A New Beginning

He struggled a bit, but after all, Josiah managed to open his eyes again. The vision came back to him all blurred... But it all slowly became clear again after a short while. He started hearing voices:

“We need to start getting ready, Beata.”

“Oh, he is opening the eyes already! Look at him. He has the mother’s eyes…”

‘What?’ Josiah thought to himself. ‘What is this all about? Where am I?’

He moved his head to look around, but it felt different. It’s like the head didn’t respond as well as it used to, also the two women in the room seemed very tall for some reason. Maybe a bit too tall?

‘Is it because I’m lying on this bed here, or maybe...?’

He took a look to his body. He was completely naked. And covered in some wacky goo. And worst of all: he was a baby! His body looked like the one of a newborn.

‘What the hell!? What is this? Did I die and come back to life? So reincarnation is real? But what about my consciousness? I still remember everything. My mom asking me to exchange the pills, the dusty dark streets of Dirtswamp Point, the two robbers...’ Josiah thought to himself. He opened his mouth and tried to ask where he was:

“E-heh!”

“He is giggling!”

‘What is this? I can’t talk... My tongue doesn’t respond properly...’ Josiah shut his mouth again.

Josiah’s body was carried by one of the women. She lifted him to take a closer look. She seemed especially big on that angle.

The other woman who was still in the bed shouted:

“Quick, Beata. We don’t have time to waste!”

The lady seemed to be his biological mother. She was slim, young and had a long, beautiful curly hair. Her eyes were a bright, colored green, similar to the ones Josiah had.

‘No wonder she mentioned I have the mother’s eyes...’ He thought to himself. ‘It’s hard to think of her as my own mother, though...’

The three people in the room heard footsteps around the other side of the door, followed by a deep and what seemed to be worried voice:

“M’lord! The barricade is starting to crumble! The enemy may start invading the castle very soon!”

They overheard another voice answering the first:

“Oh, no! What shall we do? Give the order to the first squa...”

The two male talking voices started getting to low to be heard from the room, as the two interlocutors were distancing themselves through the corridor.

His mother went back to shouting in a hurried manner:

“They are almost getting in! Quick! Give me the baby and pack the things! We don’t have time! We need to get out now!”

“Mirild! But running away of the castle in this scenario is…”

‘So Mirild is the name of my mother?’ Josiah realized.

The mother proceeded:

“We are going to need to run away sooner or later, better now, in the middle of the enemy storming!”

“But...”

The male voice outside of the door could be heard again, interrupting their discussion. This time he was just outside the door, directing to them:

“M’lady...?”

“Y...Yes, I am here!” Miriad answered.

“Just checking to see if you are okay.”

“I’m still safe. How is the situation going?”

“The soldiers are handling the matter for now, don’t you worry. Stay safe, m’lady.” The voiceman’s worried tone didn’t match his attempts at comforting.

“All right, keep me updated.”

“Understood!”

They heard his steps walking away.

‘She seemed very worried that the voiceman would come inside the room for some reason’ Josiah observed. ‘Maybe they don’t know she is giving birth to a baby...? Is this an unwanted birth? Oh, how great... I’m an unwanted child all over again…’

The mother got up and grabbed the child in her own arms. It was so sudden that the still weak Josiah got a bit dizzy.

‘Hey not like this, I’m still a baby you know!?’

He tried to shout but it came out as a long and high-pitched crying noise.

“Mirild!”

“Shhh...” The mother started gently swinging the baby in the air, trying to calm him.

As soon as Josiah saw the lack of effect of his attempts at communication, he closed his mouth and stopped crying.

“It won’t be good if they hear him crying and realize the baby is already born. They could try something.”

“Mirild, are you sure about this...?”

“Are you blind? The council hates me. My husband isn’t the same as he used to be. It’s all a matter of time before they try to murder my baby in order to try to erase once and for all this turn of events. Yes. We are leaving this castle. Pack the things. Call Thomas. If I have to leave this castle to preserve my child, the time is now.”

‘I see... So I’m not an unwanted child’ Josiah ponders, ‘my mother is just afraid of some political shenanigans. Does this mean this is some sort of middle-age era and I got transmigrated to the past? Now that I look around this really seem like a sort of a medieval castlish place.’

Josiah took the time to take another look around. The room was made in a rustic setup, masked over by fancy ornaments all around. From the bed itself to the doorframes, everything had this overexaggerated expensive jewelry surrounding it. But not even the beautiful ornament and expensive decoration could make up for the visible lack of a desktop computer or the electric wiring of the modern era.

‘In this case… If I don’t forget everything… If I keep my consciousness of an adult from my past life… I am going to try to do the things right this time. This is my second chance, with a second family. I’m going to try to make the most of all of this. This is going to be the beginning of a new Josiah…’

Josiah’s thoughts of determination got interrupted from a loud bang at the door. It was again the voice of the same man from earlier:

“M’lady! The barricade is gone! We are under attack!”