The transition from nothing to everything happened in a violent rush that left me gasping.
Cold air slammed into my lungs like ice water. My eyes snapped open and immediately regretted it – harsh light stabbed through my vision, making me squeeze them shut with a cry that sounded... wrong. Too high. Too weak. The sound that came out of my throat was barely human.
What the hell?
I tried to move my arms, to push myself up, to do something, but my limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. Weak. Unresponsive. My fingers wouldn't straighten properly, curled into tiny fists I couldn't open.
The memories hit me then, crystal clear and completely at odds with my current situation. I remembered everything. My apartment in downtown Seattle. The software company where I'd worked late nights debugging code. The taste of overpriced coffee from the shop downstairs. The blue glow of my monitor at 2 AM. The Netflix series I'd been binge-watching. My sister's wedding last month. The argument with my landlord about the broken heater.
All of it felt real. All of it felt like it had happened yesterday. But none of it explained why I couldn't control my own body or why everything looked enormous from where I lay.
Rough hands scooped me up, and the movement made my head loll sickeningly. I was wrapped in something that felt like burlap – coarse and scratchy against skin that seemed impossibly sensitive. Every fiber felt like sandpaper.
Above me, a ceiling came into focus. Not drywall or plaster, but woven reeds bound together with what looked like dried mud. Gaps between the weaving showed glimpses of grey sky, and I could hear rain pattering against the structure with a hollow, drumming sound.
'This isn't a hospital,' I realized with growing alarm. 'This isn't anywhere I recognize.'
The air itself was wrong. Thick and humid, carrying smells that made my stomach turn. Salt, yes, but not the clean salt of ocean spray. This was heavier, mixed with the stench of stagnant water and rotting vegetation. Woodsmoke hung in the air, acrid and eye-watering. Underneath it all was something organic and unpleasant – like wet wool mixed with fish that had been left in the sun too long.
A face appeared above me, and I nearly cried out again in shock.
The woman looking down at me had dark, deep-set eyes surrounded by premature wrinkles. Her skin was sallow and weathered, like someone who'd spent years working outdoors in harsh conditions. Greasy black hair hung in limp strands around her face, and when she opened her mouth to speak, I could see gaps where teeth should have been.
"Keth mor vaelen shi," she said, her voice soft but weary. "Thoss nai kelm tor."
The words meant absolutely nothing to me. The sounds were harsh and guttural, with consonant clusters that didn't match any language I'd ever heard. Not Spanish, not French, not German. Nothing European at all. The syllables had a weight to them, like stones clicking together.
'She's speaking to me like she expects me to understand,' I thought frantically. 'Like she knows me.'
And then the horrible truth began to dawn on me as I looked at my surroundings with new eyes.
The woman's clothes were rough-spun fabric, dyed in muddy browns and grays. Her hands were calloused and stained, with dirt permanently embedded under cracked fingernails. The single room around us was lit only by firelight from a crude stone hearth. No electric lights. No power outlets. No modern conveniences of any kind.
The furniture – if you could call it that – looked handmade. A wooden table carved from a single piece of wood, rough and scarred from use. A three-legged stool. Baskets woven from reeds. Everything had the look of items crafted by necessity rather than design.
'This is either the most elaborate historical reenactment ever, or...'
I didn't want to finish that thought. Couldn't finish it. Because the alternative was impossible.
The woman – and I was becoming increasingly certain she was meant to be my mother in whatever sick joke this was – shifted me in her arms and continued speaking in that incomprehensible language. Her tone was gentle, almost crooning, but the words themselves were alien.
"Shel neth vaelen kemm tor kess," she murmured, adjusting the scratchy blanket around me. "Mor thai nelen kui."
I tried to respond, to ask what was happening, where I was, what year it was – but all that came out was a weak mewling sound that horrified me. My tongue felt thick and clumsy in my mouth. The muscles of my jaw wouldn't obey me properly.
'I'm a baby,' the realization hit me like a physical blow. 'I'm actually a goddamn baby.'
But that was impossible. I had thirty-two years of memories. I remembered learning to drive, graduating college, my first job, my first apartment. I remembered the taste of my grandmother's apple pie and the way my ex-girlfriend used to hum while she cooked. I remembered filing my taxes just three months ago.
Yet here I was, unable to control my own limbs, wrapped in rough cloth, being held by a woman who looked like she'd stepped out of some medieval documentary.
The door – which was really just a flap of stiffened animal hide – rustled and parted. A man ducked through, bringing with him a gust of cold, damp air that made me shiver uncontrollably.
He was tall and lean, with the kind of build that spoke of hard physical labor rather than gym workouts. His beard was unkempt and streaked with premature gray. His clothes were similar to the woman's – rough fabric in earth tones – but he wore an outer layer that looked like oiled leather. It glistened wetly and smelled powerfully of fish.
In his hands was a woven basket, and through the gaps I could see the silver flash of small fish. Not the kind you'd buy at a grocery store, but crude, ugly things with scales that looked more like armor plating.
"Thel mor kess," he said to the woman, his voice a low rumble. The sounds were even harsher coming from him, with more clicking consonants. "Vash nelen toth kemi sui."
