So, what exactly happens after death?

Before this moment, I admit that I didn’t really think about that much. I was a bit too busy with all the distractions of being alive, after all.

There was always school or work or friends or that brand new otome game to play. Who had the time to contemplate the unsolvable mysteries of life that deeply? I studied art, not philosophy, for a reason!

Well, even so, it’s not like I never thought about it. Of course I have. To be human is to be aware of your mortality, and just how close death can be at any moment. You always hope for that nice peaceful death in your sleep when you’re like ninety or something and surrounded by piles of money and grandchildren. But how often does that really happen?

You’re far more likely to end up like me: dead at the tender age of twenty-two, thanks to a traffic accident.

It’s not fair, not at all, to have your life cut so short.

Maybe someone out there up above agreed too, because the next thing I knew, I was here—-

In a strange new body that felt way too small, being cradled in unfamiliar arms and talked to in an equally unfamiliar language. A new chance at life, it seemed. 

Out of all the options, all the theories and religions that talked about what happened after death, I’d never expected this. Reincarnation would not have been my first choice for the true answer about the afterlife, but apparently it was the right one, after all.

Why else was I currently a baby, again, after just dying as a young woman?

-

Of course, while I may have solved the great mystery of the afterlife, I’ve found myself a new mystery too. Namely, why exactly do I remember my past life?

Everything I’ve ever read—admittedly not that much—about reincarnation said nothing about people remembering their past lives. 

Well, not like this anyway. There were those stories about people claiming or believing they remembered past lives. But… was it really like this? Did they know the moment they were born? Did they remember the moment they died, and the entire life they’d lived before that? Was I one of those people now, the that kind people called crazy? Even more crazily—were they all right, all along? 

I didn’t know the answer to any of these questions. I wasn’t sure if it really mattered, since knowing or not knowing the answers didn’t really do a thing to change my current situation.

Namely, the one where I was a grown woman suddenly turned into a baby again, and all that entailed...

Now, admittedly, I’ve had the same fantasy everyone has had every once in a while, where you wish you could go back to your childhood when everything was easier—-a time where bills did not even enter your purview and where your every need was tended to.

But the thing about dreams versus reality, as I’m sure you’ve seen the memes explain, was that the reality was very disappointing and not at all what you’ve built up in your head.

So, having the easy peasy, no worries life of a baby again?

Yeah, it was definitely not so fun, and definitely not a great start to the “next great adventure” that was my apparent afterlife.

-

There was a reason people didn’t usually remember being a baby, aside from the obvious ones, of course. For one, it was really, really boring. There just wasn’t exactly a lot of variation in the day to day life of a baby.

Eat. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Admittedly, it was kind of nice at first, like a vacation of sorts, compared to the somewhat hectic pace of life I’d kept before. There were no deadlines here, no staying up til the early hours or skipping meals just to get that work done anymore.

But, boy, did it get old fast. I was never the kind who could stay still without any stimulation for long. I was always drawing or writing or doing something to fill that itch inside me. The only time I didn’t feel that was when I was asleep.

Speaking of, I came to crave sleep pretty desperately, not only because my baby body needed it, but because it was my only escape from the endless tedium.

In my sleep, I could at least dream, and there, I was not trapped as a helpless babe who could not move a single step from my bed.

It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d skipped to the fun, able-to-move-around-and-explore kid stage, or even the able-to-crawl-on-the-damned-floor toddler stage. Instead, I was stuck as the helpless baby who had to suffer the embarrassment of having her diaper changed and needing to suck on her “mother”’s breast all over again.

Not. Fun. At. All.

-

Oh, another downside to going from adult to baby again?

The way it messed with your mind and perceptions, of, well, everything.

Quite obviously, there were incredibly vast physical differences between the two, from the tiny physical body, to the pretty terrible senses. I couldn’t really see much of anything, and my hearing was only marginally better. Everything was too sensitive, and if I tried to focus too much, it only hurt.

It didn’t help that nothing was familiar and everything confused me, making it that much harder to concentrate. Though I wasn’t a hundred percent certain yet, I was pretty sure the language I was hearing spoken around me was not one I understood at all. Even more worryingly, it was not one I had ever heard of. It wasn’t English, Spanish, Japanese, or any of the common languages I knew of.

So, I was probably halfway across the world from where I was born in my first life, then. Not ideal. But I suppose that made for a better adventure?

I was going to try to be optimistic about this whole ordeal, even if that task was getting increasingly harder, especially with each new revelation that seemed to pop up.

-

The next thing I noticed was thanks to my sense of touch, which had been heightened thanks to my lack of other senses. 

Basically, I was realizing how rough everything was. My diaper was some kind of itchy textured cloth, and the shirt that brushed up against my sensitive skin whenever my “mother” carried or nursed me was of similarly low quality.

So, I was also probably born to a poor family, then.

The stretches of time where I was left alone to my own devices, with my needs not yet tended to, supported this. It was obvious my parents cared about me, because when they did tend to my needs, they would soothe me, showering me in physical affection and whispering words I did not understand but could easily gleam the meaning behind. 

From this, I could easily conclude that they weren’t occasionally ignoring me because they didn’t care. Instead, they were occasionally ignoring me simply because they had no choice in the matter.

So, I was now a baby from a poor, busy family.

Not exactly great news. I definitely didn’t win the lottery this lifetime either, clearly.

But I was trying to be optimistic, wasn’t I?

At least my parents did love and care about me. Considering all the terrible alternatives out there, this was definitely good news. Money wasn’t everything anyway, right?

-

Definitely not, as my next discovery proved.

-

Now, the third revelation was definitely the biggest one, by a mile, and really, basically turned all my other revelations upside down.

It was all thanks to a sense I never even possessed in my previous life, which, really, was all the hint I should’ve needed.

Basically, from the moment I’d been born into this strange new world, I’d felt this weird tingle inside me. It was an indescribable sort of sensation. No metaphor could properly capture it, really, but it was sort of like my blood seemed to sing, sometimes? It was like feeling a shiver run down my spine or goosebumps from the cold. Yet all, somehow, more.

I could feel it in the air, and I could feel it inside me, but I had no idea what “it” was, exactly.

So, basically, I just ignored it.

In my defense, I was rather distracted by a lot of things, and it was pretty easy to ignore the sensation, since it was really only noticeable when you focused on it. I was pretty sure the only reason I even noticed in the first place was because I’d never felt it before.

Yeah, yeah, that was another huge hint, I get it. I was being kind of an idiot, but in my defense, I was a baby, after all.

Anyway, I’m sure you can guess by now just where I’m going with all this.

That tingly, indescribable sensation that was nowhere to be found in my past life?

That was magic.

-

And, idiot that I am, I only realized it when I woke up one day and a surge of wind burst from my own baby hands.

Even then, I half-believed it was all just a dream too, that I’d simply fallen asleep mid-thought as I’d done before, but then, I realized—the tingly feeling I’d felt and ignored was finally gone.

It had disappeared as soon as the wind I’d somehow summoned had dissipated.

So, yeah. Magic.

Maybe I did win the lottery in this life, after all.