Thomas was lost; in his 26 years of life, he had never felt this lost, which was saying something. One moment he was outside a bar, and the next thing he knew, everything he saw was black, not the black created from a shadow where there was still some light but the utter pitch black from nothing. Being unable to feel his body only added to the stress and even being unable to feel himself breathe unsettled him to his core, making him wonder if he was in some sort of coma.

“What’s this?” a deep voice sounded from behind him before the owner came into view, revealing a giant beast that seemed to be able to float in the void in front of him. With a long blue tail with a five-pointed trident at the tip that swayed endlessly, the beast seemed unnerved at his presence. With a body that he could only describe as a dragon, the beast floated in front of him with glowing blue gems at all its joints and lines of silver energy that seemed to join them together. Its light blue scale moulded into a dark blue-looking armour coming up to the chest, and despite having the body of a dragon, its face could be described as a dog's face with piercing blue eyes that shook him to his core.

“Lundarian, what have you found?” a similar yet different beast emerged from thin air. It had the face of a crocodile and was similar to the other one, now known as Lundarian. Its silver eyes held a pressure over him. The difference between the two is the colour of the scales as this beast had a grey metal colour that moulded into a bright silver armour piece for its chest, the gems that linked up its joints were glowing gold, and its tail was one long spike.

“It appears we have a lost soul in our territory. I don’t know how he arrived here; perhaps we should call Alaclipse. He might be able to help.”

“NO, he’s always so draining. I feel like a millennium goes by every time we meet '' somehow pulling an exasperated face, Lundarian complains about calling Alaclipse here. Thomas doesn’t know who this is but feels inclined to agree with him. A name like that doesn’t bode well for him.

“Solord, this is not something I can help with. It only stands to reason that we call for his help as this is his territory of expertise.”

Eventually, the one called Solord relented to calling Alaclipse and Thomas watched as a portal of red appeared in front of him and another similar yet different beast emerged. “What do you want? I’m quite busy compared to you two; many mortals are dying now, and I have a backlog of souls waiting to be cleansed, so unless this is important, I’ll be leav-”

Having finally noticed Thomas, he turned to face him, giving Thomas a better view of this dragon. This time the beast was a mixture of red into dark red, with its tail tipped with a morning star and red gems lining the beast. Its face was indeed that of a dragon, and its red eyes felt different compared to the other two; they just felt powerful, while these eyes felt like they stripped him bare. It didn’t feel good to be looked at like that considering he had just been talking of mortals dying and cleansing souls, but there was little he could do now.

“I see”, The beast spoke with intrigue before turning to his fellow dragons, “This soul is not from our plane, which begs the question of how it ended up here, but I imagine that's due to his impressive affinity for time and space.”

This statement seemed to upset the silver beast as he said, “Wait up, I would have noticed if there was a way for a soul to enter MY DOMAIN. It should be impossible regardless of his affinity; it is just a human soul.” The silver dragon moved closer to inspect him, and Thomas could see the doubt and curiosity that resided in his eyes.

“Well it seems there might be some holes in our dimension, regardless of their origin they need to be plugged.” said the blue beast emotionlessly while looking at the silver beast.

“Well, boy, here are your two options; you go through the normal reincarnation cycle and lose your memories, or we send you down to Cerillia with some of your affinities sealed and your memories intact” The red dragon took his attention. Thomas was left to ponder what was happening, but regardless of what he thought, option 2 was the only favourable one as he would still be himself.

“ So you will choose option 2, well that’s not a surprise. After all, what are we without our memories? But that can be both a blessing and a curse” after flashing a toothy grin, Thomas felt dizzy before the beasts disappeared from sight.

“Are you sure he wasn’t an agent of a foreign divinity with those affinities? I wouldn't be surprised,” questioned Lundarian, the sovereign of time.

“It's fine. I searched his soul, and there was no imprint there, but we will still keep him monitored, just in case. Solord, you need to find that gap in our dimension; one soul coming through isn’t much of a problem, but if more come through, the hole will only get bigger,” said Alaclipse before opening up a red portal to the land of souls.

“WAIT, you want me to search the whole dimension for one tiny crack in space?” asked Solord, almost sounding too hopeful that it wasn’t true.

“Yes” with that simple reply Alaclipse, the sovereign of death, left, leaving Solord looking quite pitiful for a giant silver crocodile.

“Cheer up. It can't be that hard, can it?” Asked Lundarian, unable to keep the worry out of his voice, all he got in return was a bitter smile from his brother, the sovereign of space, as only he would know how vast his search would be.

Thomas was left to ponder his existence and what had happened to him in what felt like an hour; he went from a bar to being surrounded by dragons to wherever this was.

Thomas started to think about what the dragon had said and concluded that he would be reborn, which must have meant that this was the womb. It was a nice and oddly relaxing place that seemed to naturally relieve some stress from him. After all, he just died.

But that relief was short-lived as he began to think about how long he would spend here. Was he reborn from the start and had to wait nine months, or was he starting from about 3-4 months through when a baby is adequately formed and just needs to grow?

