I died because I was tired.
Not heroically tired. Not poetically tired. Just the kind where your brain says, "Five more minutes," and your body listens even when it shouldn't.
Next thing I knew, I was screaming.
High-pitched. Wet-lung screaming. The kind that ruins the moment for everyone involved.
Someone slapped me.
Hard.
I tried to protest, but my mouth produced a noise like a dying kettle. My limbs flailed with zero authority. Gravity felt heavier. Everything smelled like blood, sweat, and something sour I'd later learn was poverty.
"Congratulations," a woman sobbed.
I blinked. Or maybe I spasmed. Hard to tell.
Wooden ceiling. Cracked beams. No hospital lights. No machines. No screens. That was the first red flag.
The second was when I realized I understood the language.
The third was when I saw the walls.
They were visible through the window.
Massive. Close. Too close. Stone stacked like the world was afraid of something.
I didn't panic immediately.
That came later, when my adult brain finished loading inside my infant skull like a corrupted file.
No. No no no no.
Walls only mean one thing.
Giants.
I tried to cry a warning. I tried to scream names. All that came out was spit and betrayal.
The man holding me smiled with the kind of hope that only exists in people who don't know what's coming.
That was my father.
He was going to die.
Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon enough that it already hurt.
I wanted to tell him not to be kind. Not to love me. Not to give me reasons to miss him.
Instead, I burbled.
He laughed.
I closed my eyes and made my first promise in this world.
I will survive.
Not because I matter.
But because someone has to remember all of this.