Everything feels strange, but not bad. I must have fainted again, but I don’t understand where I could be. I thought maybe I was dreaming, but, for how surreal it is, this still feels real. It feels like I’ve been completely submerged in a warm bath, but I don’t feel like I’m drowning.
Even though it’s cramped and dark, I’m not scared. Actually, I feel… safe, and that doesn’t make sense. That scares me and I start to panic, flailing my limbs weakly. It doesn’t accomplish much as my arms and legs, which feel different somehow, bounce off the walls of my confines without doing any damage. What does happen however is that my world shifts suddenly as if whatever I’m in is moving.
While being jostled about, I bump into something that is decidedly not the smooth, rounded walls of whatever I’m in. It’s more firm and moves in response to my contact. Whatever it was actually punches me in the face. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s still unsettling. I’m not alone. Someone else is in here with me.
I have so many questions, but I’m too exhausted to try and find the answers. I want to stay awake, don’t want to fall asleep in this strange place, but my body betrays me and I slowly lose consciousness. What’s happening to me?
When I wake up next, I know it’s been more than just a few hours, but I’m not sure how. The first thing I notice is how less space there is in my balloon of a room. Whoever it is in here with me is pressed up against my body and I try to push them away. I realize then that they are hugging me and I ease up. There’s no harmful intent in the embrace, they’re just sleeping it seems.
It comes as a shock when I realize I’ve begun hugging them back. Even though they’re a stranger, the gesture seems right and I feel the other snuggle closer to me. A smile pulls at my lips, which feels decidedly less right.
It’s as if my face has been deformed, elongated into something inhuman. My grip tightens in panic, and I realize I can’t feel my fingers. My arms end in stumps and a quick attempt at wiggling my toes tells me the same is true for my legs.
Once again, sleep comes to steal me away. I try to fight it, this is no time for sleep, but I can’t and the darkness around me grows a little darker.
I’ve awoken several more times since then, each time a little more cramped, each time another difference noticed. Whatever I am now, it’s not human, but the panic has begun to fade. Whoever is in here with me, they keep me grounded. It’s strange, I’ve not even spoken with them, have no idea who or what they are, but they still bring me comfort.
I have an idea of what might be happening, though it seems outrageous. One of the books I read over the years of being bedridden was a medical textbook. I remember it was disturbing, especially in that it helped me realize just how much was wrong with my body, but it still helped pass the time, which was better than the endless boredom its absence promised.
It made me squeamish for other reasons though too, like the section on reproduction. Mom had been pretty upset when I started asking her questions about that particular topic, but with some prompting from my dad, the two decided to give me the talk. Dissecting the flowery presentation, I understood the gist of where babies came from, and more importantly where they first grew.
It’s insane, but the more I think of what a womb would be like, the more my imagination came in line with my current predicament. Testing the hypothesis, I discovered that I did indeed have a cord of sorts where this body’s belly button should have been. Remembering the shrinking space around me, I realize perhaps I was growing instead. And the occasional shift and sense of movement could be explained by me literally being inside someone else.
It’s only the impossibility of the situation that gives me doubt. I might have read something about the idea of being born again, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to remember anything from before. Plus, if this was really happening to me, then what happened to get me here?
As soon as the thought comes, an answer follows, and I feel like I’m going to shatter. What is the last thing I can remember…? The bright light and the wish, but something else too. The feeling, the encroaching darkness… Did I really die? Did I really just fade like that? So sudden without even realizing it.
I always thought the day wasn’t far off, but also that there would be more warning. I wanted to spend my final moments with my parents, to tell them that I loved them and that I was sorry. I know they would say there was nothing to be sorry for, but that didn’t change how I felt. I was nothing but a burden to others in my last life.
The wish… Maybe… maybe my wish was granted. My parents will be better off without me, and maybe, if this is a second life, I can be more than just a burden. The thought is equal parts uplifting and bittersweet, but before I can dwell on it much longer, I begin to fall asleep again. I suppose waiting will answer all my questions eventually.
My next awakening is nowhere near as peaceful as the others as I’m squeezed and twisted from all sides. It's all happening so fast that I can’t think. My companion disappears first and I search wildly for them, and soon, I follow after. The comforting darkness and warmth that I had grown so used to is ripped away and the first touch of air on my new skin feels frigid.
I open my eyes for the first time in what felt like forever, but the world is a blur. It isn’t quite colorblindness, but all I can really make out is the stark contrast between light and dark. I can see shapes and edges, but it’s all so confusing.
I’m scared.
The world is so loud and the weight of gravity feels foreign. I’m picked up, carried in the crook of somebody’s arm, but I don’t know them. I want my sibling, but I don’t know where they are.
I’m weak and helpless and I scream. My own voice adds to the noise, but I can’t stop. I hardly cried before, having come to terms with my fate already, but now I’m wailing uncontrollably.
It’s not until I’m placed in a new pair of arms that I begin to calm. I feel a small touch and know immediately who it is. I grasp out, holding my sibling with all of my small might as a tired but content voice whispers comforting words to us. A distant part of my mind notes that it doesn’t understand the words, but I’m too tired to care
I’m utterly spent and I soon find myself falling asleep. As my eyelids droop, I try my hardest to see my sibling for the first time. All I can make out are two pools of blue in a sea of bright white staring back at me, but I smile anyway. I think they smile back.
Ornate Garden couldn't take her eyes off of them; the little miracles in her hooves, staring in awe as their chests rose and fell with every breath. A gentle hoof came to rest on her shoulders, and she was finally able to break her gaze away from her children.
"They're beautiful," her husband, Blueblood the 16th, whispered with a proud smile as he looked down on his unicorn foals.
"They are," she agreed with tears in her eyes. Their coats, inherited from their father were only a shade different from each other with the colt's being the brighter. Their manes were their mother's however, with her daughter having a lighter gold compared to her brother's darker locks.
Before they had fallen asleep, Garden had gotten a glimpse of their eyes, the boy's a brilliant blue like his father's while her daughter's eyes shone a light pink reminiscent of her own coat.
Garden and her husband had discussed names for whether they had a boy or a girl, and seeing the two beautiful twins so similar to each other, the new mother was glad that both ideas could be put to use. "My brave little Blueblood the 17th... and my precious Pureblood."
When the nurse came to take the foals away to get a medical checkup, Garden almost couldn't let them go. "Come on, dear, let the doctors do their job. You've done yours for now. Rest. You deserve it."
Reluctantly, she agreed, but still couldn't help the little flutter of worry when her children left her view. When she got the two of them home, she wasn't going to let them out of her sight for an instant.