand his current situation as memories and information that he had no prior knowledge of before entered his brain.

No, it didn't enter his brain. Instead, it felt as if it was there the entire time.

Instead of gaining new knowledge, to him, it felt as if he was remembering something that he had forgotten for only a moment.

As if his brain temporarily wiped out all of its data to make room for something else, only to bring all that data back right after all at once.

He didn't know for sure, but that's what his instincts were telling him.

While enduring the pain, unexpectedly, a genderless voice appeared from within his subconscious.

<Ding!>

<System boot initiate>

<loading>

<Ding!>

<Boot up complete>

<Greetings host, I am here to serve>

Soon after hearing the notifications from the voice inside his head, all his pain and anguish steadily began to fade, as all his senses gradually returned.

"Haa haa"

While panting heavily for breath, seemingly desperate for answers, he questioned the voice inside his head.

"...Who are you?"

<I am the system that was created from within your soul>

"System? like an AI?"

<Close, but not exactly>

"Haa, I don't understand?"

Taking a deep breath while regaining himself he once again looked back at the room.

Instead of looking at the room and the children around him with eyes filled with confusion.

This time he gazed at them with eyes filled with familiarity and warmth.

Gaining back the memories he had momentarily lost, he was now able to understand who they were and where he was.

They were his little brothers and sisters, and although they were not related by blood, he still treated them as such, as they had lived together here at this orphanage for almost their entire lives.

CREAK* (Door opening)

"Jude?"

Turning his head towards the only door in the room that had just been opened, a blond lady who looked to be in her early to mid-thirties stood staring directly at him with a worried look on her face.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Crying?

Touching his face he felt a single tear roll down his cheek.

Ah, it seems like he was crying.

"...Nothing's wrong," he smiled at the kind Sister who had always been with him. "I just had a bad dream."

Quietly moving away from the children so as not to wake up any of them, he wiped the tear off his face as he quickly made his way to the entrance of the room where the woman stood waiting.