"Thea, dear! Your son is ready for you!" My father called out with a teasing smile. Whether that look on his face was for me or my mother I wasn't sure.

"Oh no, dear. I recognize that manic smile on William's face. He is most definitely acting like your son right now. It is so bad we might have even named him Edmond Junior." She seemed pleased as she said it, but then seemed annoyed as she approached me.

Should I feel insulted? I feel like I should feel insulted, as weird as that was. I figure if I'm going to constantly be feeling like a kid I might as well make the most of it. It might not be the most rational thing right now, but I have decided to at least pretend to be vaguely insulted by them trying to pass the blame for my actions to each other. Ironically annoyed, of course.

Still, there were more important things. I looked up at her with my best doe-eyed look I could manage. "First you need to stab me again so I can get to the next step of learning how to deal with death. I can't even start really power leveling until you are done."

" 'Power leveling', dear?" she asked questioningly.

My father broke in before I had to slog through the explanation again. "Apparently in his old world there were these games where you could grow in power. They played them on thinking machines that were the size of a large book!"

"What! But the power required for that sort of thing would be enormous!" My mother looked shocked at what my father had said. She also looked like she wasn't stabbing me.

"It was cheap!" I called out. "It only cost a few cents an hour to use, less than a crappy meal, even! Also, shouldn't you be..." I mimed toward her in a stabbing motion.

"Things aren't like that here..." my father said with a nod of his head. He then continued ahead, charging into my explanation with gusto. "Apparently they used miniaturization to reduce the energy costs but trying to miniaturize something like that here would just drive the cost up exponentially and the energy input required to run it would remain essentially the same! It is amazing what they ended up doing without access to Essence or any type of rarified matter!" My father was most definitely a researcher, which is why he used terms like 'rarified matter'.

"Just call them 'energy crystals', dear. Everyone else does." My mother was not a researcher, which was why she was not using those types of terms.

"Um, guys... Stabby stab, please!" They were ignoring me.

"Anyway these 'video games' would allow people to live a dreamlike life in another world where the rules of existence were sometimes completely different! And a certain clan of enlightened individuals would test their mental might and stamina in sometimes weeklong bouts of growth where sleep, sustenance, and hygiene would be sacrificed in order to be 'the best there ever was' and, in some cases, 'catch them all'! The highest echelons of this society were 'Grandmasters' who would compete before hundreds of thousands of spectators in brutal challenges to the death!"

Meh, close enough. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have sung him the Pokemon theme song.

My mother gave me a dubious look and I shrugged. She then turned to my father with a look that very clearly said to get on to the important part. But this was the important part! The worlds they came from before must have been boring without video games. Who would ever have wanted to live there?

My father, suitably chastised, continued. "Right, well. Once he found out about raising his attributes through use he got super excited and started asking about everything I would tell him! Apparently he was trying to figure out how to raise his power as quickly as possible! He even wants me to take him out hunting later!"

"Honey. He is one."

"Never too early to get started!"

"Age one."

"I'm not saying that he wouldn't need to do some training first!"

"One."

"It will be a bit difficult to find something weak enough for him, I admit, but not impossible."

"Mommy, can you stab me now?" I interjected.

She definitely looked like she wanted to stab someone. Unfortunately her glare was directed toward my hopeful father and not toward the hopeful me.

Finally she spoke. "Not until he can keep his clothes on."

"Totally fair!"

"And the death training will have to come first."

"Of course, dear."

"And none of your weird society friends."

"Only the normal ones, dear!"

She stared him down for a few more seconds before relenting and throwing up her hands. "Fine! Just make sure he is ready first."

He nodded eagerly with a giant smile on his face.

"I still don't get why dad couldn't stab me while you slept." I decided to explain. If I could get them to agree with it then I could maybe go twice as fast with the help of both of them instead of just the one.

Mother spoke up. "Sweetie, I have the abilities to tell when you are properly recovered. Your father does not." She glanced over at him as she spoke.

