Time is something every human has a limited amount of. A lot of people only know how to appreciate it when theirs is already running out.
Well. For me it wasn't different. I was a guy. No. I was a kid full of dreams when it all happened.
The airport smelled like burnt coffee, cheap perfume, and that metallic tang recycled air always has. My backpack felt heavier than the clothes inside it. It was carrying Mom's last hug, my brother's dumb jokes, and Pedro's voice still stuck in my ear from every night we wasted on manga instead of sleeping.
Every step sounded too loud on the polished floor. I leaned against the wall near the gate, phone pressed to my cheek, trying to sound like I wasn't about to throw up from nerves.
I said into the phone, "Yo Pedro, I know. The new mangas coming out are out of this world, man."
Pedro answered from the other side of the line, already laughing a little.
"Yeah. I'm pretty excited for the new isekais."
The speaker over our heads cracked and called flight three hundred thirty-six from São Paulo to New York, platform seven.
I spoke faster. "Hey, I gotta go. They're calling my flight. I'll talk to you on the other side."
Pedro said, "Okay, bitch. I'll talk to you when you land."
The call cut off. A small click, then nothing.
I muttered to myself. Flight three thirty-six. Flight three thirty-six. I was lost. The signs all looked the same when you were already late in your own head.
A person in a vest stood near a column like they belonged there, so I walked over.
"Hey, excuse me. Do you know where platform seven is?"
They pointed down the hall without making it a whole conversation. "Yeah. Take this right and follow the corridor to the end. Platforms six through nine."
"Thank you."
"No problem."
A few minutes later I was on the plane, sitting down like the seat had been waiting for me all year.
Phew. I thought I was going to miss it. Well. Here I was. At last.
I would miss Mom. I would miss my brother. I would miss that idiot Pedro. New country. New life. New me.
I was also nervous as hell. Sleep felt like the only adult decision I had left.
Five minutes later I was still staring at the seat in front of me.
Well, fuck. How was I supposed to sleep now.
A voice came from the aisle. An older woman, the kind of face that looks like it has packed snacks for other people's children.
"Hey, kid."
I blinked at her. "Huh?"
"First time flying alone?"
"Yeah," I said, and it came out thinner than I wanted. "Yeesh."
She smiled like she had heard that sound before. "I usually take some melatonin. Helps me sleep. Here. Take some."
She held out a small pill the way aunts hold out candy.
I smiled because that is what you do when a stranger is kind and you do not want to be rude. "Oh. Thank you. But my mother told me not to take anything from strangers."
She laughed under her breath. "What's the worst that could happen? We're on a plane. They check for the serious stuff. What's the hold up?"
She had a point. That was the annoying part.
"Well. You're kinda right. I'll only take one. Even if it was poison, it wouldn't be a lethal dose. That would get found out too quick."
I said that like I was smart. I was nineteen and quoting crime shows at a woman who just wanted me to sleep.
"Here you go."
I swallowed it. One gulp. Then I closed my eyes and told myself the next time I opened them I would be over another country.
I opened them in a place that had no plane and no country.
A voice said, very simply, "You died."
I sat up on nothing. "Where am I, and who the hell are you?"
The figure in front of me looked like someone had tried to draw an angel from a book and then given up on the wings. Soft light. No floor I could trust.
"I'm God," it said. Then it corrected itself, almost polite. "More specifically, in your religion, something like an angel."
"Right."
"I know this sounds strange. We don't get much time, so I'll answer what I can. No, the old lady did not poison you. The plane crashed on an island while you were sleeping. You died on impact."
That did answer some questions. It also opened a hole under the rest of them.
"Okay. What now? Heaven or hell? Like in the books?"
"No. That should have been the case. But you had a strong liking for isekai stories in your last life. We decided to give you this chance."
My mouth moved before my brain did. "Magic?"
"Yup."
"Swords?"
"If you want to."
"Overpowered abilities?"
The light hesitated. "Well. About that."
"Oh no."