Thinking about it now, he wonders if he's even a human, although there's no way to know yet. It was a strange concept knowing that he was in his mother's womb, as they were both a stranger and his mother simultaneously.

Thomas couldn’t help but think about his mother, how she would react after his death, to spend four years worrying that her son wouldn’t return, for her to be relieved once it was over only to have him die in the streets of his hometown. Thomas couldn’t help but worry for her, after all he was her only child and being a single mother, after he was gone she wouldn’t have anyone left. As he started to worry for his old mother, he also began to feel sorry for this new mother of his, thinking, ‘If I hadn’t asked to be reborn would she have had her own child with none of these worries, a child who could love her unconditionally which might be something that I can’t do.’

Time flew by, and before he knew it, Thomas was being evacuated from his shelter. Bracing himself to see the mole people he would have to call his family, he began to feel a sensory overload, the lights and the sounds were much more potent than he had ever felt, and he couldn’t control his new body before it started to cry.

Eventually calming down after feeling himself get passed around before settling in somebody's arms, he relaxes and opens his eyes. A tired-looking woman sat there looking down at him in her arms, her dark red eyes held a look of tiredness from childbirth, but nevertheless, he could see the love in them, just like his mother.

But he felt nothing for her. This woman was his mother and yet she felt like a stranger, feeling shame overcome him he began to cry as the stranger sang him a lullaby.

Waking up on his second day he feels the same and a rush of emotions overcome him, feeling like a stranger in his own body. The only thing he can do as a baby is cry and so that is what he does until he falls asleep, and he continues this cycle for a week.

After a week in this body, Thomas begins to calm down and accept his situation. Seeing the worry on people's faces whenever he starts to cry unsettled him, but now he has relaxed and can start to look around now.

He was currently sitting in a wooden cot, which wasn’t comfortable. His room was plain as it only seemed to hold the cot and a dresser to the side. The floor and ceiling seemed to be wood, and the walls looked like stone. Despite the old-fashioned layout, it wasn’t cold in here; there was a simple window that allowed him to see the rays of sunlight enter the room, but other than that, he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t a little cold.

Suddenly the door opened, and the people he thought were his parents entered; his father was a tall, handsome young man standing at 6’3. He had bright red eyes with darker red hair, his skin was an olive colour, and he had an athletic build, the woman who he thought was his mother stood a little shorter at what he guessed was 5’9 and had red eyes and hair that stood out against her pale skin tone, while she didn’t look as built as him she was definitely looking after herself and seemed to look a lot better now compared to the birth. The similarities between the two beckoned the question of whether he was a product of incest, but he decided to put these aside these thoughts as a new guest entered.

An old man slowly walked into the room, dressed in a red cloak covering his entire body, his white hair draped down his body, and although he was hunched over, he was just as tall as my mother, which meant he was an absolute giant if he stood upright. Using a strange cane with a glowing red ball at the handle, he sounded like thunder as he walked over to my cot.

Getting a closer look at his face as he hunched over the cot, Thomas could see his aged face. Still, despite the wrinkles, there were no other signs of ageing there. Oddly enough, he was wearing a red bandage across his eyes, leaving it a mystery as to how he could walk around the house. The old man reached up to his face to remove the bandage revealing his glowing red eyes with slit golden pupils.

‘Fuck even in a fantasy world I don’t think that's a good sign’, Thought Thomas as he stared directly into the old man's eyes, beginning to worry, thinking that he would be able to see that he wasn’t some new-born child and in fact a 26-year-old in a baby's body. Looking over to the only other people in the room, he sees that they are beckoning some sort of response from the older man, but he just continues to look directly at Thomas.

‘Fuck, will they see that I’m not just some baby? Will they kill me as some sort of demon spawn, wait judging from his eyes, they might kill me because I’m not a demon’ as all sorts of thoughts enter Thomas’ head, he begins to panic before seeing a smile on the old mans face as he turns to look to the parents before speaking. Judging from the look of relief on their faces, Thomas guesses it all went well, apart from the fact that he soiled himself at least.

It’s been over a year since Thomas was reborn, and he hasn’t done much at all except sit here in this cot and grow. He also discovered that his new name is Joseph, Joseph Moon, to be exact, and he’s actually of noble blood.

He also began to think that his parents were actually looking for a demon judging from his two siblings who loved to come here and poke and prod the young baby. Noah, who was currently seven, and Alice, who was four, loved to come in during play time and prod him to death talking about what they’d been doing during the day. As much as Joseph complained, he was glad as he could pick up the language a little bit from them.

He had also found out his parents' names, his father Alex Moon was the head of the house and had only been to see his child a couple of times since birth while his mother was called Katja Kumar Moon and judging from the triple barrel name he was in fact not a product of incest. He also noticed that there were no elders here. On his occasional trips around the house with his mother and siblings, he would see paintings of people who he believed were his grandparents, but from the look and his parents' faces when looking at the paintings, he guessed that they were no longer around.