"Bah! That's an ability that I've never needed and probably never will!" My father waved his hand dismissively.

"He also wouldn't tell me about the different types of abilities," I tried to tattle on him, "but I did see a couple people doing weird glowing punches and then one fired a laser at the other and the second one disappeared and then reappeared behind the first and the first made some sort of barrier that the other one punched through but the first just charged up a BIGGER laser but the other one just dodged it again and punched the first! It was awesome!" Run on sentences be damned. I didn't used to get so excited about things but if I'm going to have to be a kid than at least I get to be excited like one!

In all seriousness it was an interesting fight and I learned a lot. There hadn't been just the one confrontation, as they seemed to be sparing, and I started to see some patterns as they went multiple times. Laser guy could put up barriers change the terrain by throwing huge boulders as well as his various lasers. Teleporty guy could heal, create some sort of short-ranged glowing line attack, and go intangible; though mostly he just teleported a lot. The second one was obviously the more experienced of the two and seemed to be teaching the other. Both could do those glowing punches, turn glowey to block attacks, and possibly fly? It was hard to tell sometimes what all they were doing.

I was pretty sure that those were the 'abilities' that my parents had been very conspicuously not talking about. I didn't know if you had to pick from a list or go to some sort of shrine to power up, but they looked interesting. Unfortunately my parents hadn't even told me why they weren’t telling me. It was extremely frustrating.

My mother glared at my father, apparently unhappy at what I had been watching. He just shrugged. "A couple of people decided to spar in the park. I was ready with a barrier the entire time."

"And what exactly did you tell him?"

"Um, guys. I'm right here", I tried saying, but then decided to shut up and listen. They were ignoring me and I was a bit curious if they would say something interesting. My dad had been tight lipped about what these 'abilities' were. I'd do almost anything to be like 'pew-pew, I'm a firin ma LAZER!', even if laser guy did loose over and over.

"I gave him some advice on how to train his attributes and some important skills to learn."

My mother continued glaring. “Like what?"

It occurs to me that my parents have a bad habit of talking over my head. To be fair, considering how much taller than me they are, this is quite easy to do. Unfortunately I barely understood what they were talking about, which kind of meant that they were succeeding. Drat.

My father shrugged off her glare, it was 'not very effective'. "Building, claiming, and martial arts."

It hadn't been that interesting. Apparently people could modify and combine bits of 'rarified matter' (energy crystals to the rest of the world) to build things which was creatively called 'Building'. Unfortunately he hadn't been able to show me anything at the time. 'Claiming' was just a fancy way of saying that, if you put enough Essence into something it would stick around if you died. He seemed to think it was more complicated than that, but didn't elaborate. Martial arts was mostly him pointing out how the people were avoiding each other with their movement and something about how there were different schools. It kind of sounded like normal martial arts except with superpowers.

I watched my mother's reaction to father's explanation. His attack was super effective! Critical damage to mother's annoyance! Alas, she is stubborn and pushed through with a loud sigh. "Why couldn't you have taught him something more important, like how to age up?" Age up? What was that supposed to mean?

"He will figure it out along the way, that shouldn't be a problem, and this will teach him valuable skills!"

She gave him a dubious look, but at least it wasn't annoyed. "Like what?"

I expected a lighthearted answer but instead my father got very serious. "Punching above his weight class."

There was a silence while whatever he just said started to sink in.

"Fine," she relented, and they both seemed to relax.

This seemed the perfect time to butt in with my own question. "Age up? What does that mean?"

"You didn't?... Of course you didn't tell him!" my mother said with an annoyed glare at my father. Technically she hadn't told me either. I'm starting to think that 'annoyed is her default attitude toward him. "People don't automatically grow older here. They only develop to the next stage when certain milestones have been reached."

Wait, if people don't naturally grow older... "Than do people not die of old age?"

"No, in fact there are some people I know personally who are several thousands of seasons old."