The woman – my supposed mother – tensed slightly. Her arms tightened around me in what felt like a protective gesture. When she replied, her voice was softer, almost pleading.
"Kemm thal, Jorik. Shi vaelen mor kess neth."
'Jorik.' That sounded like a name. At least some part of their language followed patterns I could recognize.
The man – Jorik, presumably my father in this bizarre scenario – glanced at me with eyes that held no warmth. Not cruelty, exactly, but the kind of practical assessment you might give to livestock. Checking to see if I was healthy enough to be worth the resources I'd consume.
He grunted something that might have been acknowledgment and moved to hang his wet outer garment near the fire. The smell it brought with it was overwhelming – brine and fish and something rotten that made my eyes water.
As I lay there, trying to process everything, more details began to register. The floor wasn't wood or stone, but packed earth that had been worn smooth by countless footsteps. Near the door, it was muddy from tracked-in water. The walls were made of woven branches packed with what looked like clay and animal dung. Primitive. Functional. Poor.
This wasn't just pre-industrial. This was subsistence living.
Through gaps in the wall construction, I could hear water moving – not the regular flow of a river, but something irregular and sloshing. Like waves lapping at a shore, but muffled. Combined with the smell of salt and decay, it painted a picture of marshland. Wetlands where people scraped out a living fishing and... what? Gathering reeds? Hunting waterfowl?
'Where the hell am I? And when?'
The woman began to move, shifting me in her arms, and I felt a different kind of discomfort growing in my tiny stomach. Hunger. It was unlike anything I'd experienced as an adult – sharp, demanding, impossible to ignore. My body seemed to know what it needed even if my mind recoiled from the implications.
She lifted me toward her chest, and I caught a stronger whiff of her scent. Sweat and woodsmoke and something sour, but underneath it... milk. My infant body responded instinctively, turning my head toward the source even as my adult mind screamed in revulsion.
'This is not happening. This cannot be happening.'
But it was. And despite every rational thought in my head, my body's needs overrode my psychological protests. I found myself feeding, the action automatic and humiliating and necessary all at once.
While this was happening, I forced myself to observe and analyze. The fire in the hearth burned with the smoke and spark of wood, not gas or electricity. The light it cast was warm but dim, creating deep shadows in the corners of the room. No electric lights anywhere. No outlets, no switches, no modern conveniences of any kind.
The baskets scattered around the room were clearly handwoven, with the irregular patterns that spoke of craft rather than machine production. Dried bundles hung from the ceiling – herbs maybe, or food stores. Everything had the patina of long use and careful maintenance that you only saw in places where replacement wasn't an option.
Jorik was doing something with the fish he'd brought, gutting them with a knife that looked hand-forged. The blade was darker than modern steel, with a slightly uneven edge that suggested it had been shaped by a blacksmith rather than manufactured. He worked with the efficient movements of someone who'd done this thousands of times.
The woman – and I really needed to learn her name – spoke again while I fed.
"Mor kess thel vaelen nai," she said softly. "Shi kemm tor thelen kui toth."
Jorik looked up from his fish and studied me again with those cold, appraising eyes. He said something back that sounded like a question – the tone lifted at the end in a way that was almost familiar despite the alien words.
"Kess nelen mor thal?"
The woman's reply was longer, with what sounded like reassurance in her voice. But whatever she said made Jorik's expression darken. He turned back to his fish with more force than necessary, the knife thunking into the wooden cutting surface.
'They're talking about me,' I realized. 'And whatever they're saying, he's not happy about it.'
That cold knot of fear in my stomach tightened. I was completely helpless here. Dependent on these people for everything – food, warmth, protection. And if Jorik saw me as more burden than benefit...
I tried to push down the panic. 'Think rationally. What do you know?'
I was clearly in some kind of pre-industrial society. The technology level seemed to be somewhere around medieval, maybe earlier. The language was completely unfamiliar, which suggested either a very remote location or... something else I didn't want to consider.
The environment was marshy, probably coastal given the salt smell. The people were poor, living at a subsistence level. They dressed in rough, handmade clothing and lived in what was essentially a mud hut. Their primary food source seemed to be fish, probably supplemented by whatever they could gather from the marsh.
'But that doesn't explain how I got here,' I thought desperately. 'Last thing I remember was going to bed in my apartment. I had that presentation to give today – well, what I thought was today. I remember setting my alarm for 7 AM.'
The feeding was finished, and the woman lifted me upright against her chest, patting my back gently. The motion was oddly soothing despite everything, and I felt some of the tension leave my tiny body.
But as I relaxed, exhaustion crept in. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy. The warmth from the fire and the rhythmic patting were making it hard to stay alert, to keep analyzing and observing.
'No,' I fought against the drowsiness. 'I need to stay awake. I need to figure this out.'
But my infant body had other ideas. Despite my best efforts, sleep pulled at me like a tide. The firelight began to blur, and the voices of my... caretakers... became distant and muffled.
Just before consciousness faded completely, I caught one more exchange between them. Jorik's voice, sharp with what sounded like worry:
"Thel mor kess vaelen nai toth?"
And the woman's reply, soft but firm:
"Shi nelen kemm, Jorik. Shi nelen kemm."
Then darkness took me, leaving me with nothing but questions and the lingering smell of salt and smoke and fear.