The rush of cold air in his lungs suddenly gave way to a strange warmth.
He was lying on something soft, perhaps velvet. The fabric brushing against his skin was so fine and smooth that it felt as though it had been dusted with starlight.
Then came a voice.
But that voice... it carried a melodic rhythm, every word rising and falling like a note in a song.
He couldn't make sense of a single word. It didn't sound like English or any other language he had ever heard.
And yet, even without understanding the words, the tone told him something of peace, of awe, and even… of wonder.
Another voice followed.
Deeper.
Firmer.
Colder.
It was unmistakably male, and it carried an air of formality, almost like a ritual chant. The woman's tone softened in response, and soon, silence blanketed the air.
The woman's breathing was uneven. With each breath came exhaustion, surrender. A faint rustle of cloth, someone leaned closer and lifted him, the newborn, with careful hands. A fleeting touch of cold metal grazed his skin, and a shiver ran through his tiny body.
Wrapped in cloth, his damp body was gently dried. The hands were steady, practiced, not cruel, but detached. There was tenderness, yes, but also the sterile rhythm of repetition, like the precision of someone who had done this a thousand times before.
When a warm towel enveloped him, heat returned.
Then something thick and velvet-like was laid over him. He felt a slender, needle-thin rod of metal press against his small chest. The touch lasted only a second, but even that was enough to make him flinch.
A short word followed, sounding almost like a single musical note. The faint clink of metal against a bowl echoed. Another cloth, another touch. Something was cut, perhaps the umbilical cord.
The woman murmured something. Every word carried the cadence of a prayer. Even without understanding the language, he could feel it the words changed the very air in the room, vibrating softly, reverently.
Another pair of hands touched him, older this time. The fingers were firm, authoritative. An aged voice mumbled something like a hymn. The woman drew in a deep breath, and then... silence. A single droplet fell onto his forehead.
Cold.
But it wasn't a cleansing kind of cold it was ceremonial. A ritual. Some kind of sacred rite performed for newborns.
Were such customs still practiced anywhere?
Was he born into a Catholic or Orthodox family? Or maybe he had been reborn in an underdeveloped country, and though the infant's mind couldn't grasp it, the fragments of his old consciousness stirred uneasily at the thought.
And whenever that unease stirred, he cried. Instinctively, helplessly.
Someone gathered him in their arms. There was a soft sound of fabric, then the rhythm of a heartbeat, close and steady. He calmed instantly, for he knew that heartbeat. He had listened to it for months, floating in warmth and darkness. It was safety. It was home.
The woman whispered in his ear.
Again, in that strange, melodic language, but this time softer, more fluid. It wasn't speech. It was a lullaby. He couldn't understand the words, but the tone alone soothed the storm inside him.
A finger brushed his cheek light, trembling, filled with care. His breathing slowed. With a faint sigh, he nestled closer to her chest. Each heartbeat, each breath, pulled him gently into sleep.
----
Time had no meaning for him. He couldn't tell whether it was days or months. He slept through most of them, though as light began to pour through the windows, his sight slowly developed, and so did his sense of time.
His memories, his past life, were still foggy, buried deep in his infant brain. But slowly, fragments began to surface. Even so, though his thoughts were clumsy and unformed, he was different. Sharper. More aware than other babies. He rarely cried, and when he did, it was for a reason: hunger or discomfort.
Sometimes, he even tried to communicate not just by crying, but with small gestures, movements. Each time he did, his mother's face lit up with joy.
"Xenon, are you hungry?"
Her voice was ethereal, clear as crystal. Xenon reached toward her with his tiny fingers. Yes, his name was Xenon. He had pieced that together from the way she always called him so tenderly.
"Come here, my love. Let Mommy feed you," she murmured, her voice flowing like a river gentle, deep, endless.
Her hand cradled his back with infinite care. Her fingers moved with the grace of a sculptor shaping clay, patient and precise.
With her other hand, she loosened her robe. The fabric slid away like a butterfly's wing, and the sight that followed mesmerized the newborn's eyes.
Her chest full, warm, glowing with life seemed almost divine, rivers of pale blue veins tracing through soft flesh. When sunlight kissed her skin, it gleamed like polished pearl.
Something stirred inside Xenon. He couldn't tell if it was hunger or something deeper, a longing from a soul that remembered what it meant to be human. His lips parted instinctively, searching.
The woman guided him gently, her hand moving along his back in a soothing rhythm. When his mouth found hers, warmth and sweetness flooded in milk, thick and golden, tasting of honey and flowers.
As she hummed a lullaby and stroked her son's hair, Xenon experienced a love unlike anything he had ever felt before, not even in his previous life. And though he was only a baby, tears welled up in his tiny eyes.
The woman noticed. Her breath caught. For a heartbeat, the world stood still. In that fragile silence, the sound of his falling tears felt like the only thing that existed.
"Oh... my sweet boy," she whispered, her voice soft as prayer, tender as a spring breeze.
She brushed his tears away with her fingertips. Each touch was a quiet miracle, a reminder that a mother's love was the oldest, purest magic in the universe.
"Why are you crying, my little heart? Who could ever hurt you, hm?"
She rested her cheek against his forehead. The scent of milk and lavender intertwined.
Then she smiled the kind of smile that dawns on the darkest of nights. She took his tiny fingers into her palm.
"You know..."
She whispered, as though revealing the world's greatest secret,
"When you cry, my heart aches... But even your tears are so beautiful, my love. I hope you live a long life, Xenon, and that one day, you'll cry only from happiness."
The baby's sobs faded. Her voice, like warm silk, wrapped around him, a melody beyond language. Once more, her words turned into a familiar yet inimitable lullaby, a sound that only a mother could make.
When Xenon finally closed his eyes, the song came to an end. The woman bent forward, kissed his head softly, and whispered in his ear, as though finishing the last verse of a prayer.
"Even when you grow up... even when you grow tired of me... I'll always be on your side, sweetheart."