It was about a week after I first realized I was in another body, I still couldn't move, and I surely could not control this new body. I was piecing together important information through observation, fragmented memory, and telling meaning from the five-sense input I was receiving. I was aware that before discussing the world outside, the most important first step was finding out who I was now or whose body I was in.
This child is named Liam; a simple name, usual for a remote village, and easy to use as a direct nickname. He was about nine years old though it wasn't officially recorded on any calendar or document, they just called him that. Though it felt natural to me, it still wasn't enough to grasp what they were saying; the style resembled a language from a Germanic region, and some words look like English. He was about 130 centimeters tall; I knew because I had measured his shadow while standing next to the grain cart, which was usually about the height of an adult's waist. He weighed about 25 kilograms; his body was slender with prominent bones in the elbows and shoulders, indicating a lack of nutrition or excessive physical activity without a balanced intake.
His hair is jet black and straight, with a silky texture that seems to have never been touched by a comb; but precisely because of that his appearance creates a natural impression that is almost too perfect for a village child. The hairstyle fell on two sides following the temples of the forehead, separated in two at the center of the forehead that formed a pattern like a falling curtain. Curtain hairstyle… That's what it's called in my old world. But the difference here is that there are no hair products, no stylists, no fancy mirrors. Everything is created as if the universe intentionally provided Liam a face that is serene, presentable, and full of aesthetic possibilities without any effort on behalf of its owner; people tend to not care about him, while when looked at seriously he has a kind of mysterious mysticism.
After understanding the identity of this body, I began to pay attention to the surroundings. The world Liam lived in wasn't very complex but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting, the location of my current existence was a small village located quite far away from any government centers or cities. There are no tall stone buildings, no paved roads, no post system or armed guards.
The northern part of the village was surrounded by a dense forest that rose like a natural green wall, the forest is both a geographical boundary and a wall of protection against threats. On the other side of the southern border are fields with many crops, but with wheat being the most abundant; as shown by the swath of gold over most of the fields. Instead of the calendar or clock, days are determined by the sowing season and harvesting season; at least that's what I know so far.
The government of the village operates without elaborate bureaucracy and all know their place. The head of the village government are either elected by popular vote, or they have been appointed due to long experience and have earned respect by the people; there are no wealthy merchants, no hereditary aristocrats, just old men who are trusted by peoples. This system makes for a warm, yet solid hierarchy. Below the Village Head are a handful of key individuals such as artisans, who lived off their skills; but their numbers were disproportionate to the majority of villagers who worked as farmers or herders, they lived off what could be grown and guarded, not off taxes or big trade. There are no armored guards or armed martial arts trainers, security is done on a rotating basis by men.
In the past seven days I've managed to collect quite valuable pieces of information, some of which came from Liam's hazy and incomplete memories, the rest I got from observing conversations; the names people called themselves, as well as the vague structure of the local culture that was beginning to emerge. Of the many words, three stood out: Aelisca, Selisca, and Vinisca.
They are almost invariably described in a formal, sacred, or even menacing; as if they are a part of something great or impactful. However, they are context dependent: sometimes they are referred to in the context as a place, at other times as a title or cultural identity, also referred to sometimes as oaths (prayers). This suggests that they are multifunctional: they can refer to locations, land, social groups, and even I can broadly refer to as ideologies or religions.
My first step was to try to match the three terms with my old-world knowledge base. But the deeper I searched, the more I came up empty. There was no country or empire on Earth with the name Aelisca, Selisca or Vinisca. It was not recorded in European history, it did not appear in Asian civilizations, it was not found in ancient African documentation, and there was no trace of it even in American and Australian myths or legends. I dug through continental history, ethnographic context, and linguistic terminology; comparing it to the roots of Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Sanskrit, Arabic, and even Pacific-derived languages. Nothing matched, none of these words could be traced back to the languages I knew.
In my quest to understand the time and place I was in, I took advantage of every bit of information: the shape of the houses, the types of clothing, the materials used for farming, the lifestyle of the people, and the social values they lived by. I examined the village government system, the roles of men and women, the belief in leaders, and the way they interacted. From there, I came to one preliminary conclusion: I was in a form of civilization equivalent to the classical period.
But the term classical is broad, so I narrowed the scope.
I started by comparing it to various historical periods and regions on Earth. In Africa, particularly the regions of Egypt and Nubia, the classical period was characterized by kingship and strong spiritual (magic) beliefs; yet the village I was in had neither the religious structures nor the megalithic architecture typical of Egypt or Ethiopia. In Asia, especially ancient China and India, bureaucracy and caste played a big role in dynastic or royal power politics making their systems very complex; something I don't smell here (yet). In Australia, social structures tend to take the form of small communities without big hierarchical systems, but there's too much difference between Aboriginal culture and the farming and artisanal forms that exist here.
America? The Mayan, Aztec and Inca cultures are too symbolic with their overly flashy ceremonies compared to this relatively quiet and pragmatic village; some accounts even mention brutal rituals like cannibalism. So that left Europe; and it was there that I found the most striking similarities. The medieval period, particularly in some non-conservative spots, where villages stood with the structure of society determined by experience and the voice of the majority; not always royal bloodlines. Life went on in the rhythm of harvests and seasons, buildings were predominantly wood and thatch, security was shared; though of course, with very little trust in the outside world.
This period was one of [relative] continental isolation, all the more critical if one lived only in the interior of the village; information spread very slowly, the slightest change occurred within a generation, and the outside world was regarded as a threat or a legend. These similarities are too many to ignore. From a cultural, economic, to social standpoint, everything pointed to something that strongly resembled medieval Europe... But still; Aelisca, Selisca, and Vinisca didn't exist in any of the world's historical records.
That was the point where I started considering two equally irrational possibilities. Given my situation, even the baby's lies were many times more believable.
The first possibility: I died and was sent back in time. This explanation was the most rational in simple terms; Liam's body was human, food and clothing could be explained with basic insight, their language sounds similar to German, Dutch, and English. While their language isn't 100% the same as any known Earth language, it bears a strong resemblance; it has a few similar structures, articulations, and idioms. That supports the theory that my consciousness traveled back in time, with the world changing here and there.
The second possibility: I died and traveled to a different timeline; or even a cosmological version of another world. This possibility could at least explain why the historical information doesn't match, the social structure is similar to foreign terms, and why not a single monumental building or credible written record can be identified.
The two possibilities are contradictory and have their strengths. One rests on the logic of linear time, the other opens up options for the dimensions and ramifications of reality. One explains my easy command of the language, the other explains the discrepancies in historical data. For now, I didn't have enough information to determine which was correct; hence, the main goal was to gather as much information as possible, while still trying to control this body.