"...In this world, one does not simply question the chaos... you just simply learn to live with it"

Chapter 1: Wandering Soul

The soul; a spiritual or immaterial part of all living things that is regarded as immortal ; or as others used to call it in my old life..."Your Heart"...

...Now, I say in my old life for a very specific reason.

I don't mean I changed my name and moved to another town to start over a new leaf or anything like that. What I mean is that I had met my untimely demise once and now I was back into the world of the living for round number two.

What do you mean...? What do I mean?

I get it, I believe I'm being a little vague here, so let me slow down a little.

I had lived once.

It was in a different time, a different place and managed to live a simple (yet, short) life. It was unbearably disappointing to have it end as soon as it did- especially in my prime age of youth. I would never day I did something spectacular or dramatic before my time came.

I didn't save anyone...and didn't die in some freak accident. It was an accident but, not the dramatic and suspenseful kind... I think I might have choked on a fish bone or two...how...stupid.

To think I was debating on eating the sandwich that day...

Trying to remember the most important things my old life were as difficult as trying to see through thick and murky waters of a pond. It was always irritably vague and the memories didn't seem to come as clear as I would have liked. I can remember feeling the simplicity of what my life had been but, I couldn't recognize specific things. At first it was names of books I once read, then names of pets...and before long I had forgotten the names and faces of those who had raised me.

It was either a curse or a blessing in disguise.

Maybe both...?

I wouldn't have to deal with morning over the one's I would never see again, but I would always end up living on knowing they had been there.

The only way I could try to cope with the empty feeling was to occupy my attention with other things, like grow up in this new life as a new person. To start fresh and pray to the higher powers that I would never have to go through this in the next life because, if this is really was what happened after death then...

... I'm not looking forward to it the next time.

"Annathea?" A gentle voice pulled me from my brooding and sulking thoughts. My only reaction of an appropriate response was a simple gruff noise of acknowledgement.

"Hn?"

It's not like I had to try making conversations at this age anyway...If I could get away with it for now, I would.

Therefore, I shall.

Well...Then again, It also helped that I didn't want to raise any suspicion either so, why try hard into acting like a hyper active monkey all the time when I can enjoy being lazy for the next few years?

It's a win-win for me."Guess what Sweet Pea? Daddy's coming home today! Aren't you excited?" My mother chided with absolute glee.

It had had been a while since Dad-I mean Father left for work, the stress had been eating away at my Mother as the loneliness had token a visible toll on her.

She really missed him.

I mused to myself and smiled involuntarily at the thought of that man coming home.

Well what do you know?...I guess missed that bastard too.

To any other kid in my old life it would have meant almost nothing.

Sure, most Dad's come late from working overtime, but...not My Father.

He was there most of the time, but when he wasn't with me and Mother, he was gone for weeks on end with my Uncle Jo'. I'm not saying it didn't bite him in the ass later because, I saw the pain in his eyes when he found out he'd missed my last birthday and the day he found out I'd read my first book fluently from cover-to-cover.

Maybe it was due the fact that as first-time parent that, it really hit him hard. There were times where I recall Father coming home completely battered and covered in bruises.

To think that big lug still gave me a warm smile even when he was clearly in sheer agony. It was truly amazing to say the least...

It's no wonder he quickly became my own Hero.

Belen; My Mother, had always tried to explain his odd job to me time and time again. I could tell she was trying to find the right words to explain his profession to a child was without the potential outcome of sending them into a full-blown panic attack.

Oh, how I commended her for her efforts..

"Annathea?" Her tone took one of worry as I bore my eyes into the blue crayon in my hand.

"Ma'...? What did you say Pa' does again...? Why does have to come home hurt and covered in toilet paper?"

She snorted at my innocent for of wording then, hummed as if deep in thought. She was contemplating with herself. She plopped softly next to me and began to play with one of the colors in my pencil case. She grew silent trying to find the right words.

"..Thea?"

"Yeah..?"

"Do...you know why nobody is allowed outside when you hear that loud ringing...you know... from those big sirens outside?"

Of course I knew..., How could I not know what those sirens were meant for...?

It had been the town's warning system to stay indoors immeadiately.

