Darkness cradled him. Warmth wrapped around him like a cocoon, muffled and rhythmic. Every sound came distorted echoing through liquid and heartbeat.
For a moment, James believed he was floating again, still trapped between life and death. Then he tried to move. A tiny limb twitched. Not an arm. Not his arm. Something smaller. Softer. Weak.
"What… what is this?" his thoughts echoed through the enclosed space. His body curled itself instinctively, folded tight in the fetal position. He wasn't floating anymore. He was anchored. Growing. Alive. Inside someone else. Inside another life. A fetus.
The horrifying realization rippled through him like a surge of electricity. "No. No, no, no, this isn't real. This can't be real."
But the heartbeat surrounding him said otherwise. Two heartbeats. One enormous, steady one, belonging to the woman carrying him. And his own, faint and racing. He tried to stretch again. A tiny foot bumped into one wall of the womb.
He was trapped. Reincarnated. Reborn before even being born. His soul shook with grief so deep it hollowed him from the inside. "Maria… Tom… all of them… they killed me."
A faint vibration passed through the womb, voices from the outside world, muffled like they were underwater. James focused. Doctors. Nurses. Movement. Urgency. But he couldn't make out words.
He floated helplessly as he listened, trying to decipher sounds, trying to piece together the fate of the mother who now unwillingly cradled him.
The woman groaned loudly, pain vibrating through the amniotic fluid.
James flinched. He could feel every tremor of her body, every tightening contraction, every surge of adrenaline racing through her bloodstream. He wasn't simply reborn.
He was experiencing birth from the inside. "She's in distress, prep the OR!"
"Fetal heartbeat stabilizing!"
"Let's move, now!"
The woman cried out again, and James felt the thundering pulse of her fear and exhaustion. He wanted to scream along with her. He wanted to claw his way out.
He wanted to tear through space and time and go back, to confront them, to stop them, to fight for his life. But all he could do was curl tighter as the world shook around him.
Suddenly, pressure crushed him from all sides. The womb constricted violently. James panicked. "What's happening?! No, stop! Stop!"
Another contraction squeezed him like a vise. The fluid shifted. His tiny body was pushed downward. Everything tightened. Everything narrowed. "Please, please, not again"
A flood of warmth swept through the womb. Voices screamed from the outside. "Blood pressure dropping!"
"She's hemorrhaging!"
"Get the baby, now!"
James was shoved downward, his tiny body twisting helplessly. Pain. Fear. Movement. Then, Light. Blinding, searing white exploded around him as cold air slapped his newborn skin. His lungs convulsed. He took his first breath,
And screamed. A doctor lifted him, checking, clearing his tiny airway. "Baby's responsive!" Another nurse cut the cord. "We need to stabilize the mother, she's losing too much blood!"
James cried, flailing uselessly in unfamiliar air. His skin tingled painfully, overstimulated by everything, light, noise, cold.
He wanted to speak. He wanted to shout that he wasn't just a baby. He wanted to beg them to save the woman who had unknowingly become his vessel.
But his mouth produced nothing but infant wails. More voices filled the room. "Call two units of O-negative!"
"She's slipping!"
"Stay with us, stay with us!"
James sobbed harder. The woman… she didn't sound well. She didn't sound like she was going to make it. A terrifying thought burrowed into him: "What if I killed her just by being here?"
He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't wanted another life. He didn't want to hurt an innocent woman. But fate hadn't asked him. It had dragged him into her body without warning.
Her breaths were ragged, fading. Her heartbeat, once a powerful drum, grew faint, irregular. "No," James thought desperately. "No! Please, don't die. Please"
But the monitors told another story. "Flatline!"
"We're losing her!"
"Prepare for CPR!"
His new mother's body jerked with chest compressions. Doctors shouted. Machines beeped wildly. James screamed until his throat burned.
The doctor holding him frowned. "He's reacting to the noise, can someone calm him?"
But he wasn't reacting to noise. He was reacting to loss. To fear. To guilt. Because in his past life, he died alone. In this new one… he was born while another life slipped away.
Minutes felt like hours. Suddenly, "Heartbeat's back!"
A nurse gasped. "She's stabilizing!"
Relief rippled through the room.
James stopped crying abruptly, as if the peace outside had reached him inside. He breathed. Slow. Calm. Shaken. He wasn't alone. Not yet. His new mother was alive. But barely.
The doctor wrapped him gently in a blanket and whispered, "Welcome to the world, little one." James stared up through blurry newborn vision. Everything was shapes and shadows.
But one shadow stood closer than the rest, leaning over him with deep, exhausted eyes. His new mother. She was weak. Pale. Barely conscious. But she looked at him. A faint smile touched her lips.
"Evan…" she whispered in a cracked, trembling voice. "My little Evan…"
Evan. That was his new name .James Wood died. Evan was born. He blinked slowly, his fragile eyelids fluttering. He didn't know who this woman was.
He didn't know what her life was like. He didn't know what trials awaited him in this second life.
But he knew one thing with absolute clarity: She was innocent. And he owed her his protection. Hours passed. James, now Evan, slept in a small cradle next to her hospital bed.
He drifted in and out of hazy consciousness, flooded with memories of his former life, his children, his businesses, his dreams, all crushed under Maria's betrayal.
He would never forget. He would never forgive. Not Tom. Not the seven friends. Not Maria. Not any of them. He may be a newborn, powerless and fragile…
But he was alive. Alive again. A chance fate rarely ever gave. "What am I supposed to do now?" he wondered.
As if answering him, a nurse entered, whispering to another: "The woman came in alone. No husband. No partner. No relatives listed. Poor thing."
"Do you think she'll manage?" the other asked.
"She'll try. But life won't be easy for her."
Life. Wouldn't be easy. Not for her. Not for the child. Not for him. A spark of resolve flickered inside Evan's tiny chest. He may have been reborn helpless, but his mind was intact. And his purpose was carved into his soul:
Survive. Grow. Remember. And one day… return. To reclaim his life. His name. His legacy. And bring them all down.