A Second Chance

I awaken from my slumber and find myself within a prison of darkness. A welcome change from my previous bright torture chamber, but nonetheless undesirable.

I soon realized my eternal darkness is because my eyes are closed, and I cannot open them. Rather i couldn't tell if they were open or not, and I can't see, so I assume they are closed. I'm warm and feel safe so I suppose it's not all that worrying, but I feel tired constantly and fade in and out of consciousness frequently.

At first I couldn't move at all then little by little I slowly gained a range of motion. I could clutch my fingers or move my hand side to side. Push my leg back and forth it was small motion but it allowed me fun for like ten seconds, then it was back to sleep for me.

Eventually, my cozy home decided it didn't want me anymore. I started to feel pressure all around me, as if the walls were closing in on me. It didn't hurt for a while, but then it did, a lot, but whatever, it isn't the worst thing I've ever felt.

I could feel that my cozy cove was trying to push me out, so I obliged, I stayed my welcome so I guess I could leave. That was until the outside touched my skin an I realized, that it was cold. Super cold. I then began resisting.

'I don't want to leave anymore.' I wined in my brain as I used my limited movement to futilely squirm. My motion practice was failing me.

Alas, I failed, and was pushed out anyways. Then I felt things touching me all over it was weird until a sudden,

* Smack*

I felt like my back was hit by a freaking battering ram. I choked on a scream, tears pooling in my eyes and coughing. I collected myself albeit barely. Coughing something out I didn't realize was in my lungs.

Following this, I felt something being wrapped around me and it was warm, and comfy so I departed back to sleep.

When I woke again I tried to open my eyes but it was difficult. I had just endured a most confusing experience, so I wanted to see what was going on, but my eyes refused. Tuning into my surroundings, I heard a muffled sound. I couldn't quite tell what it said, but that wasn't what caught my attention.

The voice sounded familiar, very familiar. I tried with newfound vigor to open my eyes and confirm my suspicion, and with much effort I managed. With much difficulty I cracked my eyes open to see the fuzzy outline of the woman who had spoken. My mother was staring back at me. It wasn't a perfectly clear image but I could tell it was her. The same one I remember from before the Calamity, before all that hell. I started to cry, silent tears, I thanked whoever made this possible. I was back. I don't know how, but I had made it back. Back to before the calamity, back to before I had made any mistakes. Tears streamed down my eyes, as I silently thanked whoever made this possible.

" Oh, the little guy is crying, but not making a sound. You don't think he's mute do you dear" A man's voice said from nearby

" I certainly hope not, but He's perfect regardless. "

The man walked over into view and looked down at me, as he hooked his arm around my mother pulling her into him in a gentle and endearing manner. " I agree completely."

' Who the hell are you?!'

~ 3 months later~

It's been Three months since I was reincarnated? Transmigrated? Went back in time? Not sure which it is. I'm still me in my own body, but yet not quite, and it's the same world I remember, but it's a bit different. Regardless, I was reborn. I don't know what to call it or care for that matter, so it isn't important, I suppose.

The man I now know to be my father was the man present at my recent birth. That sounds unusual doesn't it? Anyways, His name is Ester Charilyn Stubenvol. Man do I feel for the guy, but also I have mad respect for the dude to just be living his life like normal. From what I could piece together he was the same father that died before I was born in my last life. I don't know what his profession is as I've been confined to an annoying cycle of eat, sleep, poop, repeat for a little while. I've recently been having more and more freedom outside this cycle, though so I might find out soon.

Here's to hoping my agony of lack of urinary and bowel control ends soon. It's still extremely embarrassing having someone change your diapers, even if you have a completely valid excuse.

My mother is almost the exact same as I remember, just as out there, but I have noticed she seems a bit more collected. She's not as scatterbrained as she once was and she shows a whole different side of herself when acting lovey-dovey with dad. It's kinda gross, but whatever.

~3 months later~

I've recently made progress with movement. I can now sit up on my own! Hurray! That means I'm that much closer to walking! Not only that, I can't quite lift myself up all the way, but I can almost do that too. Once I can, I should be able to walk.

I've also been trying to build strength so I can explore the house some more. From what I've heard children are excellent learners and I happen to know of a computer that I could try to sneak onto. I have a feeling it may work too because I remember when Dad told mom the password once, about two months and it's been burned into my brain ever since.

