Chapter 2: Rebirth

Darkness. All that Jackson saw was pure darkness. The void stretched before him, both eerie and calming in its obscurity. He pondered the concepts of heaven and hell, wondering if the afterlife was an eternal abyss, a void in which his thoughts would echo forever. He grappled with the notion of his impending fate, recognizing that his past actions would likely lead him to hell, yet questioning if the solitude of nothingness was not a form of damnation itself.

Amid the engulfing dark, a glimmer of light emerged. Slowly, it expanded, beckoning him forward. With each step he took towards the light, his hope grew, a spark of warmth in the cold expanse. The light intensified, overwhelming his nonexistent senses with a brilliant, blinding whiteness, like fresh snow under a winter moon.

In the midst of the blinding light, distant voices reached his ears, an enigmatic chorus of two women conversing in an unfamiliar tongue. Strangely, he comprehended their words as if he'd known the language all his life. An elderly voice emerged: "Marcella, look, it's a boy, he looks beautiful. He'll grow to be a wonderful man. Take him and see your creation."

Suddenly, Jackson's vision returned, though blurry. He found himself staring at a giantess, her size dwarfing him. Yet, when he moved his hands before his face, he realized it was his own size that had changed; he was a baby.

Overwhelmed by confusion, he absorbed his surroundings – furnishings of wood, structures of stone and wood – a world that felt far removed from his past life, harkening back to a time from the early ages. Even the clothing worn by the woman holding him seemed to belong to a bygone era.

Didn't he die? How could he find himself in the body of a baby? This couldn't be the afterlife; the only explanation that presented itself was the possibility of reincarnation or some similarly mysterious phenomenon.

In the arms of an old woman, he glimpsed at a bed where a woman lay, weary and spent from giving birth. This, he surmised, must be his mother. A sense of relief washed over him; in his former life, he had been an orphan. Now, he possesses a mother who can shower him with genuine motherly affection – the love he was so cruelly denied in his past existence. But his mother's voice shattered his solace: "Stay back, don't you dare come any closer," she spat with a mixture of venom and disdain.

Her gaze bore into the tiny bundle in the old woman's arms, her words dripping with an almost primal revulsion. "I don't want to lay my eyes on that abomination. I never wanted it, never asked for it," her voice trembled with frustration and disbelief. She paused, a bitter edge creeping into her words, "Who could have guessed that a single moment with that man would lead to this? This thing looks just like him as well, I never imagined I could get pregnant just from that one time."

Just as the old woman seemed poised to respond, a sweet, innocent sound punctuated the tense atmosphere. Jackson's laughter bubbled forth, a crystalline giggle escaping from his cherubic lips, mingling with his real amusement. He laughed wholeheartedly, a cascade of genuine mirth in the face of his bleak circumstances. The irony wasn't lost on him – a laughter that defied his situation, his mother's rejection. The realization struck hard, a pang of realization that life here might not be the silver lining he'd hoped for. Foolish, he thought, to entertain the idea that this existence would be any different from his previous one.

As the woman cradling him prepared to speak, her words tinged with a blend of sympathy and reproach, Marcella's expression twisted into an anguished mask. "How could you utter such words?" The old woman's voice held a hint of incredulity, as if she couldn't fathom the depth of Marcella's callousness. "He's your son, a piece of you," she urged, attempting to bridge the chasm between mother and child. "Take him, embrace him, name him."

Marcella's eyes blazed with defiance, a fire fueled by her resentment. "I don't want him, haven't I made that perfectly clear?" Her words crackled with bitterness, bitterness that had been brewing long before this moment. "Let him be a nameless entity, a thing to be discarded or forgotten. You can do whatever you want with him – throw him, end his pitiful life, grant him a name, I don't care. Just don't bring him near me." Her voice escalated into a desperate, almost primal scream.

Fueled by an innate yearning to get away from this crazy woman, who was his mother, Jackson's tiny hands grasped at the old woman's sleeves, a silent plea to leave this room and head somewhere else. It worked; she carried him away from that suffocating room, stepping away from their intense and chaotic conversation.

"Marcella, your thoughts are clouded by this ordeal. I'll grant you the solitude you need to regain your composure," the woman's voice remained steadfast, yet gentle. "I'll bestow a name upon this child."

Marcella's disdainful snort underscored her disdain for the situation. "Do as you please," she spat, surrendering her maternal role with contempt.

The woman carried Jackson out of that room and into a different space, a kitchen perhaps. Settling into a chair, she gazed into Levi's eyes, her voice dripping with tenderness. "Eyes as golden as the rarest jewels," she murmured, her words imbued with a sense of reverence. "You possess beautiful eyes, child. Levi, I shall name you, and may your days be as enduring as your namesake. May you forge your path, young one." As the woman's words wrapped around him, an unspoken promise of hope and opportunity unfurled.

Jackson – now known as Levi – looked at the woman's eyes, a silent acknowledgement that his life in this unfamiliar realm was only just beginning. Little did he know, a plethora of surprises awaited him in this world, which was far from the ordinary world he had imagined.