A New World

The light slowly faded away to darkness as Oliver waited for whatever came after death.

All of a sudden his senses returned. He felt as if he was being squeezed to death, and he heard a woman screaming in pain. And the world was dark. There was no light at all.

Am I in hell? he thought. Man, I didn't think I was that bad in life.

For hours Oliver was in pain and the screaming continued, but then he was free of it. All of his senses were overloaded with information.

After being in the dark so long the light hurt Oliver's eyes so he closed them again as they adjusted. Thankfully, however, the screaming stopped and he seemed to be free to move around. He tried to get to his feet. But for some reason he didn't seem to be able to.

What's going on? Why can't I move? he wondered.

Just as these questions ran through his mind a giant hand smacked him on the back.

"Ahhh!" Oliver cried. Am I doomed to be tortured forever with a useless body?

Trying to understand what was going on tried opening his eyes again. This time he was able to see around him. He was in a small room with a small fire going in the corner and three other people. And he realized that the hand that hit him wasn't giant. He was a baby.

Yep. I'm doomed, he concluded.

An old woman, who he assumed was the midwife, was cleaning him off. Oliver looked over at the other two in the room, who were most likely his parents.

They were both fairly young. His father looked about 25 at most, with a messy beard and calloused hands. He looked like he had been sick several times throughout the birthing process. His mother was a pretty woman, despite the ordeal she had just went through in giving birth to Oliver.

He looked down at himself, still trying to take in the fact that he was a baby when he felt something inside him. It was not a harsh feeling of pain, but rather as if he had a third lung or a second heart. About the size of a grain of sand, it simply felt warm, and strangely full of light. The feeling was not unnatural even if it was so different.

Curious, Oliver tried to figure out what it was. As he did so, the old lady handed him over to his mother. They exchanged a few words in some language Oliver had never heard before and then the lady turned away toward the fireplace. Pointing at it, fire sprang from her finger, reinvigorating the fire.

Shocked, Oliver realized that this world was very different from the one that he came from. Perhaps that was the reason for this thing inside of him, the thing that differentiated between this world and his own.

Ohhh, Hell yeah! Nevermind, this life is gunna be awesome! I'm gunna become a magician and live the easy life!

How could he managed to replicate what the woman just did?

He looked intensely at his fingers. FIRE! he shouted in his mind. Regrettably, literally nothing happened.

Meanwhile, his parents were cooing over him. "Awww, he's found his fingers!" exclaimed his mother. His father simply smiled weakly at his new son, still trying to settle his stomach.

Looking over at her husband, the woman noticed this and retorted, "How is it that you have no problem slicing up monsters, but can't take it when I'm giving birth?"

"Those are two very different things," replied the father. "I'll take killing monsters any day over having to watch a baby come from between your legs."

Letting out a sigh, she turned back to her newborn son. "He's got your eyes, David," she smiled. And both parents fell back into silence, as this new feeling of love and protection washed over them. Neither of them would ever let this child come to harm. He was theirs. And they loved him.

Oliver couldn't understand their exchange, but as he was more interested in trying to make fire shoot out of his fingertips it didn't really matter. He decided to try a different approach, feeling for the little light inside of him. It took a few moments, but he found the light after a few seconds, right in the middle of his chest.

He tried to force it to move to his finger, so that he could make it shoot fire like the woman did, but the thing wouldn't budge. With all his might he concentrated on that little ball of light, but nothing happened. After a few seconds he gave up on it.

There had to be another way, it couldn't be this hard, even if I hadn't done it before.

This time he decided to try to create the flame from the little light first, and perhaps he could then push it out. So he this time tried to heat up the light. Make it brighter, make it hotter.

Slowly, he could feel it working this time. The little light was becoming brighter and hotter. Inside of him he could feel heat rushing towards his center. It kept building and building until he felt he could no longer contain it. He had to get rid of it, it was burning him from the inside!

He started crying in his mother's arms as he frantically tried to push it out. He tried pushing it out towards his finger as he did before and this time the light tore through his body, ripping open a path inside of him to get out. At the end of his finger, a small spark flew out, before whizzing out of existence.

Well that's disappointing, Oliver thought, before he passed out.

His parents, who just a moment before were trying to comfort their crying child now looked at him in amazement.

His father spoke first, "This child is going to be special."