It's that time... The time when I finally realized what I felt for her, I was such a fool for not realizing it earlier.
– 'Are you saying you love me?'
– 'Yes, Marcelle, I love you. I don't know why I couldn't say it, I've never felt love or received love before, because of my inexperience– I almost ruined the relationship that I'd built with you, I'm sorry Marcelle, I don't know why I'm like this, I swear I love you, I love you, I really do lo-'
The warmth of her body covers me as she hugs me– stops me from talking and kisses me.
– 'I love you too Edward.' she says to me as she caresses my cheek, her sweet voice soothing my soul, healing my heart from sorrow.
Tears roll down her sunken cheeks as she declares her love for me again and again and kisses me dearly.
____________________
I jolt awake.
Huff.. Huff..
My chest tightens with every breath. My skin's damp– sweat? tears? I don't know.
Her warmth... It's still lingering. Marcelle...
My fingers swipe at my eyes, but they just keep leaking.
The ceiling stares back– empty and flat. Just like me, except, my heart aches like it's been torn out and left to bleed.
This dream keeps.. it keeps haunting me.
I shake my head.
Stop thinking about it, Edward, you're only making it worse.
I turn my head, shifting my thoughts and my gaze around the room, distracting myself from this pricking feeling in my heart.
The people in this house are very odd. I was born in this room, and it seems like it's this room I'll keep living in. I haven't even seen my family, I have no idea what they look like. I've only been seeing maids.
It's been a month since I was born into this constant dilemma of depression and haunting dreams.
I'm learning little bits about my surroundings. Been learning for the past month. And one of the few things I know now is... my new name.
The person I'm learning them from...
"Oh, Charlie! You're awake my #cutie patootie#!"
Is her– Jennette, my Nanny. She's a bit...
"Oh- how #cute# you are!" Jennette squeezes my cheeks and kisses my nose.
...Bubbly, she's a bright and cheerful girl in her twenties, her neat brown hair and refined steps sometimes create an air of elegance around her, I wonder if she's truly a maid.
But all her refined elegance deflates whenever she's around me.
Her firm hands squeeze me tenderly as she lifts me from the creaking cradle made of wood and foam where I sleep and hugs me tightly.
"I was #just about# to wake you! It's time for breakfast, abububu!"
She keeps trying to play with me every single damn time! Even when I don't laugh and giggle with excitement like other babies.
"Okay, I made pudding! So eat up!"
Ow— damn it! My ears. She's yelling again, smiling like sunshine , like she didn't just make my eardrum reverberate.
Haaaah.
Pudding again... It's bizarre, I never thought there would be a day.. a day when I would die and get reborn as a baby, one being forced to eat pudding every single day.
The only time I eat something other than milk is during hot afternoons when she feeds me a weird tasting milk.
The pudding she feeds me.. it tastes so bad, but I swallow my disgust and still gulp the pudding down everytime because I have no teeth.
I tried starving myself. I swear I did– but that girl, she kept shoving that godawful pudding down my throat with that damn sunshine smile.
"Yay! You ate #two spoons today#! That's good Charlie!"
During the one month I've spent around her, I've learned the language of this place to a certain degree, but I don't know some words– no, many words.
The language is surprisingly similar to Mandarin so it was easy for me to pick up some of it.
But something that I'm not used to is the name she calls me. 'Charlie', it's the new name given to me by my new Father, and of course, I still don't know what he looks like.
Haaaah
The reality of my situation hits my heart again. Like a damn hammer. The fact that..
I'm no longer Edward Walters, the big-shot businessman, Expert Physicist and Millionaire. I'm now Charles Liam and I don't know the last name, but it's something along the lines of Fl##ew#r$h.
My current problem; Marcelle. Every single night she shows up in my dreams, reminding me of a love that I've lost. I try to forget, but I can't. It's killing me.
Worst thing is, I'm stuck in this room, just eating, pooping, drinking, doing nothing, getting used to my new name, trying to understand the language and gathering some basic information about my family.
