Pain.
Sharp. Sudden. Alive. It was not the dull, residual ache of a healing wound, nor the heavy throb of a prolonged injury. This was a rending, a pure, searing agony that marked an ultimate passage. It was the physical trauma of a soul being violently expelled and then brutally re-anchored. My existence, as I had known it moments before—the weight of my history, the sum of my maturity, the very architecture of my adult mind—had been squeezed through an unimaginably tiny, raw portal. The sensation was less like being born and more like being forged anew, with a heat that threatened to liquefy my consciousness.
A cry—mine—burst out of me before I could even understand how. It was involuntary, primal, a high-pitched, desperate sound that scraped the back of my throat, like something wired deep inside this fragile new body. My lungs, those miraculous, deflated organs, snapped open, filling with air for the first time. The rush was a torrent of sensory input: cold, dry, clean. The sensation was... overwhelming. It burned, and it healed at the same time. The pain of the physical transition was instantly counteracted by the sheer, exhilarating shock of life—a paradox that left me suspended between terror and elation.
I was crying. Not from fear, though fear was a distant, familiar echo in the recesses of my mind. Not from sadness, for the gravity of my previous life hadn't fully registered yet. It was instinct. My body's first, unavoidable reaction to the sheer volume of this new world. My former self, the one who had navigated spreadsheets and city traffic, the one who had paid taxes and understood irony, had no language for this. This cry was the only honest statement this vessel could make: I am here. I exist.
Voices surrounded me. Faint, ethereal, and utterly unfamiliar, yet they cut through the ringing static in my ears.
"It's a boy!" someone exclaimed. The language was a soft, melodic stream of sound I couldn't quite place. It was not the familiar cadence of Hindi, the professional precision of English, or any of the other common tongues my previous life had equipped me with. Yet, the emotion was a universal translator. There was an overwhelming joy in the tone, a high, relieved pitch that was instantly infectious, mixed with an evident physical exhaustion. I heard a muffled sobbing—wet, ragged breaths, the sound of a great burden being lifted. Tears of relief, perhaps, or the purest, most selfless happiness I had ever encountered.
Then came the sounds of hurried, gentle movements. A rustle of cloth, a soft clatter of instruments—clinical, yet not harsh. The smells were a confusing blend: antiseptic cleanliness mixed with the rich, earthy scent of human sweat and the sweet, metallic tang of blood. I registered the distinct feeling of being lifted, of gravity changing its grip.
Warmth enveloped me. It was not the ambient warmth of the room or the transient heat of a blanket. This was something deep, penetrating, and utterly human. It was a skin-on-skin touch that communicated history, safety, and unwavering devotion. A touch I somehow recognized, though I had never felt it in this life, not even a minute ago. The recognition was not an intellectual memory; it was a soul-deep blueprint for security.
The frantic, scattered thoughts of my previous identity began to coalesce, driven by this anchor of pure affection. Was it really over? Had the dizzying, terrifying chaos of that final moment—the flashing lights, the screeching metal, the absolute void—truly resulted in this? Had I truly... started again?
I tried to open my eyes. They were heavy. Stubborn. They felt glued shut, unwilling to accept the blinding reality they were being forced into. But slits of light filtered in. Bright, unfamiliar, a stark white that assaulted my virgin retinas, yet somehow welcoming in its persistence. Everything was blurry, an impressionist painting of a world being born around me. Shapes moved, colossal, shifting forms against the light. Colors danced—the pale green of what I instinctively knew were hospital scrubs, the red flush of a face contorted by exhaustion, the blinding white ceiling. My mind, the old, analytical engine, struggled to map these amorphous blobs onto meaningful objects: people, a room, a door.
A sound registered—a soft, rhythmic thump against my ear. The steady, reliable heartbeat of another human being. My mother. I nestled unconsciously into the crook of her neck, a movement this tiny body knew by instinct.
And then, the voice.
Closer this time. Not spoken aloud, not through the lips of any person in the room. It was a resonance, a vibration in the quiet center of my skull, a sound that bypassed the ear and spoke directly to the essence of my consciousness. It whispered something. The words were not of this new, melodic language, nor were they from the old tongues I knew. They were pure thought, pure meaning.
"Welcome back."
The effect was instantaneous. My small, desperate cry ceased. My entire being, which had been thrashing in the joyous chaos of birth, went absolutely still. I became a silent, perfect listener.
The voice wasn't from the nurses. It wasn't from the pale, exhausted woman whose heartbeat was now my metronome.
It came from inside—a presence, gentle, immensely old, and terrifyingly knowing. It was a consciousness that wore the fabric of space and time like a tattered cloak. It felt like the echo of a forgotten god, or perhaps the ultimate, indifferent mechanism of the universe itself. Something ancient. Something... watching.
It had been there during the blinding flash of my previous death. It had been there in the black, chaotic transit between lives. And It was here now, a silent, unshakeable companion in this freshly minted body.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. My mouth could only form a meaningless, gumming suckle. My limbs were clumsy, uncoordinated bundles of flesh. The man who had lived a full, complicated life was trapped, fully sentient, behind the eyes of an infant.
I was just a baby.
A newborn again.
But I was also more. I was an anomaly. A secret. And I knew, with the chilling certainty that comes from an impossible conversation, that the true journey had only just begun. The great, existential "Why?" of my reincarnation had a witness. And the witness was waiting for me to grow up. The knowledge was heavy—too heavy for a newborn to bear—and as the warmth of my mother's embrace finally lured me toward the abyss of sleep, the last coherent thought I had was a desperate, silent question aimed at the ancient presence: What do you want?
But the voice offered no answer, only the fading echo of its welcome. The world dissolved into the bright, silent dark.