White. Blinding, endless white.
I felt… everything and nothing all at once... pain, panic, regret, relief, and a strange, trembling curiosity. The memories of the crash, the spinning car, my father's furious face, the screeching metal, the truck barreling toward me, rushed through my mind like shards of glass.
And then it stopped.
No asphalt. No rain. No cold judgment. Just warmth. Softness. Darkness. And a quiet, insistent sensation that whispered: this is the beginning.
I tried to open my eyes. Tiny, fragile, uncooperative eyelids betrayed me. My hands... small, weak, helpless, couldn't do anything but tremble. Legs that had once carried me to school, to friends, to a life I barely lived… were now useless. And yet, inside, I was still me. All seventeen years of memories, regrets, and suppressed anger remained. Trapped in this alien, fragile vessel.
A baby.
I couldn't scream. My throat didn't work. My arms were too short to push, my body too weak to react. But my mind… my mind was alive.
Seventeen years… wasted.
The first flashback hit like a punch to the gut. I was eight, sitting at the dinner table while my father scolded me for asking too many questions. "You will behave like a son of this family," he said. "Do you understand?" I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat, forcing a smile while my mind screamed. Back then, I thought I was small. That I could endure. But this. This helplessness. I had never felt anything like it.
I shifted slightly, tiny fingers brushing against something soft, warm. A blanket? A bed? I didn't know. The sensation reminded me of my mother's hands smoothing my hair after a lecture I didn't deserve. But even then, her kindness was calculated, carefully measured for appearances. I had never known real comfort, only control disguised as care.
Tears came, unbidden. Not the polite, swallowed tears I had hidden for seventeen years. Real, messy, liberating tears. I let them fall. I had never cried for myself before, not truly.
And yet, amid the chaos, a flicker of something new emerged: possibility. Hope. A fragile, trembling sense that I could do things differently this time. That I could choose.
Another memory surfaced... a rare bright spot. Raul, standing outside the school gates, was shouting at me to stop worrying so much. - Life's bigger than them, Em! Don't let them own you! - Morfius laughed behind him, daring me to speak my mind. That warmth, that fleeting freedom, had been crushed under my parents' control. And now… perhaps I could finally live it.
I tried to move, wobbly and unsure. Tiny hands reached out to the world. The soft texture beneath my palms was unfamiliar, smooth, warm, comforting. My nose twitched at the scent of something new: earth, water, sunlight. I had never smelled the world like this before. Even as a seventeen-year-old, my senses had been filtered, controlled, dulled by fear and expectation. But now… everything was raw, alive, real.
A faint sound reached me, water trickling nearby, birds calling in the distance. My heart, tiny as it now was, thumped wildly. I realized I had never truly noticed such things. Never really lived.
I remembered the time I had tried to defy them, just once, at fifteen. A small rebellion, refusing to attend a formal dinner. My mother's furious glare. My father's cold, cutting words. The shame. The punishment. I had learned then that even small acts of self-will could be dangerous. I had buried that fire deep, along with everything else. But in this new body, there was nothing to fear. No one to control me.
I tried to laugh. Tiny, gurgling sounds emerged from my lips, raw and unpolished. Not a polite laugh. Not a measured laugh. Just… mine. For the first time in seventeen years, it belonged to me.
And then another memory, sharper, painful. My friends, Raul and Morfius, were waiting outside my house after my university rejection. I had pushed them away, trying to shield them from my parents' wrath. And yet, their patience, their faith, had been unwavering. I had betrayed them. I had hurt the people who truly cared about me. And now… all I could do was remember, and let it fuel me.
Seventeen years of fear and suppression flashed through me, each memory a heavy weight. And yet, beneath them all, a strange light flickered. Choice. Freedom. Life.
I looked around. Tiny hands explored the world with curiosity. Soft light filtered through leaves above me. Birds chirped. A stream whispered somewhere nearby. Somewhere, in the distance, the world awaited. I didn't know the rules. I didn't know if it was safe. I didn't know if anyone else lived here. But I felt something I had never felt before: agency. Possibility.
I was Emmanuel. I had been Emmanuel. I remembered every mistake, every suppression, every stolen moment of childhood I had endured. And now… I would be reborn.
This time, I would live for myself.
And with that thought, I took a trembling, tiny step forward—toward a world that was entirely mine.