"Just you wait and see, Death."
That was the first thing I said as I slipped into my new incarnation. A threat spat at the void. I was sick of her twisted game. Every time she tossed me back into the living world, she'd pretend not to know the rules—feign ignorance, play dumb and give me no warnings. But I was starting to see through the lies. After living countless lives, I should have known better. I did know better. I could feel the patterns now, the rigged layers behind each life she threw me into.
And yet, no matter how hard I tried, she always got the last laugh.
But this time... this time I had a plan. I wasn't going to live for myself anymore. I had a goal: my grieving mother. If there was any reason to do it all right, it was her. She'd never truly recovered from my last death—and I had died so suddenly. There were things I had left unfinished, including the money I'd hidden away in the locker at the mall.
Only three days left before the lease expired on it. If I didn't reclaim it, it would be gone forever.
But as my senses returned in this new life, something felt... off. I couldn't move nor speak. Yet I could see everything and hear everyone. My surroundings weren't familiar. The air was different. This wasn't my city. Nothing about it felt like the world I knew. It was as if time had slowed down—or maybe I had.
"What's going on? Why can't I move?" I tried to scream. "Excuse me? Why can't I talk? What's wrong with this body?"
I struggled to move my limbs, my arms and my legs—but nothing responded. I squinted, forcing my gaze to fall upon a small mirror propped up nearby. That was when I saw it.
A baby. A literal infant.
I had been reincarnated as a newborn baby.
"What the actual hell?" I thought, disbelief drowning out every other thought. "No wonder she smirked."
Yes—Death. Just before she shot me back into the realm of the living, she gave me a smirk. A devilish one. I hadn't understood it then, but now it was crystal clear.
She knew.
She knew I'd end up like this—helpless, voiceless, immobile—and she relished it. That smirk was the assurance of her upper hand.
And now? My body was new, weak, and frail. My locker full of money? Inaccessible. I had three days before it was cleared out. All that effort—gone. All the planning in my previous life—wasted. I screamed aloud. My infantile cry pierced the air but I didn't care who was around. This wasn't a baby's cry of hunger or discomfort. This was the cry of a grown soul trapped in a helpless body, furious at the universe.
People stirred.
We were in a restaurant, it seemed. A fancy one, perhaps, though all I could do was glimpse blurred outlines and muffled chatter. My caretaker—or mother, presumably—was not by my side. She strolled out from the restroom, eyes glued to her phone as though nothing in the world mattered more. A waitress, trying to silence my cries, attempted to soothe me, bouncing me slightly in her arms. But the woman—the one who birthed me or at least brought me here—walked over slowly, as if the crying was an inconvenience she had to endure.
She took me from the waitress and forced a smile. "Sorry," she said to the surrounding customers. "He just gets fussy sometimes."
But I knew better. That smile? It wasn't for me. It was for the audience.
We left shortly afterward, walking toward a small, beat-up car. She strapped me into the baby seat in the back with an irritated grunt, climbed into the driver's seat, and began furiously flipping through radio stations. The air inside the car was thick with anger—hers, not mine. Then she turned, stared at me in the rearview mirror, and unleashed it.
"Why won't you just shut up and sleep, you little bastard?! I can't even get a fucking cup of coffee because of you!"
My breath caught. That was the moment I knew—I wasn't safe.
I had assumed, foolishly, that she'd be loving. That being a mother would soften her. That my cries wouldn't faze her because mothers, real mothers, understood babies. Mine did. My real mother would have held me tighter, whispered sweet nothings, rocked me gently until I slept. But this woman? She was something else entirely.
"What's wrong with this lady?" I thought. "Why is she so... cruel?"
We eventually pulled up to a modest home—nothing extravagant, but not shabby either. She yanked the baby seat out of the car with one hand and slammed the door with the other. As she stormed inside, she dropped me harshly onto a couch.
Pain shot through my tiny back. I whimpered, helpless. She didn't notice—or didn't care.
A man stepped out from one of the rooms. A tired look hung on his face. "You're back early," he muttered, barely glancing at her.
She rolled her eyes. "Feed him. I'm not in the mood."
He walked toward me and for a moment, I had hope. Maybe he would be different. Maybe he was the gentle one, the balance to her madness.
"Time for your meal," he said, picking me up and smiling.
He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a baby bottle. But something about the milk smelled... off. Sour and rotten. He sniffed it and frowned.
"This formula expired five months ago," he called out.
"So what? It won't kill him," the woman shouted from the next room, unfazed.
Shock tightened every nerve in my tiny body. Who the hell were these people?
"She's right. It's not like you can even taste it," he muttered as he knelt beside me and tried to shove the bottle in my mouth.
I turned my head. Spat it out, again and again.
He snapped.
"What's your damn problem, huh?" he shouted, grabbing my little shoulders. "Why do you keep spitting it out?! Why can't I rest when I'm home because of you?!"
He began to shake me.
Shake me.
I wanted to cry out. To fight back. But I couldn't even lift a hand to protect myself. My cries echoed through the house, loud and desperate. Yet my "mother" didn't flinch. She sat in a corner, puffing on a cigarette as if nothing was happening.
Then, a chime.
She looked at the door camera and saw something that made her jolt upright—two police officers.
"They're here," she hissed.
The couple moved in unison—panic now guiding their limbs. She stubbed out her cigarette. He wiped my mouth clean, tossed the expired formula, sprayed air freshener across the room. They transformed from monsters into model parents in mere seconds.
The doorbell rang.
Two police officers stepped in, followed by a woman from child protective services. Apparently, a pediatric hospital had reported bruises on me during a recent checkup. That was the tip-off and they came to investigate.
I was relieved. I might finally be saved.
"That's me," I thought, crying again to alert them. "I'm the one being abused."
"Child abuse?" my supposed mother asked, feigning shock.
The CPS agent nodded. "We just want to ask a few questions and just have a look around. It's standard protocol."
The man stepped forward, pulling out a card.
"I work with the National Center for Child Welfare," he said smoothly. "You really think I'd abuse my own child?"
They scanned his ID. The pictures on the walls—dozens of fake smiles—added to the illusion. The agents began to doubt the validity of the report.
"Maybe it was a misunderstanding," one officer said.
No. No. No.
I screamed again, louder than before.
My mother picked me up and cooed, "He's just hungry. I'll feed him in a bit."
The officers nodded and began to leave. I watched them go, panic replacing hope.
As the door shut behind them, silence filled the room.
Then came the rage.
"What did we ever do to deserve the cops being called on us?" she yelled, her voice cracking with fury. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"
She lifted me high, and before I could even cry, she slammed me down hard on the floor.
Pain. Darkness. Dizziness.
But she wasn't done.
"Nothing ever goes right in my life—not since you were born," she said.
And then—she grabbed a pillow and pressed it down over my face, as hard as she could.
I fought, kicked weakly. My lungs screamed for air, and my vision blurred.
He didn't stop her. He didn't even flinch. Just stood there, watching his wife kill an infant while claiming to protect children for a living.
And just like that... I was dead again.
I didn't even learn the name of this poor soul whose body I inhabited. And once again, Death won.