3 Chapter 2

My family's farm was situated less than half of a mile outside of the neighboring town and both places were surrounded in forestry. This forestry was still as familiar to me as the back of my hand, despite that hand being so small, and I was currently jogging through the trees and shrubbery. I would have preferred to tire myself with some kind of weapon in hand, but this was just the easiest and quickest method at my disposal.

When I first lost my home and family I had been sent to a military academy with the handful of other surviving children from town. There, I found the outlet for all of my anger and shade and sadness with a wooden sword in my hand and a wooden practice dummy in front of me. Even though it was a simply hickory tool for practice, the moment I had held that first sword in my hands I felt like the world settled into place for the first time in weeks since the town was first besieged.

After losing so much and finding myself surrounded by strangeness, being given that simple piece of wood and being shown how to grasp it had felt like somebody put my life back in my own hands.

I threw myself tirelessly into my training and studies, swung my arms until my hands bled from friction with the naked wood and ran until my legs would simply give out. Day after day after day. Study, swing, run, study, swing, run.

Some of the other kids and teachers there worried about me, saying that I was killing myself and driving my body to the edge. However, there was one person there who thought and argued differently. This woman was the person who first put that sword in my hand and gave my life purpose with a few simple words.

"You're not the only one," she had said with a sadness in her eyes that mirrored my own. "Even now towns and villages are burning with nobody there to save them, children are losing their families, and horrible things are being done to the survivors. But, even with a real sword, there's nothing you can do about it. Yet."

That one little word at the end of her message had changed everything just like the wooden sword in my hand, opened up an entire world of possibilities when I thought the world had closed itself off from me. As an adult, I realized I had been to one to close myself to the world. Without my family and without my home, I felt I had no place.

Those simply words and that wooden training sword gave me the will and the way to carve a place for myself in this world. There were many times throughout my life that I had thought back on that moment, times when I was down on my knees and waiting for death or lying in some bed alone somewhere while wondering what I was doing with myself.

Now, though, I had the chance to ave myself from losing my original place in this world because of the path I had carved last time.

Even if I was not even five feet tall, even if my arms could barely pull me off of the ground, even if I could only run for a minute or two, I still had all those years of training and experience in this tiny little body. If this was truly a second chance at living my life, I would do it right. Even if it cost me my life, I would at least save my family. I doubted there was a third chance waiting for me if I failed, but this moment here and now was my true 'yet' that my instructor had told me about.

Sitting on the ground under the shade of an elm tree, I stare up at the sunlight filtering through the vibrant green leaves and slowly control my ragged breathing. If I was going to make a difference and change this life, the first thing I had to do was prepare this body. It was weak and small, too much so to wield a sword, but there were other weapons and methods I could make use of.

One did not spend years at a military academy and only learn a single weapon, the sword was just the first weapon I used and the one I favored. There were several that were suited for small and light bodies like my current one. Top among them were the spear and the bow.

Climbing up to my feet with unsteady legs, I started the slow walk back to the farm while wondering how I would get my hands on any weapon appropriate for my body. My father was a retired soldier who fought with either a spear or sword and we had a bow for hunting at home. However, a regimental spear was too big and too heavy for this body and the bow was too strong for me to draw yet.

The idea of actually talking about these things with my parents was always present in my mind, but I was afraid. What would they think if I was to tell them that I watched them both die in horrible ways and the only way to stop it without proof was to prepare on our own? Who would believe a child who said such things?

"Two years," I quietly say to myself in an attempt to calm my nerves. "You have two years to make things work, just calm down and focus. First step, get a weapon and train your body to it. Second step, find people you can rely on and train them to fight with you. Third step, enjoy all the time you can with your family… while you still can."

With this set of goals in mind I found some steadiness to my gait as I walked through the forest back toward home. Even though I had only run for a couple of minutes, the walk back was several times longer and I constantly thought back over the short morning. As much as I had been thinking of this as either a dream or a second chance, I still had no idea what this really was.

For all I knew, I had died and entered a heaven-like limbo as reward for my life and dying on the battlefield. Around now was the turning point in my life that shaped my future, it was entirely possible that in this place the town would never be raided to begin with. I could live a different life entirely, raised by the parents I had lost in a town that never disappeared.

I was not exactly religious in my last life, but I knew of the various gods and their heavens or the damnation of hell. I lived a good life, never cheated or betrayed people like was done to me many times and I had only planned to finally settle down after the war. It was not uncommon for good and unbound souls like mine to be reborn again in the world.

However, why did I remember dying? Why do I look the same and why were my parents exactly as I remembered? If this was a my being reborn, why was everything the same again?

Hell, at the very least, why was I not a baby if I had been 'reborn'?

These questions and many more speculations filled my once cleared thoughts, but at least now I was digesting the situation I was in rather than terrifying myself with things I needed to do. In this way, by the time I returned home, I could more accurately and calmly look ahead at the memories of my previous life. While figuring out a way to discuss this with my parents.

The best I could come up with was the most childish thing in the world, but it was something I had to do. When I was originally six years old, I was only just speaking in full sentences and correcting my speech. This six-year-old probably never actually ran for exercise in his life.

No matter how hard I might try, my parents would eventually realize that something changed in their son and wonder who or what I was. Before they started wondering and coming up with their own answers was when I needed to have the situation under my thumb. For their sake as well as my own, my best choice was to be completely honest with them as much as I could.

While still being believable.

My parents were standing outside the house by the time I came out of the trees and onto the edges of our property, plainly worried but unsure of whether to follow me or not. Around now was when my father and I would tend the animals and then I would help my mother tend her medicinal crops. It actually hurt me a little to see that none of the work was getting done because of how much they cared for me.

I had my own worries, though, and actually spent my time walking across the yard praying that whatever god sent me here or was even listening would help me. I felt like the only chance I had at being believed was with divine intervention. Hopefully, this situation was a blessing and not a curse.