Chapter 3: My Solace

'Fucking finally!!'

The being, who was evidently the baby in Alexandria Antigonus's stomach, cried out when its skin touched the cool external air.

On the one hand, the infant cried out in sorrow since the moment the cool air touched its skin once it was out of its mother's womb, which was filled with warm amniotic fluid that it bathed in for the previous months, it felt extremely cold and discombobulated.

And yet, its cries were also an expression of its joy.

When it first grew conscious of its surroundings, the baby had tried to work out where it was, but its little body would grow fatigued all too soon and the appealing clutches of drowsiness would lull it back into another long period of sleep.

Weeks went by, and finally, the foetus was able to hold its own against its debilitating bodily needs. Putting its underdeveloped but overqualified brain to use, it realised that it was inside a womb.

It was not breathing, but it felt oxygenated. It was not eating, but it felt sated. It was underwater, but it was not drowning. And the final nail in the coffin was the weird cord it felt protruding from where it assumed to be its belly button. It couldn't open its eyes, however, so all of its inferences were guesswork.

The issue with being an individual with an understanding of life outside the womb and a developed conscience, was that spending time in a womb, kicking, rolling and wriggling, to then finally sleep whenever you wanted, sounded only good in theory.

'But it's really fucking boring.'

Indeed, hence why the cry also contained the baby's immense relief at being released from its wickedly comfortable imprisonment.

'I've no doubt some oddballs and perverts would have enjoyed the experience, but I'm someone that needs something to do. I want to pursue dreams I make up in the heat of the moment. Floating in a womb like a lazy bum isn't my divine calling, as you can already guess.'

Putting aside pointless thoughts, the infant realised it had been a few minutes since it had escaped from its mother's imprisonment.

It felt as though it had been placed against something warm- possibly the bosom of the one who gave birth to it. He could not tell the cup size though, since every sensation just meshed into one feeling against its supple skin.

Despite the baby's obvious reprieve from the cold air while laying atop bare skin, it could not help but feel slightly unsettled.

'Ah, that's it! I haven't heard anyone speaking. I get that my mother may be too tired to speak, but where are the midwives? Where is the family? What era would I have to be reborn into that pregnant women were fated to give birth all alone?'

The infant felt slightly depressed at the bleak thought before it sighed. Its airways had just been inflated, so it was now breathing on its own, and sighs of disappointment were possible.

Suddenly, the baby stopped moving. Its little eyes had yet to open, but its thoughts were cycling through a tumultuous line of deductions.

'If I have been reborn in an age preceding the contemporary times, then the rate of maternal mortality is probably a lot higher. If I remember correctly, as many as four per cent of mothers died during childbirth just several centuries ago. Could my mother in this life… have died?'

What answered him was complete and utter silence. He lay on a woman's bosom, but it did not rise and fall. He was curled up within a pair of arms, but they did not move.

Nothing.

'I see. I guess it was not fated to be.'

The baby tried to convince itself that the coincidence was just a fact of life. He was not destined to have parents. Not in his last life. And he had a niggling feeling that this was the case for this life too.

It played off its sadness.

But its heart ached.

Around the duo of a deceased mother and grieving baby, a mirage-like hue appeared. The mirage slowly began to grow in resolution until faint particles could be made out.

The particles moved, as though enclosed within a confined area. They began to revolve around the pair until a slight golden radiance could be made out.

Second by second, the golden light became denser. The particles began to slow in their movements but continued to circle around the duo.

In all this time, the infant had not opened its eyes. But when it finally felt like the resistance on its eyelids had decreased to a minimum and a sudden light penetrated the thin membrane separating the pupil from the world, it opened its eyes and stared blankly at its surroundings.

Upon birth, a baby is usually unable to focus on objects, nor would it be able to make out objects that were more than several inches beyond it. But in the case of the baby, the intense golden aura almost suffocatingly surrounded it, so the baby could naturally see it.

'What… is this?'

The baby, despite being overwhelmed by what it was seeing, did not feel pressured. It was confusing, but the light had a calming effect on it, like the caress of a mother.

Unbeknownst to the baby who had trouble discerning the specifics of its environment besides the golden light, the shining particles inched closer to the woman who just gave birth.

They came closer and closer until they reached just beyond the skin of the mother. Upon the skin of the deceased woman, one would not be able to see anything, however, the golden particles were different to the human visual sense. They detected lifeless particles that were barely moving- as though they were reaching a level of motion at the point of absolute zero.

The golden particles made their way in between these particles and began to quiver. Like kids pestering their parents to come out and play with them, the little particles, which were brighter in colour but smaller in size than their almost stagnant counterparts, tried to coerce life back into the particles.

Initially, it seemed as though the effort of the particles was futile, but like a miracle, the rate of particle immobility was decreasing until there came a point in time when they began to move again.

They moved.

A little faster.

And faster.

Like a muscle shivering in the cold to heat up the body, the sapped-of-life particles were moving.

And still, the little baby in the arms of its mother remained ignorant of the miraculous turn of events occurring around it. It marvelled at the wondrous circumstance it had found itself in.

'Wait… This… is this a magical world?!'

Shocked to the core, the baby couldn't help but feel it was going through a rollercoaster of emotions in a single day. And since its day had yet to end, there was still room for a further surprise in the form of-

"Huuuuuup! Huuup!"

An audible gasp for air echoed within the small room that was once devoid of light and life.

A woman laying down on her back desperately inhaled a large volume of air like her life depended on it.

Her eyes shot wide open and she sat up extremely quickly, almost throwing the baby that rested on her large chest down to the cold ground.

Her hands quickly shot out and she caught the newborn baby, bringing it back into the confines of her rapidly warming skin.

Disorientated, and slightly out of focus, she looked down worriedly into the face of her baby. The baby had its eyes wide open, probably from the shock of being flung out earlier on.

When the woman noticed that the baby was safe and sound she let out a very deep sigh- a sigh jam-packed full of emotions. These emotions were mostly of relief and happiness.

'He's… alive.'

It was only when she was assured of her baby's health, did she realise where she was. She was now sitting upright on a bed in what should have been a fairly dark room.

However, what surrounded her and her baby was a flowing golden curtain of particles. The particles were slowly losing their lustre until they faded back into the background, where they continued to move but were out of sight of the visual sense.

Despite the withdrawal of the particles, the fantastical sight was etched deep within the mother's brain. She looked back down at her son who was lazily laying in her arms.

A fountain of happiness welled up within the mother who was staring at her child. It was probably a by-product of the oxytocin-mediated dopamine release that caused the mother to feel so good when holding her baby, but it did not matter to her.

The only thing that mattered to Alexandria Antigonus was that both she and her baby were alive and well.

Gathering her bearings, she rocked from side to side while holding the baby in her arms.

Tired from the entire birth process, and the train wreck of emotions it had endured, the infant immediately fell asleep in its mother's warm embrace.

Unlike her baby, the mother did not sleep. She just earnestly gazed out of a window at the peaceful night sky, with a rekindled glint within her eyes.

Looking back down at her arms, she knew she should handle the child with more care, but she couldn't help but bring his newborn face up to hers and rubbed their noses- one big and one small.

"My cute little baby boy. Haa… You are the sun that shone in my time of distress."

Making a soft prayer to the deity above under her breath, she uttered a name that would go on to change the world.

"You are my Solace."