(============)(Description)(============)

At some point I should've figure that the other shoe would drop. Things were going to well for me up until now. But I guess that's what happens when you've managed to get your life in order, someone throws a wrench into the plan.

(============)(Chapter 1: New Beginnings)(============)

It's one of those things that you don't really think about until it's too late. What do you want to do before you died?

Me, I would've liked to have graduated college, established myself as an animator, moved out of my parents' house, gotten into a relationship that lasts, or just a relationship in general, and just overall burned my own path through life. Maybe it would also be cool to go travelling, see sights and experience cultures wholly different from what I was used to.

None of that's really an option now anymore though.

I don't really know what happened to be honest. I'm not even sure as to whether or not I died or if this was all just the delirious ramblings of my brain in a coma. I just know that at one point my memory just stops at a point where I'm in one of the study rooms at college and now here we are. I'm stuck in some kind of sensory deprivation zone. I can't see, hear, touch, smell, and I guess taste, though there's no way to really test that last one.

There's just nothing.

Nothing but my own mounting insanity at the feeling. I was always one of those people who needed some kind of outside stimulus. I always needed to feel like I was doing something, or experiencing something, to remain calm and controlled. It wasn't ADD or ADHD, I got tested for that when I was younger. I was just energetic as a person I guess.

But now I didn't have that, and it was maddening! What's worse is that I couldn't do anything to change it. I couldn't go play videogames, I couldn't go watch movies, draw, or hell even work on my schoolwork.

It was definitely an "I have no mouth, yet I must scream" kind of situation.

So, when I started to feel warmth and a slight pressure, I was so relieved! Finally, there was stimulus! Finally, there was something I could interact with!

I pushed against the pressure, pressing against it until I was satisfied with how much it pressed back and then relaxed. I nuzzled into the warmth, letting it heat my body and fill me with a sense of contentment.

I felt happy.

Then the pressure started to increase. It started to get uncomfortable. I could feel something pushing me into something tight and constricting.

It hurt.

It was agonizing being in that constricting spot, made all the worse because whatever was pushing me was taking its sweet ass time getting me through. I tried to worm my way through, but I couldn't, I just didn't have the strength to move my arms or legs against what I was being pushed through.

But then the sensation changed, my head felt kiss of cold as it came out the other side.

And then the screaming started.

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I was wrapped in something. I tried opening my eyes, and I was blinded when I did! It was so goddamn bright! Someone turn down that light for god's sake! And the noise! It was like everyone was shouting but not at the same time! Everybody shut up and talk quieter!

But they didn't. They kept going. It's too loud! It's too bright! This blanket feels scratchy! And stop this thing that's bouncing me!

MakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopMAKEITSTOP!

I wound up passing out.

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I awoke to the feeling of being held. There was a slight back-and-forth movement that I could feel, and there was this noise coming from somewhere nearby. I dared not open my eyes, instead trying to make out what situation I was in this time from what I could hear. The last thing I wanted was to get blinded again.

I tried to move my arms and legs, but they were held largely in place by some kind of blanket that I was wrapped up in like a human burrito. So I started wiggling slightly, trying to worm my way out of the blanket's hold. No dice. I just couldn't seemingly get enough strength into my limbs to do what I wanted to do.

Which started to make me feel sufficiently worried. Last I checked I was a 22-year-old guy. I wasn't exactly the most in-shape, but I'm pretty sure I had enough muscle strength to wiggle my way out of this blanket. So, the fact that I wasn't able to was scaring me a bit.

Then I heard something that sounded like a woman cooing. It was shocking enough for me to hear that my eyes shot open and I was greeted by the concerned face of a woman who was cooing into my face. Her finger, was poking into my noise and cheeks. It was painful, but little presses and scratches to try and illicit a reaction.

And my god this lady was fucking massive! Like I'm not talking about her being fat, for all intents and purposes she looked fine. No, she was huge in her proportions. Her face alone looked almost as large as I was! Like the distance from the top of her head to the bottom of her chin was almost my entire 6'3" height!

And her hands were similarly huge. That finger she was nuzzling into my face looked two feet long! I was in the arms of a giant! I started struggling, and trying to weasel my way out of her grip and get the hell away from this giant of a woman.

