‘What a fucking nightmare.’ Derrick thought as he slowly regained consciousness. He stretched a little and blindly groped for his phone. When he couldn’t feel it or even the nightstand he tried to open his eyes. However, all he saw was darkness. Before he even had a chance to freak out he felt a strong pressure pushing him from below. Derrick’s mind was reeling from everything that had and is currently happening for a moment he froze up completely. Then after a couple of minutes he relaxed as he came to the only plausible explanation, ‘I must still be dreaming. Though I have to say this is probably one of the most fucked up dreams I have ever had. I wonder what kind of issues this represents?’

While coming to a ‘reasonable’ solution, he relaxed his body. As soon as he did another strong wave of pressure came and then he felt a little less pressure at least on his head. Another few seconds and all the pressure was gone. ‘See acceptance is the only way. Relax and everything will work out right? Okay time to wake up now. Open the eyes and… Nope! Close the eyes and try again. Okay count of three Derrick. Let’s do this! 1… 2… 3!’ Derrick’s mind blanked again but he kept his eyes open.

While he couldn’t see that clearly he could still make out shapes. Even though the details were a little blurry it was kind of hard to miss the apparently 30 some-odd foot tall (9-10 meter) person wrapping him in something warm and soft. Derrick in his stupor let slip out a nice explicative or well attempted to. “Ho-lee Fuuuck.” However, it was completely unintelligible more like “buuubuuuububub.” Facing such an overwhelming juxtaposition of what was expected vs. what was experienced overloaded his mind to which he promptly lost consciousness again.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Josephine and her two daughters had been working as midwives and childbirth assistants for over 5 winters now. Today they were helping Allyce give birth to her and Davian’s first child. Allyce was a fairly unatractive young woman by society’s standards. She had a lean and athletic body with no extra fat and no excess muscles. Her hair was a deep red with starkly contrasting ice blue eyes. Everything had gone pretty much as expected, a somewhat long labor but typical for a first child. However, once the child was born he exhibited the strangest behaviour that Josephine had ever seen. Never in all the winters as being either an assistant or the midwife had she seen a child open it’s eyes look at her and then shut them as tight as it could, only to open them a few moments later and then let out some baby talk and then go straight to sleep. While she was a professional at this, it still caused her to pause.

“Is there something wrong with my child.” Allyce asked with some worry evident through her exhaustion.

“Ah.. no. He is a very healthy baby. Good skin color, five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. There looks to be nothing wrong with him Miss Allyce. He has already gone to sleep but you should still nurse him while we finish up.” Josephine told her while handing the sleeping child over to the new mother. Pausing to watch the face as Allyce saw her first child, it was the moment that Josephine enjoyed the most about being a midwife. Seeing her two daughters stop as well to enjoy this scene brought a smile to her face. She waited a few seconds to allow her youngest to appreciate this scene as well before saying “Akeria, go and fetch Mr. Davian so he can see his first born son.”

Akeria headed out promptly and brought in a strapping young man not more than 21 winters old. He had black hair with the tips ending in blue highlights. His steel grey eyes which contrasted sharpy with his hair, giving him a very striking appearance. When he came in there was worry and hope apparent on his face as he hurried to his wife’s side.

“Take a look at our son Davian.” Allyce said with many emotions coloring her voice. Love, pride, happiness, satisfaction, and more that she couldn’t even fully understand. Filled so much by them that even the exhaustion had taken a back seat. “What should we name him?”

Davian took a moment to look at his son after smiling at his wife. “How about… Endrian?”

“That sounds like a wonderful name, dear.” As they decided on a name Allyce started to feel how tired she was.

Josephine noticing this said to Davian that his wife would be fine they would spend some time to help her recover and take care of the rest of the childbirth process. She also let him know that it was alright to send in the other wives and daughters so they could meet the newest addition to the family. He should go and get some food for her after that so that when she wakes she will have something to eat and drink to help replenish her energy. Davian nodded dumbly and hurried out of the room to take care of his tasks.

