Prologue

"This is bad..." In a frail speaking voice, I whispered.

Lying on the cold, empty road under the sombre midnight sky, I clutched the bleeding wound on my neck to alleviate the blood loss to no avail. It was deep, I could feel, traversing through my vital parts I could hardly relax and breathe.

"Lola," I spoke again. This time, I was out of air. It was a voice you could make hurling through your tongue when you sucked every pint of breath in desperation. "Humans are cruel."

I grew up in my grandma's care, Lola. It was not the name she bore, it was only how we addressed her; the culture I walked through in life. I had no mother nor a father, and I had never met them, even in this dying time. There was no hand that extended, no hug that comforted, no cry for loss that echoed, and not even only their glance. They're nowhere; they did not care.

My parents were gone, and I was dying. Lola never spoke of them every time I asked, and none of my neighbours knew them. Rumours had it that they died in a car accident and I was the lucky one who survived, but who would buy such a ridiculous story? This reality was nothing like a Netflix cliché show. Some relayed I was found in a trash bin. Lola pitied the helpless me and took me home, but it was highly unlikely. Lola and I shared significant features, including coal-dark, bewitching eyes. So I did not trust it. And the story I most believed in was: my parents abandoned me. Growing up, I was a feeble young boy. Grandma once told me I was named because of it, Kraftlos; a German term for weak. I was weak, and no parent wanted a puny child. Leaving is the only option left to run from things they were responsible for. I did not really know, but I could guess it's a human thing, a sad human thing.

Lola told me we, humans, were kind creatures. Before she died when I was seven, she spoke of wisdom. I took it to heart, even after all my childhood peace fell into chaos when I was constantly bullied. I thought: they were kids, it's a phase. But that old, beard man in a ragged, cotton duffle coat gripping a knife I encountered a moment ago, what kind of kind was murdering a child branched from? It was all blood. The child victim was all pale. I reckoned he was long dead, but the geezer kept the butchering going, as though it was a meat intricately cut for fine dining. The man wore a smirk. Every time the skin tore open, he breathed a vicious, muffled laugh not too different from that of a demon. And I was staring from the back.

The street was deserted since the flood, so roads were completely empty. I was only there to steal the abandoned stores to have something to eat, but heavens stole back the life inside me. To witness murder was like death. The only difference was: It was not me who died. But the piece of me did, my hope for humanity. Humans are cruel— so that time, despite the dark surrounding, I halted my lurking and struck a kick on the broadness of the man's back. Then the man stopped the butchering, but he did not turn his head. My weak kick only caught his attention, but not even a flinch was his bodily response. After the street pendulum clock rang twelve, in the shadow, I caught him smirk before his arm with a knife flung through me in a split second. It ran past my neck, all I knew was a warm liquid initiated a drip down my chest. I did not blink. I did not have to. I only locked my stare on the man slowly turning his head towards me. It was that smirk I saw again before I fell on my knees, and an almost silent thud broke the calmness of night when I finally fell on the ground.

The man left, but the hurt he caused stayed, and it was blood all over us that bathed our now broken souls. It was our blood, with the first victim lying cold a metre away from me. His eyes were wide open, wandering the edge of the sky in his last moment. The stars were beautiful, but so empty. Did he wish he could reach there to fill their emptiness?

"H-Humans... are... cruel..."

My sight was getting blurry, but I saw our crimson blood run to each other. For the last time, I engraved his face on my memory. I knew he was like me, homeless. At least this way, someone would remember him in the afterlife— if it existed.

Before darkness totally enveloped me like a death's welcoming hug, a faint red light emerged from our blood. It traced every corner where our blood ran, twinkling, as if trying to creep out from its vividness. I was dying and confused, then expectedly, everything turned black.

I died.

I finally died.

So this is death.

Pitch black and silent and calm. So this is death. A void and a nowhereland of life and dreams and hope. So this is death. The vicious death. The just death. But, after all this, at least death is not cruel.

It was a long, long silence and emptiness before I noticed everything was spinning. Only then did I realise I was falling. Yet, there was no fear, no blood rush and panic, no anxiety and shock. It was a gentle fall, yet a fastest one. It was out of this world, like a void was sucking my whole existence including the life I lived and the days I spent. It was unfathomable, as if another wonder of the universe was unveiled before my eyes. Was this a transport to the afterlife?

Before I began to contemplate, a peculiar inner thought pushed me to open my eyes. That moment I understood, I was alive. Little by little, as my lashes folded itself open, an enormous kingdom yonder welcomed me. This was not the place I knew, everything was different... and felt different. It was sunny. The sky was clear and ocean blue, and I was leaning on the tree past the hill as though resting, only awakening from a dream— no, it was not a dream, this was most like a dream. The grasses were the greenest, as if fairies painted them themselves. The breeze was not cold, but refreshing. It was the smell of the countryside that ran through the corners of my nostrils. Perplexed, I stood and rummaged around with my eyes for an answer. What is happening? What's this place? Why am I not dead?

"Holy shit..." A realisation dawned on my head.

I am nothing like an idiot and, end to end, I understood what was going on. Unfamiliar land, enormous kingdom, unknown beauty of the universe, the mystery of mankind, the other side of science. I knew all this, after all, I spent my childhood days in the library to run away from my bullies. I read, and read, and thus I had realised,

"I HAVE BEEN REINCARNATED!"

***