The Children Who Reincarnated

By: Erika

I am in a sea of black. It is all I have ever known along with something or someone who is with me in this calming, unaware, defenseless sleep. I have this feeling that's telling me that this is a prequel to something amazing. As if I am waiting for someone to take me away from this dull and uncaring black sea and into a loving, caring world. But for now the only way I can cope is by moving around a lot. Bouncing around in the black sea even though the person or thing next to me hates it and pushes me away.

But one day, my entire world changed when I saw a yellow oval glow that felt warm on my skin. I was drawn to this yellow warmth as if it were a path to the loving, caring world I always dreamed of. I felt a rush of energy go through my body as I traveled closer to the yellow oval. The glow expanded and the black sea turned into blue, then purple, then yellow, then orange and my excitement/curiosity increased as I saw all of these new colors.

The problem is that I wasn't paying attention to the squashed feeling that was tightening around my neck. All my energy disappeared and was replaced by a crushing pressure around my body that made me feel like there was a bomb in my chest that was burning up and that I was about to explode! I started panicking trying to get whatever was around my neck off but it didn't work because my lungs felt like they exploded and the panic/pain was replaced by a feeling of tranquility and calmness. This was followed by a feeling of being pulled away while seeing the bright colors that surrounded me turning back into yellow, then green, then purple, then blue, and finally, black. My miraculous chance of escape from a deep, dark sleep was gone and I felt like I was being reeled away.

I felt like I was back in the black sea but it was different because I couldn't feel anything. No hope or hate for this state I was in, I couldn't hear, taste, see, or feel anything, and I couldn't even move around to cope. I'd say I hate it, but I can't do or feel anything. I was in this state for a while until I heard snapping. I opened my eyes and I looked around to see that I was surrounded by black and a girl who was the size of a five year old. She wore blue shorts and a blue top that only covered her chest. She had long brown hair that was in a ponytail that went down to her knees. She had olive skin with brown eyes and had bracelets all over her body that had beads with any color imaginable on them and were made of every material you could imagine. She was holding a clipboard that had papers on them.

"Ah, you're alive. Sorry you had to stay dead for 3 weeks, I've been busy with all the plague victims. How are you and your sister doing?" She said. I started at her for a solid minute in confusion and asked,

"W-What's going on?"

"Oh right, I forgot you can't see your sister in Valmyr." She said while snapping her fingers. Suddenly a baby human appeared next to me and the black void that I was in turned into a hospital room. Inside the hospital room, there was a woman with curly brown hair who was covering her face while crying on a bed. She was surrounded by a group of people in white uniforms trying to comfort her.

"That is, or was, your mother. You both died during childbirth and this was her reaction. So, because you both died before your life began you get to hang out in Valmyr (also known as stage 2 of the death cycle.) There are three stages of death. The first one is dying and your soul being transported to Valmyr. The second stage is in Valmyr where you pick what you want to be in your next life. The third stage is being reborn into that next life. So, because you both died before your life began, you get to be reincarnated into small animals." She said.

"How is she now?" I asked, feeling sorry for this lady who I will never meet.

"Why do you care? We won't ever meet her, and I doubt we'll even remember her in our next life." My sister said while pushing me.

"Wait… I could recognize that shove from anywhere. You're the thing that lived next to me in the black sea!" I yelled.

"That was you! God you never stop moving, it was annoying. Why were you moving all the time." She asked.

"... I like moving. It's fun… I guess it was my training now that I think about it. My training to get out of the black sea, and into a world of love and warmth." I said. My sister gave me an odd look.

"Why would you dream about it? What's the point? We didn't know anything else so why dream about anything else especially when you didn't even know how to get out of the situation you were in?" She asked.

"I was fine with the way things were, I didn't want anything to change (except for you moving. I like my space.)" She said.

"Hmmm, you're a dreamer." The girl with bracelets all over her body said while pointing to me.

"And you're a cynic." She said while pointing to my sister.

"You would be perfect as one of those small colorful birds that move around a lot." She said while giving me her clipboard. The clipboard was full of pictures of birds that had all the colors I saw when I was going toward the yellow oval. Some of them were smaller than me, others bigger. But out of all the bizarre birds, there was one I was drawn to the most. It was small, around the size of the flower it was in front of. It was covered in blue, green, red, white, orange, and purple. It had a long thin beak with wings moving so fast, they looked like a blur.

" I want to be that one." I told the girl while pointing at the picture.

"A hummingbird? Okay, you can be that, but let your sister make a choice." She said.

"You would be perfect as one of these sea creatures that live in the bottom of the ocean. They don't really move a lot and live in total darkness." She said while giving my sister her clipboard. I thought the pictures that I saw were bizarre but these ones were a whole new level. They were fish that were either brown, blue, or transparent. They all had sharp, jagged teeth, with small fins, and were either really long, or insanely tiny. Some of them glowed or had body parts that glowed, you could even see the organs of some fish! I was frightened by them but my sister seemed to be interested in them. She was looking at them, mumbling something to herself.

"Hmmm… I choose that one." She said while pointing to one of the medium sized fish. It was brown, circle-like with long fins and thin, long hairs. It had two small eyes, thick lips with jagged teeth, and a stick on its forehead that had a glowing bulb on the end. In other words, it was horrible and terrifying.

"It's perfect. It lives in the black sea we come from but with space to move around so you cant bump into another creature," She gave me a dirty look, " with the perfect amount of light and I don't have to do a lot in order to survive!" She said. More like enough light to keep you from going crazy. I thought.

"So you want to be an angler fish." She said. She took off a black metal bead from one of her bracelets and gave it to my sister, then she took off a red bead made out of grass and gave it to me.

"Swallow the beads and you will be reborn into your new life." She said. We did as told and I suddenly felt sleepy. In fact, I felt so sleepy that I automatically fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I had wings and a long thin beak. This is the animal I chose. I thought. I looked around and saw two eyes and a bigger version of my species flying toward me. It stood right next to me on a twig and gave me a spider which I ate greedily. (I was hungry after all)... So this is my life now. I thought while wondering about what is going on with my old sister and if this new life is going to be like the life I dreamed of when I was in the black sea.

The End