It started with light - Ethan blinked, then noticed someone staring down. A shape came into view before words could form. That face filled everything.
A figure hovered just overhead. Above, where light caught strands of her hair - pale gold, falling still beside her neck. Those eyes held no surface, only depth, a kind of eyes one might sink through slowly.
Her gaze stayed fixed on his, unblinking, while warmth spread across her lips in quiet form. Held within her grasp, cradled as though weight meant nothing. Motion came slow: forward, then back, never breaking rhythm.
From his spot, Ethan took in everything within reach of his eyes.
This place felt unfamiliar. His things were missing. The walls had different marks. Nothing matched what he remembered. A strange quiet filled the space instead.
Windows draped in heavy cloth broke the silence first. Carved wood held corners of the space, each piece shaped by hands long gone. Objects on the wall looked like something from a museum.
Everything about the place had the feel of something out of a historical film, the kind set hundreds of years in the past where everyone wore long coats and spoke in formal tones.
He glanced back toward the woman.
That grin hadn't left her face. Her arms kept swaying him slow. Motion steady, constant, one motion flowing into the next, as if this rhythm had long taken hold and wasn't ready to let go.
'Why is she smiling at me that way?' Ethan wondered. 'And why does she keep rocking me?'
Then another thought came right after the other.
'How is she carrying me so easily?'
He wasn't heavy. He knew that. But something about the way she held him felt wrong. Like he weighed almost nothing.
It didn't make sense. He wasn't a large man, true. Yet her arms carried him as if there were barely anything there. A hollow lift. Almost weightless. As though his body had forgotten how to take up space.
Up he pushed, limbs straining against the weight of confusion. Away from her hold he shifted, inching back like a shadow retreating at dawn.
His spine straightened, shaky but determined. Space opened between them, just enough to breathe, to see.
'Where am I?'
The thought crept in, slow and sharp.
'What is going on?'
It curled around his thoughts like smoke.
Nothing responded.
He tried again. Focused on his arms. Told his legs to move. Sent every signal he had but his body ignored all of it.
Then he looked at his hands.
It slammed into him before he had time to brace. Blank staring followed, his gaze locked tight on the sight ahead. That image held him still - too sudden to make sense of, too real to respond right away.
'WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?'
That was what he meant to say. Those were the exact words lined up and ready to come out of his mouth but what came out instead was something completely different.
"UUWUU GAWA BA."
Out of nowhere, the noise spread through the space. From him - somehow - it seemed to rise. His throat carried it, then his chest pushed it forward, lips shaping the exit. Yet that wasn't his voice at all. Never once had he produced that sound in his life.
A hand lifted, moving like it had a mind of its own. It came to rest on his cheek, heavy and quiet.
The little hand moved slow. Soft round skin under his palm, warm. The curve of a cheek, so small it fit just right. Each part felt too tiny. Far tinier than his normal face.
The answer settled over him like cold water.
He had been turned into a baby.
A silence settled around him. He sat with that thought for a moment. Turned it over and looked at it from every angle.
'Could this be real?' he wondered. 'Is my own mind playing tricks on me?'
No. He pushed that away immediately. 'This is too real for a dream. Her arms across my back. The cloth on my neck. The room feels too real and dreams never carry this much detail.'
Fragments scattered across his mind, yet he reached for them one by one.
He stood there beside Andrew, right at the edge. A crack ran through the earth, jagged and loud. Down he went, without sound. After that - only blackness.
Stars appeared, scattered like dust. They spelled something, slow and clear. Above, the world tilted. Buildings climbed fast into view.
'Did I fall off the cliff and die?'
The idea just stayed, out in the open.
'If I had died, how am I here. How am I anywhere. How am I a baby in a room that looks like it was from a different century being held by a woman he had never seen before in his life.'
'Did I get reincarnated?'
A thought dropped into his mind, lingered without asking permission.
That idea wasn't new to him. Anime showed it all the time - someone dies, then opens their eyes somewhere else, remembering everything.
Yet he never believed it could be real. Just stories used when writers wanted drama without consequences.
But here he was. A baby. In a room he didn't recognise. In a body he couldn't control and with no idea what world he had woken up in.
His eyes dropped to his palms again. Fingers brushed his cheekbone, slow. With every motion, the truth pressed harder into his chest.
Then the woman made a sound.
Up above, her face came into view. Words slipped from her lips, soft but clear, one after another without rush. His attention was fixed on every sound she made.
But the words coming from her mouth made no sense to Ethan at all.
'That woman is my mother', he realized while studying her eyes. 'It's got to be her. She's looking at me like that. She must be my mother in this world.'
Beauty clung to her features. Youth hung around her eyes. The kind of face that you will see and all your problems just fade away.
His eyes stayed on her expression while she adjusted his weight, moving just a bit. Then - her empty palm began sliding toward the opening of her gown.
He noticed what she was doing about one second before she did it.
The cloth slipped lower as she tugged it downward.
Ethan closed his eyes instantly.
'Cover up yourself, ma'am.' his mind whispered. 'Please.'
It came back to him suddenly. He was now a baby. She didn't know that the person inside this tiny body was a sixteen year old boy who was very much aware of what was happening right now.
He opened his eyes.
A soft-looking round breast moved toward his lips, a pale pink tip aimed right at his mouth. It drifted closer without hurry, filling his view with its gentle swell.
'No,' he thought. 'Stop. I am too old for this.'
Fingers trembling, he shoved against it. All his power poured into the motion, nothing held back.
Still nothing changed.
Small and new, his limbs flopped without purpose. His body was too weak to push it away from him. And there was nothing he could do but wait.