... Did it change the fact that I still couldn't believe what we were hiding from?

No.

Did it also change the fact that that I still didn't believe it every time I heard her say it?

...No.

"Yeah...It's a warning...that the monsters are outside. That's why we hide inside..." I turned to watch her face. She had an unreadable expression and began to doodle on a piece of paper. I watched her as she sketched a black blob with beady red eyes.

"Yes. But..." She then drew a small stick figure with orange eyes holding a long blue ax. " Did you know that there are people ho have a job to keep the monsters away? Yea? Well..Did you know your Daddy and Uncle Jo' have that job? You see, You're Daddy fights the monster and your Uncle Jo' helps him."

"If uncle Jo' helps my Pa'...then how come he's not in the picture? Why is Papa all by himself..?"

"...but,Heis in the picture Thea."

"No he's not...There's only Pa', that monster and the ax Pa' is holding." She snickered at my confusion.

I raised an eyebrow and her light cackle rang in the air.

"Well, that's because, Your Uncle Jo' is the ax."

"Whah...WHAT?"

In that moment I came to realize just how ludicrous my life was turning out and I was pretty sure the big man upstairs was testing me.

I was reborn into an alternate dimension where beasts where as real as the sky is blue and where human beings have the genetics to made it capable for them to shape-shift into some living breathing weapon.

...I also just realized that and Uncle Jo' was a lot cooler than I ever gave him credit for.

Uncle Jo' wasn't my biological Uncle in case you're wondering. He was my father's most closest friend. The two were near inseparable.(Joined by the hip if you will). He was always full of life every time he and dad came home. They often bickered over childish things and my Mother would drop her sweet dexterity and beat them senseless when she thought I wasn't looking.

I had to find entertainment somehow right?

Being the toddler that I was, I was plagued with episodes of energy and ecstasy that were soon followed by painfully numbing waves of crashes. It was like living in the sugar-high all day long.

When I wasn't studying, I was uncharacteristically jittery and impatient.

Even if i didn't necessarily need to, I desperately craved the constant stimulation to my growing brain. It was a little hard to keep myself from banging my head into the thick walls of my home from the sheer mental frustration.

I had to find ways to keep the boredom from earing away at my sanity.

When Mother ran her daily routine I had the free time to look through her old books. I silently noted that almost everything appeared to be in American English and I breathed a sigh of relief. English was good. However, some slight Kanji and I think German where encrypted here and there as I progressed through the books I read; leading me to conclude that those three languages were among the top languages spoken in the Country. I'd have to learn the "basics" of Japanese and German if I ever planned to do anything in this life.

As time progressed I had many ways to occupy myself. One of them was spending my time trying to teach myself in becoming ambidextrous. I didn't think it would be so particularly useful at the moment but, at least that ability might be more convenient in the future.

Let me tell you though..it wasn't anything near easy...

Even though my brain was still in the stage of development, learning languages and writing only became a little less frustrating.

Emphasis on the "little."

Even now when I think about I get this dull sensation in the back of my mind. I feel like I'm forgetting something important.

I didn't know what exactly that was until one day I watched a particular add on the T.V that nearly sent me into a full blown panic-attack.

"...Students by day, Warriors by night. To serve and protect the good people of our United Nations against the beasts and terrors lurking the dark," A tall dark figure with a harmless skull mask appeared on the screen as he loomed over the massive building behind him. The image of him made the gears in my head to finally start turning.

I had seen this before...but where...?

"Death Weapon Meister Academy, the place where we mold the youth of today into the defenders of our glorious Nations. Become the difference between life-and-Death! Join the DWMA and Sign up today!"The numbing sensation increased as I tried to place just a single memory from my past life.

Why did it bother me so much...?

Why was this so disturbingly familiar..?

The numbing in my head suddenly stopped. It was starting to come back to me now.

I knew now...

I know where I had seen this...I had seen it on T.V before...in my old life but, not as an add or a commercial but, as a Japanese cartoon program...

I wans't in some strange alternate world...like my own

I had been lodged into a world that I somehow knew was to supposed to be fiction.

I was in the world of "Soul Eater."