Wrapped in a thin white cloth, a baby with pitch-black hair let out a sharp cry into the open air. His small voice cut through the silence, drawing the attention of two blue-haired young men resting nearby.
"What do you think we should do?" one of them asked, his voice low but uncertain.
"I don't know. Let's bring him back to the village and hear what the chief has to say," the other replied, glancing down at the fragile bundle.
Meanwhile, while the two men debated the child's fate, the child himself had questions of his own.
'Do those people have blue hair? Wait… why are they so big?'
"Hey, look, Darius—I think he likes you."
"Shut up, Theron."
As the child reached out toward them, his small fingers trembled in the air. His movements were weak and uncoordinated.
Theron bent down and picked up a canister from his side. "Here you go, kid. Make do with this for now."
The blue-haired man tilted a canister toward the child's lips, a red liquid inside sloshed gently. The moment the liquid touched the child's mouth, instinct took over. The child eagerly drank as warmth spread through him.
Theron glanced sideways at Darius. "He should be fine with this for now. Let's go."
Not long after finishing the bottle, a heavy drowsiness crept over the child's eyes. His eyelids drooped, growing heavier with each passing second, until the world around him slowly faded off into darkness.
…
In a stone reinforced hut with a giant tortoise shell for a roof, an important conversation was taking place.
"So, you're telling me you found this child next to an abandoned village?" An older blue-haired man sat before Darius and Theron, his sharp eyes studying them carefully.
"Yeah, Chief. It looks like he was abandoned—left there to die," Darius replied, his tone steady but grim.
"What do you think we should do?" Theron asked, shifting slightly where he stood.
"Hm…" The chief, called Rocks, brought two fingers to his lips as his brow tightened in thought. "Is there anything wrong with him?"
"Well… no. It's just…" Theron hesitated, his eyes flickering toward the sleeping child.
"What is it?" Rocks pressed, his gaze sharpening.
Darius spoke up. "On the way here, we noticed something strange. The child… has more than one heartbeat coming from his chest."
"More than one heartbeat, you say?" Rocks turned his head, looking toward where the baby lay sleeping.
"Yes. Seven heartbeats, to be precise," Darius said quietly.
At this, Rocks approached and leaned down, placing his ear gently against the child's chest.
Thump. Thump. Thump…
The steady rhythm echoed—each beat pulsing in unison.
Rocks's expression grew curious. "Is there anything else peculiar about him?"
Theron shook his head. "Not that we've noticed. Only… he doesn't look like any demon I've seen before."
"You mean…" Rocks narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Yes. He might be a mix," Theron confirmed.
After a brief pause, Rocks looked down at the sleeping child once more, his gaze lingering. "Ask around the village if anyone is willing to take him in. If not… I will take him in myself."
Both Darius and Theron nodded before turning and slowly exiting the tent. "Understood, Chief."
…
By the time the child had woken up, everything had changed.
The harsh, dirty yellow sky was gone. Instead, a wooden ceiling stretched above me, dimly lit, its surface worn with age.
"Look, dear—he's awake."
A blue-haired woman leaned forward slightly, her eyes soft with curiosity as she looked down at me.
Beside her, a blue-haired man crossed his arms, studying me curiously. "Quite strange for a child. He's not crying at all," he muttered, his gaze scanning over my face.
"Still, he's just a baby. He's probably curious about everything," the woman said gently, her voice warm.
"Yeah… you're probably right," the man replied, though his eyes lingered a moment longer.
As the couple continued talking, the baby lying before them stared upward in silence, his mind racing.
'I remember walking down the street… the sound of tires… then that car came speeding toward me… Wait… did I die!? Was I reincarnated into another world!?'
The child's eyes widened briefly, a flicker of shock breaking through his otherwise still expression, before slowly settling again.
'My name is Sylas Wood. I am—or was—a newly graduated eighteen-year-old high school student…'
He stared blankly at the ceiling, his thoughts steadying.
'It seems I've been reborn as a newborn baby…'
With slow, limited movement, he turned his head to the side. The wooden structure beneath him—what he assumed was a crib—creaked faintly. Its edges were chipped, its surface worn and uneven.
His gaze shifted toward the blue-haired couple.
'Now that I'm taking a closer look… these people… they're smaller than the average person. No taller than five feet, it seems. That goes for both the man and the woman.'
A pause.
'But that's not the only thing…'
His awareness drifted inward.
'What is this feeling…?'
A strange rhythm pulsed within his chest—layered, overlapping.
'It feels like… more than one heartbeat…'
He closed his eyes and slowly moved his small arms over his body.
Seconds passed as he felt seven distinct pulses beating softly in sync, stretching from the top of his chest all the way down to his belly button.
But… there was something else.
Alongside these seven heartbeats, a faint trace of something dark flowed through his bloodstream, spreading to every part of his body.
He tried to bring it forth, but it seemed too small for him to control at the moment. For now, he could only wait and see what would become of it as he grew older.
***
Three months later…
Counting the days since I first opened my eyes in this small body, three months have passed in the blink of an eye.
I never worried much about what would happen to me after death in my previous life. I guess this is it—or maybe death is different for everyone.
Over these three months, I have slowly begun to pick up the local language of this world—whatever country I'm in.
It sounds much different from my old language, but I'm adapting. I can now understand most everyday words, though it still takes me longer to form sentences.
However, that's not the only strange thing I've noticed. It seems the people I'm staying with can communicate in two different ways—one through speech, and the other through what I can only assume is telepathy.
I guess it's some kind of skill they use to communicate over short distances, because sometimes they just look at each other without speaking.
As for me, they've been feeding me both a red and a white substance in a baby bottle. Recently, though, they've mostly switched to the red one. I wonder why.
I've started to feel some teeth coming in… could that be the reason?
"Look, Rowin, he's awake."
The blue-haired woman, Rokari, picked me up gently and opened my diaper slightly, checking if I had used the restroom—one of the many things I currently had no control over, sadly.
Rowin was the blue-haired man's name—and my father in this world. I never knew my parents in my last life either; they had given me up for adoption shortly after I was born.
"Look here, Draven."
My adoptive mother, Rokari, tried to grab my attention with toys I had never seen before.
Draven—that's what they call me now, and I've learned to accept it. It's not a bad name, and since being reincarnated, I've started to let go of my old one and embrace this new life.
[To be Continued…]