I stopped and stared at her. I'd known my fair share of people who died specifically of old age, the most meaningful had been grandparents and mentor, and now to hear that it just wasn't a thing? What am I even supposed to say to that? Is this part of why they call this place 'paradise'?

My mother continued patiently. "A season is usually 56 days long with a rare one being slightly longer or shorter. Most origin worlds have a year that is around over 364 days, so about six and a half equal your old year. You shouldn't be 'one year old' for a full one of your old years, though, we just call it that because children look and act somewhat like what we remember one year old children to be. At least that is true for those of us from worlds with average human lifespans."

This was all so extremely weird. Furthermore this makes no sense. How would you plant crops with seasons that short? Why not just call four seasons a 'year' even with it being so much shorter than our old years? "What? Why? How?" Nature shouldn't work like that. What type of a wonky planetary axis must this place have to change seasons in less than two months? And why was this revelation about the weirdness of Paradise so much more groundbreaking than everything else?

I knew what I was doing with even an instant worth of thought. I was trying to distract myself. I didn't want to think about my old life and those who had died; A couple friends, extended family, my late girlfriend from college, or just people in general. It was all too hard for me to forget that I had been there less than a week ago and now death, real death, just wasn't a thing.

I looked up at them with tears in my eyes, except that even that didn't make sense. All that is in the past, I have mourned and moved on, so why am I getting tearful now. I know my emotions have been all wonky since I got here, and my parents always say it is because I'm a kid, but this is just too much. "Dad, Mom. Why is this place so complicated? Why couldn’t this at least some of these things be real back home?”

My mother's face softened and she pulled me to her chest. "Oh, baby. Shh. It will be ok. Everything will be ok." She continued on, holding me close and trying to comfort me. It felt good when she held me but felt bad that I couldn't just control myself like I felt like I should be able to do.

My father gave me a complicated expression. I could tell that he wanted to help but he seemed unsure of himself or what he might say. Finally he spoke. "This world, its not so complex as some but more different than most. Knowing what you do from your old world, it is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you value your chance at life more than an ignorant child would, but a curse because you can't just think like a child despite looking and feeling like one."

His words helped me calm down. It didn't make the confusion and weirdness of the world go away, but somehow it helped to know that it was normal. At least, it helped to know that my thoughts were normal even if my emotions were out of order.

"Is there anything else that I should know about?" I decided to try to make a joke to calm down. "Giant worldwide conspiracies? Portals to other planets? Alien invaders? Secret Societies? Ninja assassins? Actual Gods? Godzilla monsters? Catgirls?"

My parents shared a look that very much did not fill me with confidence.

Then my father spoke. "Um, lets not worry about any of that for now. Ok?"

Really, that was his answer? Why does this confusion make me want to cry. I hate being a little baby. Now I'm crying again. This sucks.

My mother was right there and gave me a big hug. "Oh, poor baby. Are you tired? When was the last time you had a nap?"

My father gave a polite and embarrassed cough.

"That's not good. A growing little guy needs his sleep." She changed her tone and the next words seemed aimed dangerously at my father "Doesn't he..."

"But I don't want to sleep. I want to finish up with the death training so that I can start working on my abilities and whatever I need to do to 'level up' or whatever. Also now I really want to grow up so I won't keep crying all the time about every little thing."

"No, you need sleep. You can do all that stuff afterward."

"Will sleeping help me do other things like getting 'older', I want to get started on that as soon as possible." I said as my mother patted my back and I realized just how tired I was. At some point I realized how much I sounded like a kid refusing to go to bed even when they knew better. I remember wishing that I could go take a nap when I was an adult, and look at me now. This was not exactly how I expected that desire to play out, but beggers can't be choosers.

"Shh. It's ok. Time to sleep. Just get some sleep." She rocked me back and forth as she spoke and I could feel my eyes closing.

All I wanted was to get started moving forward, but instead I was taking a nappy. Being a baby sucks.