Armed with Miho, my trusty fox friend. Miho is a fox stuffed animal that kinda looks like a 3D fluffy version of the Firefox search engine symbol. I gave her that name because of World code M3140. 3140 = Miho. I also remember something along the lines of Miho being the name of a fox or something. Obviously I don't remember it very well.

Well, whatever, I had way too much time on my hands and I thought it was clever, especially considering she was a fox. The fox was bigger than I was and I would hold it super tight every time I would want to fall asleep.

Anyways, armed with Miho. I was ready to begin my exploration.

~ 1 year later ~

A little boy can be seen sneaking around his house with a large fox stuffed animal in his arms. He's hiding behind a wall, expertly peaking into the living room where one of his parents are frequently left to do work, without arousing suspicion. The definition of a true ninja.

Mommy and Daddy decided neither a babysitter nor daycare were not worth the investment, so whenever one of them could work from home, they did. The days my mother couldn't, dad would stay home or have off. They were able to arrange a pretty good schedule so they had very few days where they would need to get someone else to watch me, but it wasn't perfect and sometimes I'd have to be left alone.

Luckily today was one of those days. I was left alone, and had a babysitter to 'watch me'. To make things better this time it was Lizzy. To be completely honest, she probably doesn't even know I exist, too absorbed in her phone to pay any attention to me. Awful babysitter, wonderful for me.

I, using my superior ninja skills manage to break into the computer room with the help of Mr. Truck and Sir Snake. Mr. truck ensured the door wasn't closed when Mom and dad were leaving this morning, and Sir Snake was the distraction to ensure they didn't see Mr. Truck hold the door open. These two were childhood friends. One from a construction company the other a wealthy family of stuffed snakes. Mr. Truck does the covert heavy lifting while Sir Snake Draws the spotlight, A face the authorities will never catch in the act fore he is not alone. Both ever faithful to Me and the others of the group.

I climbed up onto the seat of a chair in the office, and after ensuring stable footing, I climbed up onto the table. Before me was the almighty computer. A holy relic that holds most all of the information held within this world.

Now that I have this holy relic within my clutches what wonders will I search for?

...

To be honest I didn't really think about it all that much. I never thought our endeavors would amount to anything, but we're here.

I look around the desk area and I see an old iPod. There wasn't anything on it, so maybe it was something mom or dad used as a kid? No matter the reason, I quickly formulate the first objective of mine. I decide with the infinite knowledge I want to learn another language. But which ones should I pick? How many should I try. I look up audio Language lessions and I see a long list. French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and Arabic, among others.

Not quite sure of myself I downloaded a bunch of languages onto the ipod and started there.

After I decided to look up other stuff. From biology, to bibles, art techniques, anything that I thought could have a practical use at one point or another or I just found interesting. I hadn't finished highschool and I honestly couldn't think of anything else so on the spot. Make sure that everything was the same as the world I remembered. For all my planning, I utterly failed this attempt. But, it matters not, for I quickly was enamored by the super boring textbook PDFs. Finding them to be what they truly are, super boring, after about twenty minutes.

After a few hours if horsing around on the computer. I heard movement in the living room going towards my room, which was the signal that my parents were coming home soon, so I closed everything, covered my tracks, and retreated with Sir Snake and Mr. Truck.

Lizzy saw my pitiful attempt at running down the hallway and just chalked it up to me being a kid, but since I wasn't dead and she was getting paid who really cares.

I made a safe retreat into my lair and began relaying my information to the others, when I realized I left the iPod on the desk. I cursed myself, but there was no time to go back. I just turned to my toys and vented my frustrations, by talking to them. There are three branches to my toy hierarchy. The executives being Chika the bat, Miho the fox, and Joey the kangaroo. These branches are information protection, Infiltration and Defense. In Information protection We have Lady Pillow, and Mrs. blanket that work under Joey to keep items hidden, mainly from mom, since she is the biggest threat to my privacy because she cleans my room more than dad. In infiltration we have Mr. Truck, and Sir Snake to help with entering the rooms mommy and daddy feel like closing before they leave all under Chika. Then we have Defense, lead by Miho, with Mr. block man and Sir peelsalot.

For those of you who judge me for this, screw you. I have my reasons, first I'm a kid, and regardless of mental age I'm still a kid, and effected by the physical conditions of a kid. I currently am incapable of producing clear concise words yet so don't expect anything great from me. Second a child mindlessly blabbering to themselves is normal, but If they do it to stuffed animals it is more normal. To add to this I learned talking about a subject you just learned helps solidify it in your head, teaching someone makes it even better. Who better to teach than my stuffed animals. Third, these things have been with me essentially since I was born and I have a connection with them.

