Something had to be going terribly wrong.
The pressure suffocating me from all angles overwhelmed my senses like torture designed by some sadistic god. I felt my fat melting under the heat, my muscles tearing like wet paper, and my bones crushing under an invisible but relentless force. The pain was indescribable, more intense than anything I could recall from my previous life.
My muscles seemed to disintegrate fiber by fiber, and my bones creaked under that supernatural force enveloping me. My flesh twisted with every involuntary movement, unable to shield me from the agony wrapping me like a cocoon of suffering. I thought this must be what hell itself felt like.
Instinctively, I wanted to scream to release some of this internal torture. But something stopped me cold: a thick liquid threatened to flood my lungs like a promise of death by drowning.
I realized screaming would not only be futile but would put my survival inmediata en peligro. With superhuman effort, I suppressed the scream fighting to escape my throat like a caged animal.
Suddenly, I felt an unbearable pressure concentrating in my skull. It was as if my head were being crushed in a hydraulic press, as if my brain were being extracted through my nose and eyes with red-hot tongs. The pain was so intense that, for a moment, I considered wrapping the umbilical cord around my neck to end this nightmare once and for all.
Then I heard a soft cry, like the moan of a woman in agony. Wait… umbilical cord? Crying? Only then did reality hit me like a hammer. I was being born. I was a baby entering the world.
Curiously, my first thought wasn't panic or existential disbelief. Instead, I found myself reflecting with almost clinical objectivity: "So, the famous light at the end of the tunnel is actually the one coming through the vagina…"
I couldn't believe childbirth was such a painful process for both parties involved. Did every human have to endure this particular hell just for the privilege of existing?
It seemed incredible that humanity had continued reproducing for millennia using this brutally inefficient method. The only reason I didn't succumb to despair was my mother.
I could feel her labor pains not only in my own internal groans but also in the violent contractions of the uterine walls surrounding me like clenching fists.
I wasn't alone in this desperate struggle; my mother was with me, enduring her own version of this torture. Amid tears I could feel like warm rain, the woman summoned strength from some deep part of her being, and the pressure threatening to crush me shifted direction abruptly.
In the decisive moment, I added my feeble efforts to hers, though I recognized they were the pathetic struggles of a newly formed infant. When my skull finally escaped the birth canal like a cannonball, I let out the scream I had been holding throughout this infernal experience.
A sea of stars passed before my closed eyes, transforming into a blurry symphony of colors dancing like auroras, only to be abruptly replaced by a blinding light that forced me to shut my eyelids tightly. For the first time in this new existence, I could cry freely.
But gradually, the world around me began to clarify, like a photograph slowly developing.
Upon cautiously opening my eyes again, the first thing that hit me was a blinding light that made me squint uncomfortably as I tried to focus my blurry, unfocused vision.
I saw a small arm flailing uncontrollably in front of me. It took several moments to realize that arm belonged to me, though I still didn't feel it as part of my being.
My body was entirely beyond my conscious control, performing only reflex movements in response to external stimuli. I recalled what modern science from my previous world explained: this was due to the immature brain activity of a newborn. They were right: my brain hadn't yet matured enough to exert voluntary control.
With considerable effort, I directed my gaze toward the figure watching me from above. My still-developing vision only caught blurry a shadow of their face. My hearing offered little improvement in clarity.
I decided to analyze my immediate surroundings, as it seemed the only productive thing I could do under the circumstances.
Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the ambient brightness.
It seemed I had been born in the middle of some satanic summoning ritual, for the room was lit only by a pair of flickering candles, and we were on the floor atop an improvised bed of yellowish straw.
As she held me with utmost care, a woman of astonishing beauty gazed at me. She had long, silky hair of reddish-gold and dazzling green eyes that shone like polished emeralds under water.
She radiated a warmth entirely unfamiliar to me, something that drew you in unnoticed, like the gravity of a benevolent planet. Her lips, natural and unadorned, made her seem like an angel descended from paradise. I could almost visualize a golden halo floating above her head like a celestial crown.
I reached out my tiny hands toward her, longing to touch this divine being who had appeared in my new existence, and found another hand slowly wrapping around mine with infinite gentleness. Her pale but radiant face filled with pure love as her hand softly caressed my cheek with the tenderness of a feather.
Then my mother lowered her shirt, revealing her bare breast, before gently pressing my face against it.
I couldn't understand the words she whispered, but I perfectly grasped the intention behind her actions.
It was fascinating to feel my mouth move instinctively as it pressed against my mother's warm breast. It was an entirely involuntary movement, like my uncontrollable arms and legs, and I felt like a newborn animal seeking shelter and sustenance.
I felt a warm, comforting liquid flow down my throat without discerning much of its specific taste, as if I were drinking pure water just after waking in the morning following a long drought.
I could focus solely on drinking breast milk because my limbs weren't moving erratically, thanks to my mother wrapping me in a soft blanket, like a protective cocoon shielding a butterfly before its first flight into the world, while she carefully supported my fragile neck as my esophagus filled amid the purest love I had ever experienced.
I didn't pull my lips from my mother's breast until I could drink no more, and my lips stopped moving reflexively when I felt completely satiated and at peace.
My mother lifted me gently and began patting my back rhythmically. I thought something was stuck in my stomach, but it turned out to be just a burp. I felt renewed and relieved, and the woman's crystalline laughter was heavenly music to my ears, like the song of a benevolent siren, as my eyelids grew heavy with satisfaction.
On the second day of my new existence, my world changed completely.