Being a baby is tough, I respect babies now.
"Okay, All done!"
She says as she cleans me up, changes the pooped-filled clothing wrapped around my bum.
Yes– I pooped on myself, but it wasn't something I could control. But still, the humiliating feeling is far from gone. How would it go? I mean, I was once a man advising billionaires on investments to make and now I'm pooping on myself.
She puts fresh baby clothes on me, drops me back in my cradle that's somehow still hard despite the foam on it, and drops a few wooden toys for me to play with.
"You can #play# with #them#, I have to go #continue# my #research#"
Her lips curls up with a bright smile as she pats my head.
She strides on to the small wooden table about ten steps away from my cradle where she always neatly stacks some books and papers.
Creak.
She sits down on her creaking wooden chair, her focus heightens as her quill scratches on paper.
There's an 'I'm serious right now' frown on her face. Her back is straight, her shoulders broad and her eyes narrowed.
A maid? That can't be right.
As she focuses on writing and reading, she doesn't give off the vibe of a maid, she looks like an eloquent lady who has experience in multiple fields.
I turn my head– shifting my focus away from her, and the world around me turns dark as I shut my eyes.
From everything I've seen so far, only two conclusions make sense.
One: I was reborn in the past, to a time like the Victorian era or a more medieval time in a family in England. Based on the number of maids I see in a day, this might be a noble family.
Or...
Two: I've been reborn in another world that looks exactly like Earth, but their technology and civilization are still far behind Earth's and I was born into a noble family. It means I've been reincarnated.
I feel a chill crawl up my spine.
I gulp saliva down my dry throat, my breath hitches, my chest tightens, I wipe the cold liquid rolling down my temple– sweat.
Both of these options mean I'll never see my family again.
I've been trying to delude myself into thinking that it's impossible, but the evidence keeps flashing like a torchlight in my face.
Everybody I've met looks English, they don't look like Chinese people... but somehow their language sounds like Mandarin, and another valid evidence...
The moon. It's split– not cracked, no, it's cleaved like someone cut it perfectly with a blade.
A quarter of it was cleaved, and the two unequal halves orbit each other; casting eerie light like nothing I'd ever seen.
The day I saw that... It hit me, but I tried to deny it.
But even as I tried to deny it and delude myself, something deep down inside of me knew that... this wasn't earth. It's not my world.
All the plans I made to run away and search for Marcelle when I got a bit older have become invalid, I planned to stay with her, even if it meant that I had to change my identity and self and appear as another person, she always loved children and will never abandon a runaway child.
If it was the first conclusion I had, I'd have found a way to stay alive until the modern era. Until she gets reborn but, it's not even possible.
It's wicked, reality– it's truly wicked. It keeps stabbing my heart with it's sharp blades. The pain... It hurts.
It's impossible. It's all impossible.. I can't go back, I can't.. return to her. The only time I'll ever feel her warmth– that I'll eve feel her touch, is on nights that she appears in my dreams.
My heart keeps throbbing.
No, I don't want it to drop. I'm tired of it, I'm a grown man. But I can't stop it– the tears.
It's torture.
It keeps piling up– the pain, the sorrow, the grief shackled to my heart, all of it. Life keeps giving me reasons to shed tears.
Argh!!
Why? Why does fate choose to subject me to such pain?
Damn it. Damn it all, damn the universe, damn fate, damn it all!
I try hard to stop my cries from ringing out. I can't let Jennette find out that I'm crying, but..
Why? Why should I keep living a life like this?
Yes.. as I thought, it's better to die than to keep living with this pain.
But I can't kill myself now, I have no strength or means to do that, So I'd wait.. wait until I'm matured enough to end this torture. To end my own life.
I'd do it when I start walking...
If I don't have a 'why' to live, how can I survive the 'how'?
I clean the streaks of tears that runs down my cheek with my baby hands as I sniffle the snot in my nose.
I have resolved myself.