But I had no idea about the next one.
There was no background. Perhaps that was meant to represent darkness? The figure wore a robe with a hood that covered its eyes. A gray and cheerless mood hung about it.
Its sole notable feature was the long stick it held, on the end of which hung a lantern. Frankly, this statue gave me the immediate impression of a god of death.
I felt strangely drawn to its lantern.
Of course, having no way of knowing the thoughts of the child in her arms, Mary carried on walking. My eyes followed the sculpture until it left my sight.
There will be other chances to see it up close, I figured. I did my best to shake off my strange obsession.
We continued onward, further and further from the eye in the ceiling, my surroundings becoming darker and darker, until I could hardly see anything. Her footsteps echoed in the darkness.
After some time, Mary stopped under an arch engraved with vines, and rested a hand against a heavy-looking iron door. As the door emitted a noisy screech, a ray of light poured through the gap, then slowly expanded. When the opening had become wide enough, Mary stepped out.
“Ah…” My field of vision opened up all at once.
A refreshing wind blew past.
It was dawn, and a thin morning mist hung in the air at the foot of the hill. A city of stone was spread out below us, built up to the edge of a vast lake. It felt medieval, or even older. I could see tall towers and an aqueduct built with a series of beautiful arches.
All of it was aged and in ruins.
Many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed, and the plaster on the walls had fallen off, leaving the buildings in a state of pitiful disrepair. Grass grew through gaps in the streets’ stone paving, and green vines and moss clung to the buildings. The city was decaying away among the greenery, as though it were enjoying a quiet doze after all of the activity that must once have taken place here.
The morning sun shone softly over it all.
My eyes opened wide. It was a view of such magnificence, it shook the soul.
I felt like the wind had rushed right through me, from my feet to my head. The inside of my head felt amazingly clear. My whole body, every last cell of it, felt the world. I felt like I had remembered something very precious, something I had forgotten along the way.
For some reason, I felt tears welling up. I closed my lips tightly, trying to hold them back, but it made no difference. They trickled from my eyes.
I had lived a hopelessly blurred and muddied life, and I had died within that haze, never escaping it. So when I woke up in this world, I suspected it might be a punishment from God.
But this was no punishment.
I didn’t know where this was. I didn’t know what was going on.
But I was sure: this was grace. Stunning, wonderful grace. Out of the kindness of their hearts, someone had given me back what I had meaninglessly cast away. Without any evidence, I believed beyond any doubt that this was a warm and blissful gift.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it, Will? My darling little boy…” The voice was Mary’s.
William. Will for short. That was my name.
It was the name the three had given me.
My name before dying had been swallowed by the mud. Now, this was my name. This tiny body was my body. The body and name that had felt like they belonged to someone else seemed suddenly to fit, as if this was how I’d always been.
“Ah… Ah…” I tried to speak, and my voice filled with tears. I didn’t care. I forced my immature vocal cords to make noise.
I told myself… This time, I was going to do it right.
As Mary cradled me in her arms, I burned with determination. Nothing made any sense at all to me yet. I didn’t know what kind of world this was, or why I had been born here. But I had time enough to understand those things.
My knowledge was sparse and I had no skills, but I had all the time I needed to learn. I’d had enough of stagnating, of giving in and hugging my own knees. I didn’t care if I failed. I didn’t care if I bumbled. I didn’t care how much muck I’d have to wade through.
This time… This time, I was going to live. I was going to live in this world! I cried out my resolve with the wail of a newborn child.
Chapter 1
There was an angel before my eyes.
He was a young boy, his chestnut-brown hair slightly messy, his eyes a deep blue-green, and his face a healthy color.
“So this is me.”
I had found an old hand mirror on a tool shelf in a corner of the temple. Eager for the chance to observe my own appearance, I stretched up and grabbed it with both hands. I found that I was cuter than I expected.
Upon further thought, it probably shouldn’t have been surprising that I was cuter than most people, given that I was a kid. Everyone is 100% cuter during their childhood years. Even tough-looking bearded men are adorable little things when you look through their childhood photo albums.
“Yeah…” I gently put the mirror back. I clenched my hand, then opened it. Clenched it again, then opened it.
A tiny, soft, puffy hand. My hand.
A year and some months had passed.
To my surprise, after the day I accepted my current name and body as my own, the feeling that my body wasn’t working as it should quickly resolved itself. Memories of how to control my body from before my death faded. Now, it was these tiny limbs that I recognized as mine. My mind and body were operating in unison.
It hadn’t taken me long to learn to totter about, and I was even able to speak, albeit in a faltering manner. I had devoted the past year to practicing walking constantly, and learning words and their pronunciations by talking to Mary and the others.
I still fell flat on my face from time to time, though. Probably because of how large my head was in proportion to my tiny body. It might also have had something to do with my field of view, sense of balance, and muscles being undeveloped. As an additional complaint, I still had a low threshold of pain. As you might imagine, I cried my eyes out every time I fell over.
But I was making progress, little by little. Progress expected of a toddler, perhaps, but progress was progress all the same. I had at least grown from the phase of crawling and crying to someone who could have attended kindergarten or nursery school. So, I thought it was time to try my hand at the next challenge.
I had decided to live in this world. I wanted a body I could feel proud of, and I wanted to study and learn, one thing at a time. And so, first on the list was…
“Hmm, you say you want to learn to read?”
We were in one of the many smaller rooms that lay deep within the temple. It featured stonework walls, a small wooden chair and writing desk, and even a comfy-looking bed set into an alcove in the wall.
A crotchety old man with piercing eyes and a hooked nose was before me, arms crossed and stroking his jaw. His vaporous body, covered by a loose robe, was half-transparent and had no substance to it. I guess you’d call him a specter? A spirit, as they say. Y’know, a ghost.
“Yeah. Please, Gus.” His name was Augustus, technically, but Mary and everyone else shortened it.
At the moment, I was asking him to teach me how to read. To be honest, there were plenty of more important things I wanted to ask him about. This world, for instance, or my strange memories.
But any question a young child like myself could have posed would inevitably have been met with an equally primitive response, using a crude vocabulary. Would anyone launch into an explanation of astronomy, physics, and the theory of nuclear fusion after a child asked, “Why does the sun shine?” Not usually. Your answer would be something like, “Mister Sun is doing his best to give us all light and keep us warm.”