"I can't give you any overpowered abilities. I can give you something else."
"Like?"
"You'll have four lives. Meaning you can die up to three times and return."
I felt a grin try to happen. "Wow. And I'll get stronger after each death, right?"
Silence.
More silence.
"Right?"
The being sounded almost cheerful. "Well. Now that we have cleared this up. Good luck."
I reached forward. "Wai—"
And that was how I got reincarnated into a place I could only describe as a fantasy setting.
The first thing I heard was my own crying. A high, raw sound that did not care that I had opinions about it.
Someone shouted, happy enough to crack the room, "It's a boy!"
Another voice, warmer, closer. "And he looks quite healthy."
Hands. Cloth. Heat. A woman making that shushing sound mothers invent on the spot.
"Shh. Shh. It's okay now. Mommy is here."
A man spoke from farther away, trying to sound official and failing. "Hey. Shouldn't the father hold him first?"
Someone else, already tired of the argument. "Rules are rules. The mother gets the baby."
So. It looked like I was reborn.
From what I could see, my father was some kind of warrior. My mother looked like the person who kept the house from falling over. Father was about a hundred and eighty centimeters. And he was ginger. Except for the red eyes, all of him screamed ginger.
Mother, if I looked at her with last-world standards, could have been in a magazine. Black hair like obsidian. Thin waist. About a hundred and sixty centimeters. Light skin, but not the cold kind. Coffee with milk. Latina in the way I knew that word.
And then there was me. I couldn't see my face. My hands, though. Same color as hers.
Almost a year later I could crawl, which meant the house was no longer a prison. The thing I liked most was looking.
Wind moved through the meadow grass with that long, soft rush that makes you shut up without being asked. It always calmed me down. I would sit there with dirt on my knees and watch Father train.
He fought the air like it owed him money. Sword work. Shadow boxing, except with a blade. I tried to name it in my head. Shadow sword. Sword box. Shadow sword dance. I stole that from a game I was not supposed to remember. Better not think too hard about the old world. Not on a morning that smelled like cut grass.
The morning after one of those days, Father crouched in the field and called to me like I was already a student.
"Well, Ben. Are you watching Papa?"
I made a sound that was supposed to be yes. It came out "Gah."
Ben. That was my name here. I was glad. Benjamin Junior had been second on the list, and that was Father's name. Mother was Sara. The three of us were from Vermillion County. They did not talk much about the family. All I knew was the main branch were nobles, and Father had come from there once and then not quite belonged anymore.
Father clapped his hands, excited in the way only a man showing off for a baby can be.
"Okay. Here goes Daddy."
He spoke the nodes like he was reading a recipe he loved.
Invocar mana. Moldar flecha. Combustao. Atirar.
It was something like: summon mana. Shape arrow. Combustion. Release.
Portuguese. My mother language. English was the second. I had this stupid fear that if I didn't use both, I would forget which mouth I was born with.
And if I could say one true thing about the magic, it was this. It felt like a programming language. Almost a little too much.
Fire gathered on the shaped arrow and left his hand with a clean crack. Grass hissed. I laughed the only way a baby body lets you laugh.
Father turned, shining. "Little Ben. You saw how cool that was?"
"Ga. Bah."
He heard what he wanted to hear. "Yes, yes. Exactly. It goes ga, and then bam."
Later that same day, Mother's voice came out of the house like a thrown plate.
"I said no fire!"
Father lifted both hands. "I'm sorry, babe. I got a little too excited to show little Ben how cool Daddy is."
"No is no. You'll sleep on the couch today so you may learn your lesson."
Father made a noise that was half joke and half real fear.
"No. Not the couch. It's too cold. Nooooo."
I sat in the doorway with grass on my hands and watched him accept his fate. The meadow was still pretty. The wind was still kind. My father was a ginger disaster, and my mother was the law.
New country. New life. New me.
For the first time since the airport, that sentence did not feel like a lie I told Pedro to sound brave.
It felt like a Saturday.