And then she did something I didn't expect her to do. She took her finger away, and started loosening the blanket that had held me prisoner. Immediately my hand went up to shield myself from any further approaches by this woman.

And instead of seeing the long, bony fingers of my hands, I saw the short fat fingers of a baby.

What.

The woman presented her finger to me, and out of a desperate want to prove what I was seeing wrong, I grabbed hold with both my hands.

My fingers wrapped around the massive digit.

I was seeing the truth.

I wailed until I passed out.

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The next succession of days was a case of me just trying to further figure out what kind of loopy land I'd just entered. I was a baby now all right. No idea what my name was. I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. I think they were speaking Japanese, but I wasn't sure.

I watch dubs. Sue me.

Regardless, I was rapidly growing discontent with my current situation. I mean I could barely move outside of flop around uselessly. Fuck these baby-caliber muscles and non-solid bone structure.

So I tried to spot what I could as I lay in my crib or got ferried around by the woman who I assumed was my momma. I got a lot of a "traditional Japanese house" vibe from this place. Like I'm talking the kind of place you'd get if your house was more historical in nature but got restored with a few semi-modern amenities.

Nothing modern that I could tell though. Most I saw was an old-as-shit looking radio.

So, either I got slammed back in time here, or I was stuck with a family that was really down in the dumps financially.

Now as for my new mom, she looked to be in her early-to-mid-twenties form what I could tell, with a pair of brown eyes, and her equally brown hair done up into a bun. She was always done up in a white kimono, one that looked entirely utilitarian. But the one thing I think was the most noticeable about her was the two red dots on her forehead. I know I've seen that symbol somewhere before, but I can't place it.

I think Hindus do something similar, but its one dot in the middle of the forehead instead of two. Or is that another religion I'm thinking of? I wish I had Wikipedia so I could look that up.

I had yet to meet anyone else besides my new mom, though. The only question I could think of was whether or not she was alone. And did I have a dad, or was I a product of a "love her and leave her" kind of situation?

All these questions and more would not be answered. At least, not right away.

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I'd started crawling by this point. I don't really know how much time had passed anymore. A few months at least. My hair was growing in.

It was white.

Not even joking on that.

There's also I a bit of a story there but I'll get to that a bit later.

Another thing I figured out was my name: Chinatsu.

I am now a girl. Hoooooo boy that's gonna make puberty especially awkward. Even more so then having to go through it a second time.

Jury's still out on my family name though.

Now for the story about my hair. See everything with my mom had been going okay up until my hair started to grow in. After that, she started to act a little more paranoid about me. At first, I thought that was just who she was, paranoid in general. But no, her paranoia only seemingly extended to me. And this went beyond just making sure the house was baby-proofed and that harmful objects were out of my reach. This was "keep the blinds closed and doors locked lest the baby see the light of day" levels of paranoia.

After that I couldn't even look out the window. Mom refused to let me go outside. I was locked inside the house. The tiny, tiny, tiny, house. It was basically three rooms. The bedroom, where my crib and mom's bed were. The bathroom, which connected both to the bedroom, and the large main common room, which held the kitchen, dining table and a main seating area. There was also a walk-in storage closet admittedly, but that was more of a place for mom to store extraneous crap she didn't need so I don't count it as a room.

So as of right now, I was just trying to keep myself entertained with stuff around the house. Luckily my mom had ready access to writing materials. Thus, a large portion of the paper around the house were taken up by my drawings.

Which actually kinda infuriated me a little bit. I'd lost some hand-eye coordination, which meant that my drawing skills had regressed to the point of being chicken-scratch.

Ha ha fuck that noise! I am going to drill that shit until I can draw a face that doesn't look like a misshapen potato!

Oh yeah, also need to learn how to walk. Kinda forgot about that part. I'd like some degree of locomotion!

And learn to speak Japanese better. Okay I'm not quite sure if it is Japanese or not but it sounds similar enough that I was willing to make that guess. I'd sorta picked up on some of the words mom had been saying to me around the house. Now I just gotta expand my vocabulary.