*~*~*~*~*

It’s been about a couple of days since Endrian’s/Derrick’s birthday, at least as far as he can tell. After waking up the day after he was apparently born, he went through the five stages of acceptance. There was a lot of denial which included tons of reasons this couldn’t be possible, even with the irrefutable evidence in front of him. Nothing like having a baby’s body to force you to come to terms with being reborn. Then came the anger which was a mixture of his body’s inability to do pretty much anything and the inability to control his life or even communicate. Next was a brief moment of grief for dying and losing his old life and family. This also created something of an existential crisis for him which lead to depression and questioning his reality. Finally after fighting with himself he came to accept the reality that was forced upon him. After all it could be worse, he could be burning in hell for all of eternity like his ex-wife would have wished for.

This did, however, make him really start to question his views on life, reality, spirituality and more. As a scientist there was no proof of life existing after death, no proof of a god or gods. Nothing that was substantial enough to make him believe in religion. He was more of an agnostic than anything; not following any specific religion though he did kind of believe in karma and the possibility of reincarnation. But the dogma that was spouted at most churches that he ever went to or the happy horse crap that was spouted by most people that believed in it, that was something he didn’t agree with. Now, however, he was literally living proof of it. This really brought his world view and concepts of reality into question. As a scientist and engineer his mind was intrigued but presently he could do nothing about it.

Since he had finally accepted the fact that he was actually reborn, he resolved to make the most out of this new life that he could. He remembered all of his past regrets and vowed to do his best to not replicate them again in this life. With these thoughts in mind he decided to make a mental list of things to do.

Work on Mobility Work on potty training Learn the local language Gather information

Those were the immediate goals. Though, even if he said it was immediate these goals should probably take about 2-3 years at minimum. After these goals were accomplished he would stop and reevaluate what he needed to do.

While these goals were all well and good he couldn’t even wipe his own ass yet. However, once a goal was set you should always try to make some progress towards that goal even if it is miniscule. So, Endrian worked his muscles in a tensing and relaxing manner to help strengthen them as soon as possible. He did this as often as he could while resting and eating the remaining time. Speaking of eating, while there was some initial awkwardness he got over it as quickly as he could since he didn’t have a whole lot of choices.

Over the course of the next few weeks Endrian dedicated himself to improving his body as quickly as he could. By the time he was one to two months old, at least as far as he could tell, he was able to roll over and start crawling around. While he knew that from his previous experience if the people of this planet, world, universe… whatever, he didn’t know or really care right now. If it followed the same logic as his last world then he would probably be viewed as abnormal. However, all parents feel that their children are amazing and he wanted to be mobile. Plus he didn’t have a clue about the common sense of this reality that he was in so he figured he would do what he could and then tone it down if necessary.

During this time when he was training he was carried around by his mother while she ran errands. He was taken in a swaddle that she carried on her back, kind of like a native american papoose, so he was able to observe some of his surroundings at least. What he found did not give him much hope for the future. The houses appeared to be made from either stone, dried mud, wood, or a combination thereof. There were no signs of electricity, like lights, outlets or any technology. There were glass windows on some of the houses that he saw, so they apparently knew how to make glass which at least attested to some level of civilization. On the front of many houses there were different types of awnings covering crude benches that were displaying different wares. Most of the houses that he was able to see had a door that used a latch and and rope to open. While he didn’t know about other houses, inside his they had some kind of leather cloth hanging in the doorways.

The clothes that he was wearing and that he could see others wearing were rough spun wool or animal hides. So as best as he could figure it, he was in some place that was as technologically advanced as the Roman empire. Maybe not even that much. He hasn’t seen the whole town but it doesn’t appear to be large. Possibly not even a town level, maybe just a village. While this was all intellectually interesting and somewhat depressing, goodbye 2000 years of advancements, there was something that did catch his attention on one of their excursions. That was when a bell started ringing. Endrian’s mother took off towards their home at a pace similar to a car in a city. Also before they got to their house he was able to see what looked like the city guard rushing perpendicular to his mom’s path. He only caught a glimpse of them but it was like some Naruto video. They were jumping from rooftop to rooftop crossing 10 meter gaps like they were hopping over a shallow creek. He just wished that his eyesight was a little better because all he could see were fast moving blurry shapes. It was amazing and exciting, at least until he heard a massive roar and a blue hazy shield appeared in the sky. At which point he figuratively and literally had the shit scared out of him. Ah the joys of not being able to control your own bowel.