"If everyone is going to leave me alone, then no one should even care if I jump off, right?" I muttered as I looked down from the roof of my school.
I was standing on the school roof, deciding whether to end my life right then and there, and why, if one might ask? It was because of everything that had happened in my life from the day I was born—even the things I don't know. For as long as I can remember, I was an orphan who didn't know who his parents were, what his birth date was, or what he was even doing on the streets. I didn't know anything about myself, but even then, I hadn't lost my will to live.
I survived by doing work like picking up trash, cleaning people's gardens, and even resorting to minor crimes like pickpocketing. I did everything that helped me survive, and it was as if God was watching me, impressed by my will to live, and sent someone for me—because one day, when I was ten years old, an old lady, around the age of 50, picked me up from the road and adopted me. I don't know why she did that; whether it was out of pity, because I reminded her of somebody close, or because she was alone like me. One thing was certain: I was extremely grateful to her, as she filled my life with a happiness I had never known before.
She taught me what it meant to live with someone, what it meant to not be alone, and what life even meant. She provided everything for me—food, clothes, a place to live and call home, sending me to school, teaching me various things about the world, and everything else she could think of until yesterday.
Yesterday, I was kicked out of her house by her kids and grandkids, who had been nowhere to be seen until her death; she died just the day before due to cancer, leaving me all alone in this world once again. This time, the will to live that had sustained me for 16 years faltered, because I was now afraid to go back to the old life I had lived six years ago. I was afraid to be alone again, afraid of the solace that comes from knowing that no one in this world cares about you. I was depressed to the point that I didn't even think about where I would spend the night after being kicked out, and I roamed around the city until the sun came up.
Upon noticing that the sun had risen, I got ready to go to school, thinking that studies (in which I excelled because I didn't want to disappoint her) would provide some distraction, but to no avail. So, during the lunch break, I went to the rooftop to get some fresh air and tried to think of any random fact or useless thing to distract my mind, but—
"I don't want to be alone again, Grandma."
—This single thought kept crossing my mind again and again as I gazed down from the school roof, reminiscing about the handful of good memories I had made in my life.
As I was remembering everything that had happened, I heard a noise from the other side of the railing, so I turned to see what it was. There, I saw a cat barely hanging onto the railing and about to fall off.
"Meow~" she cried.
I looked around the roof, but there was no one there except me, so I decided to help her climb back onto the roof, albeit reluctantly. I went to help her, but she scratched my leg while trying to grab onto something and climbed back up; I, on the other hand, lost my footing and fell off the roof.
As I was falling, instead of panicking, the first thing I felt was calmness surging throughout my entire body, and a faint smile of relief appeared on my lips, as if I had seemingly received an answer to the question I had just voiced directly to the Universe. But still—
"Will I die?"
"Will it hurt when I hit the ground?"
"Is this the end?"
—various thoughts crossed my mind as I fell, but one thing was clear even among those countless thoughts:
"I might not be alone anymore."
With that thought, I hit the floor, probably still carrying a faint smile on my lips, and lost consciousness as the darkness welcomed me with open arms.
**********
After an unknown period, when I regained consciousness, I found myself surrounded by complete darkness—a place where not a single fragment of light existed, filled with nothing as far as one could see, a place that might just be the perfect definition of the word "void."
But even in this "void," my mind was calm, and the thoughts that had been racing through my head while falling were completely still, like an ocean without waves.
"Ah, so this is death," I thought serenely.
Despite the absurdity of the statement that crossed my mind, I remained calm and serene as never before, feeling as though I was becoming one with the "void" itself, where nothing could interrupt or disturb me anymore.
I analyzed my situation more thoroughly, waiting for what would happen next. Would I ascend to heaven or descend to hell from this emptiness? Suddenly, a sound popped into my head.
[Congratulations, Young soul. You are selected for the process of reincarnation.]
"H...huh?" I was startled by the sudden voice in my head and tried to look around for its source.
"Me? Reincarnation?" I was still confused by the words of the sudden voice when its sound popped into my head again.
[Now, the process of reincarnation will begin; please enjoy your new life.]
And this time, before I could even think about anything the voice said, the space around me began destroying itself, creating a crack in it. The place that I thought had no particle of light suddenly became filled with a ray of light so bright that it nearly blinded me, and my body started moving toward the crack with such speed that I lost consciousness for the second time in my life (or death).
**********
After regaining consciousness for the second time, I opened my eyes, thinking that I might still be in the "void" or had gone to heaven or hell, but what greeted me left my brain unable to think for a moment or two.
The scene that met my eyes was beyond my expectations. There was a luxurious chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and I was in a room where every surface screamed luxury. The walls were painted in gold, and the chandelier I saw at first was embedded with diamonds, gold, and other luxurious stones I didn't even recognize. The architecture of the room evoked the vibes of medieval Europe.
I tried to speak, hoping to learn what had happened to me and where I was, but the only sound that came out of my mouth was like the cry of a baby desperately seeking attention.
After listening to my cry, I looked at my hands for the very first time since I awoke—they were small, or rather "tiny," like those of a newborn baby. Then I looked at my whole body and realized that not just my hands, but my legs, my fingers, my stomach, my ears—everything was that of a baby. The correct thing to say here would be:
"I was a baby!"
After examining my body four or five times, my mind, which had been somewhat calm, began to panic. My cries grew louder and louder until my ears and throat ached, and, hearing my cries, two people entered the room with worried expressions on their faces.
Upon noticing their presence, I turned my tiny baby head toward them and caught sight of them. The moment I did, my brain shut down for the second time since I regained consciousness.
A man and a woman were wearing slightly unusual clothing that looked ridiculously expensive, but what stood out the most was their beauty. They were so beautiful that even calling them simply "beautiful" seems like an insult.
The man, probably in his mid-twenties, had icy blue hair that shone with every ray of light that fell on it and a captivating pair of ocean-blue eyes that seemed to pull you in the more you stared. He was so strikingly handsome that, for a moment, even I, as a guy, forgot myself in his charm.
Yet even beside such a handsome man, the woman who came with him radiated her presence. She was easily the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen, even surpassing the beauty of celebrities in photos on the internet. She had silky black hair that hung down to her waist and crimson red eyes that seemed to peer into one's soul. The whole atmosphere around her screamed nobility, which contrasted greatly with the worried expression on her face.
Yet, even when confronted with such a beautiful pair of people, I didn't feel any lust; instead, it seemed like all the questions that had haunted my mind after regaining consciousness were swept aside with just one look at them, and I recalled the words of the voice I had heard in the "void" just before passing out.
"[Congratulations, Young soul. You are selected for the process of reincarnation.]"
Remembering the words of the voice, my confusion cleared, my cries stopped, and I arrived at one single, mind-blowing answer to all the questions crowding my mind:
"They are my parents."
"I got reincarnated as the child of these gorgeous people."
As the words "my parents" crossed my mind, tears welled up in my eyes and began flowing down my cheeks. I reached out with my tiny hands, trying to envelop them in an embrace, but I couldn't, as they were too short. Perhaps seeing this little, foolish action of mine, their expressions softened; they looked at each other, then at me with a faint smile of relief, and said something that I didn't understand as my eyelids grew heavy. Drowsiness hit me as I closed them, and I expressed my gratitude to the voice for reincarnating me before falling into a deep yet peaceful sleep.