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At this point I am getting entirely fed up with mom's bullshit paranoia. I'd just celebrated my first birthday and had yet to be brought outside. I'd yet to even look outside since my hair grew in. If my drawings hadn't been put into piles in the bedroom or wherever else they'd fit, we'd have new wallpaper by now.

Luckily, I think mom had figured out that at the rate I was going, she was gonna run out of space and possibly money long before I ran out of steam.

So, she brought in books for me to read. And to teach me better Japanese apparently.

Well it was at least something to do.

But let me tell you how much it sucks to not really know how to read. Because I find it incredibly frustrating. Frustrating enough that I wish I had enough hand-eye coordination to kick over our "living room" table.

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I've already broken something out of frustration. The chewing-out I got from mom did not deter me from expressing how fucking done I was with being locked up all the time. That's what happens when you're one-and-a-half and have yet to see sunlight that doesn't filter through the windows.

Mom said that it was too dangerous out there for me. That inside I would be safer.

I didn't buy that shit for a goddamn second. So y'know what? I'm done with this shit. Tonight, I'm sneaking the fuck out of the house.

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That night I made a show of falling asleep when mom put me to bed. Only when mom crawled into her own bed and shut off the light did I put my plan into action. I began to wait. I waited for about an hour, waiting for mom to slip off to sleep.

Then I clambered over the edge of the crib and slowly lowered myself to the floor. I didn't have to opent he bedroom door, mom tended to keep that open. Why I have no clue. But it suited my purposes quite nicely, as now I could slip out of the room without having to make any noise.

I reached the front door without any sign that mom was waking up. I grabbed the handle, turning it slowly as to not make any sudden noise. Slowly I pulled it open, slipped through, and slowly closed and turned the handle back so that the door.

And after that I was home free. I could feel the night breeze and smell the slight dampness of the night air. The moon was full, hanging clearly in the sky and bathing the surroundings in cool light. Around me looked like a village. Houses that looked to be the same size as mine were arranged haphazardly, interspersed with small, fat-trunked trees and scraggly bushes.

So, then I walked. It would just be a short walk. I'd be home in maybe an hour. Just enough for me to get my fix.

That turned out to be a mistake.

"What are you doing out here?!" I heard a voice whisper behind me. I spun and came face to face with my mom. She looked positively livid.

And at that point I knew where I'd fucked up.

She marched right up to me and grabbed my hand roughly. "Come Chinatsu! We're going back to the house!" She said keeping her voice down. I squirmed as her hand squeezed down on my hand uncomfortably, but otherwise did nothing to resist as she dragged me back to the house.

She pulled me inside before closing the front door and locking it with a loud click of the bolt sliding into place. "What were you thinking, Chinatsu?!" She hissed out, still trying to keep her voice down. Nevertheless she made her disappointment and frustration with me very clear with the way she loomed over me in the middle of the kitchen space, a glare that could strip paint off the walls on her face. "I told you, the outside is too dangerous for you!"

"But I want to go outside!" I said meekly, giving my admittedly still-basic grasp of Japanese a whirl.

"That's not an excuse!" She snapped, her voice hissing through the room. "You do not go outside, do you understand?!"

I nodded, nervously scratching at my hand and pointedly looking away from mother. "Yes okaa-san…"

"Look at me, Chinatsu!" Her hand suddenly wrapped around my chin, dragging my gaze towards her face. "Do you understand?!" She repeated.

I nodded as much as I could with her hand holding my chin. "Yes okaa-san!"

She let go of me. "Get in bed." She ordered, pointing to the bedroom. I lumbered into the bedroom, mom eventually picking me up and placing me into the crib before wrapping me up in my blanket just enough to keep me warm.

It's then that her gaze softened again, and she smiled at me. "I'm sorry for yelling…" She said.

"I'm sorry for leaving momma." I said in return, though I'm not sure if I actually meant that.

She huffed, before reaching over and shutting off the light. "Sleep tight, sweetie…"

(============)(Author's Notes)(============)

Meh, figured I'd give it another go at a Naruto SI. Not sure how this one will turn out but I like to think I have a much better handle on what exactly is going to go down this time.

So welcome to Skeletal. Hope you enjoy your stay!