Hiccup's Point of View
The last thing I remember was how bright those lights were.
Just two bright circles, getting bigger and bigger until they were everything. Then I heard a loud horn, my body was frozen in place and it did not want to move.
Then—smash.
It wasn't like in the movies. There was no slow-mo, no poetic flash of my life and how I spent it. It was just a world-ending THUD and a lightning bolt of pure, white-hot pain that shot through every single part of me at once. A crunch I felt more than heard. And then, as fast as it came, the pain cut off. Like a TV screen getting unplugged.
Then I felt Nothing.
I just saw darkness all around me.
I felt....Empty. I wasn't floating or falling. I just... wasn't. No body to feel, no ears to hear. Was I dead? Was this what being dead was? Seriously? This was the big finale? After all that, you just get... turned off? Man, that was lame. I didn't even get to finish my burger. I'd just bought it, and it was sitting on my passenger seat, getting cold. What a waste of a perfectly good burger.
I don't know how long I was stuck in the darkness. A second? A year? I had no way to tell for how long I was stuck there.
Then, I felt a change.
I felt warmth.
Not like a blanket someone puts on you. It felt like being submerged in a perfect bath, but the heat was in my veins, in my chest. It was heavy and safe. Really, really safe. Which was... weird. And confusing. A minute ago (or a century ago), I was roadkill. Now I was cozy? What was happening?
And I felt... off. Weird. Small. I couldn't move right. My limbs felt useless and tangled. What the fuck is on?
Then I started to hear voices. Muffled at first, like listening through a wall. Then they started to become clearer. The interesting part was that I understood everything that they were saying as if it was English but it sounded different and I knew It definitely wasn't English.
"Almost there, my heart. Push."
The voice was a woman's, strained and gritty with effort, but so, so gentle underneath.
"You can do this, Valka. Breathe."
A man's voice, deeper, rough like stones grinding together, but tight with worry.
Valka?
The name slammed into my floating, confused mind. It didn't just land; it exploded.
No. Way.
That wasn't a real name. That was a cartoon name. From a movie. From my favorite movie. My brain stuttered, a record scratch in the dark.
Wait. Waitwaitwait.
A horrifying, awesome, completely insane puzzle piece clicked into place. The warmth. The feeling of being squeezed and safe. The voices talking about pushing...
Oh.
OH NO.
A tidal wave of pure, undiluted panic wiped out every other thought. The light at the end of the tunnel wasn't a light. It wasn't heaven, or hell, or some cosmic waiting room.
It was a birth canal.
I wasn't getting reborn in some cool, mysterious way. I was being born. Like, right now. As a baby. The pressure, the voices, the everything—it wasn't some spiritual journey. It was Tuesday. I was currently, actively, being delivered.
My mind screamed. A high-pitched, internal shriek of total disbelief.
NO! NONONONONO! ABORT MISSION! CANCEL! REWIND!
This was the worst possible plot twist. I'd imagined a hundred weird afterlives, but this? This was a biological horror show. I was literally in the process of being born into a world where someone was named Valka. Which meant...
A new, worse realization hit me like a second truck.
If she was here... then I knew exactly who I was about to be.
The pressure built, a crushing, undeniable force, and I had one last, coherent, thought before everything went bright and cold and loud:
You have GOT to be fucking kidding me. This is so Embarrassing!!!!!!
I couldn't see straight. Everything was a blur of firelight and moving shapes. Then someone picked me up. Gentle hands. I was pulled against something soft, and a smell hit me—leather, herbs, and something else. Something that just felt... like warm and safe. A big, calloused finger stroked my cheek.
I forced my dumb baby eyes to focus.
A woman's face swam into view. Red hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. Tired green eyes. She was looking at me like I'd just hung the moon in the sky.
Valka. She is my mom in this life. As in, Hiccup's mom. From How to Train Your Dragon.
My brain short-circuited.
NO. Nope. No way. Impossible. I was dead! A truck turned me into street pizza! This had to be some freaky afterlife or a coma dream. But... it felt too real. The cold air on my skin, the ache in my lungs from crying, the way my new body felt like a floppy sock puppet. This wasn't a dream.
Oh, crap.
I wasn't just alive.
I was... reborn. And not in, like, another normal baby. I was in Berk. I was Hiccup. The scrawny kid of Berk, turned into the world's greatest dragon master.
Panic totally freaked out inside me. I loved the movies. Watched them a million times. Toothless was the coolest. But that was watching. This was living. I was gonna be the village punching bag for years!!!! I was gonna have to face down dragons on a daily basis!!!
I was so dead. Again.
But then... another thought cut through the panic.
Wait.
I know things.
I know about the cove here in Berk I know about the screaming death one of my favorite dragons and... the Red Death... all of it. I know Toothless is out there right now, probably a little dragon hatchling somewhere. I know how this all ends... or how it's supposed to end.
A crazy feeling started bubbling up, fighting the fear. This wasn't just a messed-up fate. This was a cheat code. I could change things. I could make it better. Maybe I wouldn't have to be the total loser for fifteen years. Maybe I could find Toothless sooner. Maybe I could stop a bunch of people from getting hurt.
Heck yeah!
The excitement was huge, but then I looked at my tiny, useless baby hands. I couldn't even hold my own head up. I was gonna be stuck in a crib, eating mushy food, for years. Ugh! The ultimate torture. Knowing what's coming and having to wait.
A shadow fell over me. I was lifted again, into a whole different set of arms. These were like being held by a walking tree. Big, hard, wrapped in furs and smelling of mead and forge-fire.
I looked up. Into the biggest, reddest beard I'd ever seen. A face like a cliff, with eyes the same green as Valka's, but way more nervous. He looked terrified.
"So..." his voice boomed, even though he was trying to be quiet. "This is him."
He held me out like I was a strange fish he'd just caught.
"Hiccup," he said, the name sounding serious and heavy. "Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third."
He gave me a once-over. I saw his huge smile start to form, then wobble. He was trying to be happy, but I could see it. The disappointment. I was too small. Not Viking material.
"He's, uh... a bit on the tiny side, isn't he?" he said, his voice dropping.
A flash of hot anger shot through me. Fuck you bitch! I'm right here, you know! I'm gonna be the one who saves your whole stubborn ass one day! But all I could do was wiggle and make a gurgling noise.
This felt Pathetic.
He handed me back to Valka, who gave him a look that could freeze lava. "He's perfect, Stoick. He's our son."
Stoick. My dad. The man who's gonna spend the next decade wishing I was more like him. Great. Just great.
But as Valka held me close, the anger faded. Looking between them—my mom's fierce love, my dad's confused worry—it hit me. These were real people. Not just characters. And I was their kid. That was... kinda huge.
My baby brain was getting tired. The warmth and my body feeling tired was pulling me under. As I started to drift off, my last thought wasn't about Vikings or dragons or changing the future.
It was simpler.
Somewhere out there, right now, Toothless was a baby too. Small, maybe alone, definitely not the awesome terror of the sky just yet. We were both starting from zero.
Hang in there, bud, I thought, my mind getting foggy. Just... don't get eaten or anything. I'll find you. And when I do... it's gonna be epic.
Then sleep took me, a baby with the mind of a teenager, already planning my first dragon ride and how to safe Berk from their idiocy .