Waking up and first meeting

-??? POV-

it's been a few confusing months.

it's started when I was 3 and a half years old, dreams of experiences I have no recollection of, knowledge of things that I don't remember learning.

it keep escalating to the point that those experiences sometimes happen while I was awake, and yet, I wasn't afraid, the only thing that bothered me was a crucial difference with the version of myself in the dreams, a sensation.

whenever I woke up from those dreams, that by that point became extremely lucid, I feel like there's something that I have that the "me" from the dreams doesn't have, something that's spread from all over the inside of my body.

then, a day before my fourth birthday, I went to sleep like always.

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by this point I manage to realize that those dreams are like a movie of a person living his life, a person that is currently around his twenties.

the dreams have become so real that the pain and emotions have barely any diference with the "real thing", if any.

at first the dream is like always, "I" get up from my bed, eat breakfast, wash myself, dress up and go to my job.

then, after working for a while, "I" went to a convenience store to buy something for lunch, as I was starting to think that this dream was gonna be like a lot others, I was proven wrong by the sound of a gunshot.

I turn around to see a guy, somewhere between 30 and 40, with dirty beard and hair and clothes that definitely have seen better days.

thief: "alright, nobody moves, hands in the air"

me and the cashier quickly raise ours hands, and after a while a couple of customers at the back do the same once they understand the situation.

after that the thief moves in front of the cashier and starts demanding the money, while the cashier fills the bag the thief gave him, the thief looks around in order to make sure nobody tries anything.

I don't know why but as I look at him I can notice a desperate look in his eyes.

every time he looks away from me, I, very slowly, move in order to hide, but as luck would have it I accidentally knockdown a few cans in exhibition.

before I can say anything, actually before I can even fully turn to the thief, I heard a sound that frezees me on the spot.

*BANG*

for a moment I didn't move, slowly I moved my head to see that the gun of the thief has smoke coming out of it while being pointed in my direction.

after a moment I start to notice a sharp pain in my chest, but before I have a chance to look I lose the sensation in my legs and fall to the floor, and the last thing I see,

was the face of the thief filled with regret.

after hitting the floor I heard a scream, but I can't do anything about it as I'm slowly losing conscience, the world becomes darker as a feeling of coldness overtakes me, and the moment I fully close my eyes

I wake up, both figuratively and literally.

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after waking up everything is a lot clearer, and after calming down and thinking for a couple of hours I realize the only explanation.

Reincarnation.

a second chance to live my life, I have no idea what am I gonna do with it except for two ideas, one: classic lazy life or two: use knowledge to rise as a genius.

before I could ponder exactly what I'm going to do I heard a knock on the door, follow by a kid voice.

kid: "kazuma-kun, iris-san says that you should come down for breakfast"

kazuma, right, my name now is Kazuma Ryuji, or wait, was it that or Ryuji Kazuma?, I need to look into that

Ryuji: "alright, I come down in a bit"

kid: "o-oh, ok"

as I heard the kid going down the stairs I quickly go through the memories of this current life while changing.

my current body is of a 3 yea- wait no, 4 year old orphan, the kid parents died in an accident a couple of months before he started to have the dreams, which explain why everyone leaved me alone and nobody thought I was strange, they must have thought I was going through a grieving phase or whatever you call it.

I make my way down the stairs to find iris-san, our caretaker, preparing the table.

she is a young adult of 27 years of age if I remember correctly, brown hair up to the shoulders with purple eyes.

Iris: "ah, ryuji-kun, happy birthday!, sorry but I need to finish a couple of details for the party, so it gonna be a little later than planned"

Ryuji: "that's okay, thank you"

Iris makes a surprised expression after I say that, well considering how I was with my parents dying and then the reincarnation, I must have been a mess

Iris: "Ryuji, are you ok, did something happen?"

Ryuji: "...I guess, it just, I thought that if I continue like this, papa and mama wouldn't be at peace"

it probably sounds fake, but honestly, from what I could see in this life memories, my parents in this life where honestly great, they took care of me, teach me and spoil me, add the fact that I have trouble remembering especific information about my past life like my name or my parents and the result is that they were the closest to parents I remember, the only person that can come close is Iris

Iris: "it okay, Ryuji, I bet that they are proud of how strong you are being"

as she pet my head, I can't help but think of how much love and compassion she showed me despite how much trouble I must have caused, the fact that she can show the same love to every kid she takes care of is honestly enough to make me want to cry.

Iris: "come on let's eat, I made your favorite for breakfast"

that day was one of the best I ever had.

——————————————————————————

—3 months later—

it's been a while since I "woke up" and there are a few things I started doing.

the first is to train my body, nothing too ridiculous, mostly making my body flexible and a few, really few push-ups, squats and stuff like that, I'm not sure about flexibility but I remember that strength training while young can be a bad idea.

the second is to develop my mind, with that I mean a quick revision of my knowledge, both of this and the first life.

this two things didn't give me too much trouble, not unlike the third one.

ever since I "woke up" the sensation became borderline unbereable, before I could ignore it but now that's practically impossible, after thinking I came up with a theory.

the idea that I think of is based in the fact that this sensation is like there's something I have that I didn't have before, when I think of that the idea that comes to mind is that I have, or like most likely everyone has, some type of energy my old world didn't have.

a different world, this possibility opens a whole different can of worms, and that is without the low chance that this may be a fictional world, is unlikely but at this point not impossible.

anyway, in order to control this energy I started meditating, it was dificult to concentrate but I managed to make the sensation barely manageable, and that's considering I don't have much knowledge about this kind of things, though with time I may come up with something from my memories.

from my memories or the internet, which I have no way of accessing since I'm too young (technically)

by the way, you may be wondering what am I doing while thinking about this, well...

Iris: "thanks for helping me with shopping Ryuji-kun"

Ryuji: "it's no problem"

although I do want to help her there's a second reason why I'm going with her, in the case I'm in a fictional world I MIGHT be able to recognize the town and therefore associate the sensation with the energy of that work of fiction, I know I could just ask iris but the miniscule chance of her thinking I'm strange for not knowing is enough for me to not do so.

so, until I muster the courage to tell myself how stupid that is hard enough to ask, I try to see if I can identify the place by observing things, for example the businessman across the street, the bakery we are passing through, even those two kids playing in the park...

OH SHIT.

looking at the kids I can see a huge resemblance with two fiction characters, though i guess they're not fictional anymore.

Iris: "what's wrong, want to play with them?"

Ryuji: "well um ..... can i?"

Iris: *chuckle* "of course, the store is crossing the park so I can watch you"

Ryuji: "thank you"

seriously, thank you, if those two are who I think they are, then I'm gonna have to really step up my training.

I get closer to the two kids, both of them look like 4 year olds, one is a brunet boy while the other is a boy-looking kid with light brown hair.

ryuji: "hi!"

they both look at me.

boy: "hi!"

boy?: "hello, who are you?"

Ryuji: "my name is Ryuji kazuma, I was wondering if I could play with you guys?

irina: "sure, my name is irina shido"

issei: "mine is issei hyoudou, nice to meet you"

Ryuji: "nice to meet you"

well fuck.