My parents returned and they peaked into my room to see me talking to my toys, with some extreme difficulty but still.

~ 6 months later~

Today I become two! Look out world a new terror has arrived! But in all seriousness though I'll try not to be too big a pain in the rear end for my parents. I can now successfully speak short sentences, but I prefer to keep quiet.

Over the past few months I've learned some new things. Firstly, I learned that languages are hard, even for children. I managed to successfully retrieved the iPod but soon gave up trying to remember multiple languages I just settled for Spanish, but even still it was a struggle. I still cannot read or write anything but I can relatively understand what the words mean, and a bit of the sentence structure.

I hadn't really had another opportunity to get access to the computer room after The first time, the second was just to retrieve the iPod which thankfully still had everything on it. Long story short, I couldn't get much new learning material, however, I did manage to procure a charging cable for the ipod after crawling around dad's desk while he was working.

I also learned that My dad is an assistant researcher for some science building, I think. That's why, he can stay home sometimes, because its all just imputing and analyzing data when he is home with me.

"Fenris come here." I heard my mother call me. Yes, I forgot to mention but my name is now Fenris, not Ester. I still think it's more a name for a pet than a child, but knowing my parents there are definitely worse things they could have named me. I think I might have died had the decided to name me Jormungandr,

mjornir, or something like thay I may have died on the spot. It's unfortunate that my father is as bad at naming as my mother, especially with a name like the one he has, or Maybe that's what makes him so oblivious to it.

I run over to my mother, who is sitting beside my father and a wrapped box and a small cake.

"Happy birthday big guy." I father said picking me up and placing me in a booster seat so I can see over the table. There was a big cake that said happy birthday Fen-Fen. That's my parents nickname for me. It's rather depressing I'd like to not talk about it.

" Mommy! daddy! Shank you." I yell. I really am happy, just being with them makes me gla

~ Three years later ~

I'm now officially five. And soon I'm going to be attending my first year of school. I could have attended preschool last year, but my parents found out about my ipod Shenanigans. Why is this important? Because after they found out they began to question where I got the ipod, how the things got downloaded onto it, and what all I learned.

I quickly formulated the lie that Lizzy helped me get the Ipod and that I was sorry for not telling them but Lizzy told me not to. After testing me in the parts I knew they thought I had real talent, even though I was purposely trying to limit the special I showed them for now. They organized for me to take some basic language classes while they were home, so I could further my pursuit in language.

This lies authenticity was tested only once when Lizzy first came back and my parents thanked her. We made eye contact before she responded, and quick to the uptake she took full responsibility for it. She also justified not having me tell them for the reason, saying it was " because I wasn't sure how you two would react." She apologized, and I now had a good way to get out of minor questions, I don't want to answer. She keeps ignoring me, I keep getting away with stuff and she gets paid, a fair trade if I do say so myself.

Onto the topic of school, I'm really not excited for it. I'm a little nervous, about meeting other kids my age because most of them are braindead idiots. It's not their fault though, starting from ground zero in intellect is probably an annoying obstacle, one I can't quite remember. Also, I went through majority of school already, so for what reason should I have to do it again.

All that's fine for now though because I have a few months before I have to deal with all of that. My real issue is coming later this evening.

Going back a little bit to my father's occupation, he is a scientist at a lab, that implies he works with a group of other scientist. Three cheers for basic deduction skills!

My father's friend, who is also one of his fellow researchers, was recently married. This wife of his had a daughter my age.

Now, bringing this full circle, his wife moved into his place from a little ways away and wanted to enroll her daughter into an activity to make new friends. My father heard about this from his friend, and now later today I'm scheduled for a tumbling class with this guy's daughter.

For those of you who don't know, tumbling is basically just gymnastics, sort of. That however is not the issue, the problem is that there will be other kids there. I haven't really met any friends before. When we go to the park the older kids rarely let me play with them and watching the younger kids around my age, convinced me that I shouldn't go to them either, so I would play with Mr. truck while dieing of boredom.

" Fenris, come here please, you need to get ready to go." I heard my mother call.

My descent into purgatory begins, tell my family I love them. Wait, their the ones forcing this. Tell my parents I hate them. No that's wrong too. Damn, can't even get my sarcastic dramaticism right.

I run over to my mother and she helps me get my shoes on, not that I need help or anything, and we leave our castle of cozy, to go to the most wretched place on earth. A social gathering.