It didn't hurt, dying.
It's not the way I thought it might be. No bright light. No tunnel. Just… silence. A sharp pressure, a flutter, and then, nothing.
But after the silence came something else. Not peace, not sleep, not nothing.
Awareness.
Thin at first. Like trying to think through fog. Static thoughts flickering like faulty wiring. Disconnected, half-formed.
I couldn't tell where I was or even what I was, but I could feel it, not with precision.
More like the weight of water on skin. A thick, muffled sense of everything happening at once. Every ripple, every shift, every thump of some far-off drum that I would come to recognize as a heartbeat of hers, not mine.
I wasn't gone.
I was back.
And it was real. As real as the pressure around me. As real as the faint glow of light filtered through skin. As real as the chemical traces drifting into me—sweet, sour, bitter.
I was in the womb.
Conscious. Trapped in a forming body with the memories of another life curled up in my chest like a secret.
Reincarnation.
The word itself felt ridiculous. Like something from the books I used to read to pass the time, a fantasy I once wished for during long, quiet nights of regret.
And now I was living it. Really living it.
I didn't know why I had been reincarnated.
A god? A judge? An audience? Was this second chance a gift? Or was I entertainment? A divine experiment?
Maybe I was some celestial joke—a re-run of a failed life just to see how badly it could end again. Perhaps the universe was kind, or bored, or cruel.
I had no way of knowing, just constant paranoia that this could all be a dream or that my life had been orchestrated from the beginning.
Right now, I was nothing more than a cluster of thoughts in a developing body. But already, I was more alive than I'd felt in years. Without a phone or computer to consume my focus, I was forced to think and regret constantly.
And with that realization came the oddest part:
I could feel everything. Not sharply—nothing had edges here—but in a deep, dull way. It was like being submerged, every nerve wrapped in static. Pressure on every side. Muscles tightening. Fluids shifting. Her body didn't just carry me; it surrounded me. It protected me.
The womb wasn't warm in the romantic sense. It was dense, intimate, and constant. Sometimes, it felt like being smothered by softness. It was never painful, just… absolute.
My own body felt foreign. Arms that twitched without permission. Legs that kicked unasked. I didn't control them, not really. Sometimes, my hand would brush my face, and I'd jolt like I'd been touched by a stranger. Nerves lit up at random. My spine pulsed with the aching stretch of growth.
I was still being built. Growing in the darkness, I've come to see as a home.
And all the while, she was there. Her presence wasn't something I saw; it was something I felt: the bounce of her step, the quickening of her breath when she rushed, the slow, gentle tide of sleep. She was my environment, my ecosystem, my world.
Sometimes, she cried, and I felt it like a heavy and deep storm. When she laughed, my whole world would shake in the most beautiful way, vibrating like music played through bone. I didn't know her name, but I knew her, my mother.
Her hums were tides I drifted with. Her heartbeat was a constant companion, louder and more familiar than my own. Sometimes, she'd pause, her hand pressed to her belly, and I'd feel her wonder.
She had no idea who I really was. She didn't know I'd already lived. That I'd already failed. That I was already broken.
That thought hit harder than death had. Because in that old life… I wasted everything.
I didn't pay attention during school, so I failed most of my subjects. After school, I never found a job I could keep without leaving. I had no passion, no purpose.
My life didn't have a great tragedy, no crash or fire. Just a slow slide into numbness. A man who lived on autopilot. Drifted through jobs he didn't love. Let the woman he did slip away. Avoided hard choices until life made them for him.
I remember dying alone. The staleness of the air, the way time evaporated around my body like I had never mattered in the first place.
And the worst part?
I didn't care.
I wasn't scared, heartbroken, or angry. I was just… nothing. The numbness I'd lived in swallowed me whole. I imagine there was no funeral, no flowers, and no family standing in the rain. I doubt anyone noticed right away, maybe a neighbour, after the smell.
The man I was—that ghost—isn't someone I mourn.
He's someone I pity.
And now?
Now I was here. Helpless. Forming. With every thought sharpening and every memory returning piece by piece.
This should've felt like a miracle. Instead, it felt terrifying.
Because this time, there'd be no excuse. No, "I didn't know better." No blaming youth, or pain, or confusion. I'd know.
If I messed it up again and let this second chance become just another wasted story, that would be it for good. I don't know if I'll get another.
But I had time now. So much of it.
Time to reflect. Time to regret. Time to heal. Time to plan. Time to feel every stage of becoming. Time to remember the life I lost… and the one I still wanted.
Sleep wasn't sleep. Not yet. It was more like drifting in and out of conscious thought. My mind would go blank and then return, more complete. Thoughts more complex and agile. A finger I could finally move. A foot that kicked when I meant it to. A little more me each time.
And in that endless stillness, a promise formed. Quiet at first.
Don't waste it again.
Over time, it hardened. Became resolve.
I'd always wanted a family—not to fix myself, not to chase some image of happiness, just to give, to build something—a home, a laugh-filled kitchen, a reason to wake up.
Even at my lowest, I held onto that dream like a lighthouse in the dark. Now, I was floating in the calm before the storm of birth, and all I could do was imagine it. Visualize it.
But now, something was changing. The pressure had shifted. The rhythm of her body—once steady and slow—was speeding up. I could feel her tension, her breath shortening, her muscles tightening around me, and a restlessness in the air.
It was coming.
Birth.
The strange comfort of the womb had become unfamiliar and unpredictable. A squeeze, then release. Then again—harder. Stronger. My world convulsed—not violently, not yet, but it was building.
I was being pushed toward something I couldn't stop.
Fear surged—primal, ancient. My forming heart thudded harder than ever before. My body, still so incomplete, began to panic without words.
This is it. This is the end of this beginning. The doorway out.
And what's on the other side? I didn't know. Not truly. I only knew that it would hurt. That it would be loud and cold and bright. That it would rip me from everything I'd come to understand as safety.
For a second, I wanted to resist. To stay here in the quiet dark and delay whatever came next.
But then I remembered my vow.
I remembered the life I wanted, the one I missed, and the one I hadn't earned.
I didn't know where I'd end up. Rich or poor. Loved or forgotten. But I knew one thing:
This was my second shot. And this time, I'd try. No more drifting. No more hiding. Not a hollow resolution. Not some midnight promise whispered after too many drinks.
A vow.
To grow up. To stay. To love without fear. To become the kind of man I once wished I could be. Strong, confident, reliable, respectable.
Even if the first breaths burned, even if the light hurt my forming eyes, even if the world roared the moment I entered it—I would hold on. I would begin.
And then something shifted. The quiet wasn't peaceful anymore, and I didn't know if I was ready.
Right now, I was nothing more than a flickering mind in a forming body.
But I was growing in more ways than one. And this time, I wasn't going to scroll past life like it was someone else's story.
This one's mine.
And I'm going to write every page.