Chương 137: Chapter 1

I wake with a start, confused, immersed in the gloom of an unknown place. My last memories are hazy, fragmented, the image of the door I found in the cave and how it had begun to glow when that final tremor started bringing the ceiling down. The sensation of disorientation envelops me; I have no idea where I am or how I got here. All I know is that the place I find myself in is entirely foreign. I realize at once that my vision is blurry, unable to focus on the shapes and colors surrounding me.

All I can see are patches of light and shadow blending together in a confused visual whirl. The inability to see clearly makes me feel even more lost, as though I were trapped in a dream from which I cannot wake. My body feels strange, as if it won't respond to me. But I also realize I'm lying in some kind of bed, because through my blurred vision I can make out what look like wooden panels around me, as though I were inside some sort of box open at the top, with a kind of mattress beneath me.

Suddenly, an enormous figure looms over me, and its size and presence overwhelm me. In a surge of fear I let out a scream, an instinctive expression of terror at the unknown, the sensation of vulnerability intensifying and leaving me at the mercy of this imposing presence. I find myself being lifted, held in someone's arms. Their voice carries the cadence of a language that is at once familiar and foreign.

The words, though they remind me of Chinese, flow in a dialect I cannot understand, and confusion mingles with fear as I try to make sense of my situation. I try to say something, but only babbling comes from my throat. I notice the figure carrying me walks somewhere else, and I take the opportunity to look around, but all I see are blurred shadows, most of them at the edges of my vision.

Something feels odd about the way I'm being held, but still confused by the strange situation I'm in and by the fear of what the giant might do to me, I can't quite place it. After a moment, the figure holding me stops and hands me to another figure who appears to be lying down. Then I'm brought close to something warm and soft, and suddenly, primal instincts take control of my body. My hands, moving with a will of their own, latch onto what I recognize as a nipple, and I begin to suckle by instinct.

In that moment, the realization behind the strangeness I'd been noticing hits me with the force of a lightning bolt. Somehow, incomprehensibly, I am a baby. This understanding brings with it a wave of disbelief, and for a moment I stop nursing, but the owner of the breast says something to me in her strange language and draws my face back to it, and the instinct of my new body makes me start again.

As I feed, the figures around me, of whom I imagine the one nursing me is my mother, exchange words in that strange language. Though I don't understand what they're saying, the tone of their conversation carries a note of ordinariness that calms me slightly, offering a glimpse of normalcy amid the chaos currently filling my mind. After feeding, I'm handed back to the enormous figure, who I now understand is enormous only in relation to my tiny infant size.

I assume she must be some kind of midwife who assisted the woman who would be my mother during the birth. The woman I assume is the midwife brings me to a group of blurry silhouettes, among which one stands out and takes me into their arms. I hear them speak to the others, an interaction that, though incomprehensible to me, suggests some sort of ritual or presentation. After a time, I'm returned to the midwife's arms. Carrying me, she takes me to another place and, with care, sets me down.

I recognize it as the place where I first woke up, which I now identify as a kind of crib. The soft contact with the bedding offers a small comfort, and soon afterward sleep takes hold of me, carrying me far from my unanswered questions. When I wake, a sensation of dampness between my legs makes me aware of my new reality: I've soiled myself. The frustration and humiliation of it intertwine with the resignation of having to learn all over again how to control my body.

I begin considering how to attract someone's attention when a disturbing realization strikes me: I've been moving my arms, but I have not yet moved my legs. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. With a growing sense of panic I concentrate, trying to order them to move, but there is no response. I can feel them, but no matter how hard I try, I'm unable to move so much as a toe, let alone my legs.

The reality that my new body is paraplegic from birth hits me with its full force, and a scream of fear escapes my lips, a scream that carries with it the entire weight of my despair and confusion. My screams break the silence and soon I hear hurried footsteps approaching.

As I try to process what it might mean that I cannot move my legs, I try to convince myself it's only temporary, that it's something to do with the strange situation of being a baby, but deep down a small voice tells me that no, what it looks like is what it is. And as I feel someone pick me up, the stress of my new situation and the possibility that I am paraplegic or something similar overwhelms me, and I faint. I wake abruptly and notice my body is lying on a hard surface that seems to be wood.

The sensation of wood against my skin is disconcerting, but somehow it brings back my current situation: I am in a strange place, surrounded by people I don't know, and for some inexplicable reason trapped in the body of a baby. Around me, blurry figures lean toward me, their outlines barely perceptible through the limited vision of an infant, a vision that turns the world I see into a place of shapeless shadows and light.

These figures, whose details escape my sight, appear to be examining me while discussing among themselves in their strange language that sounds like Chinese but isn't. Thanks to my knowledge of Chinese, although I can't understand their words, I recognize in the tone of their conversation a mixture of professional curiosity and concern that conveys the seriousness of my situation.

I notice figures approaching the sides of the surface where I'm lying, and suddenly I feel hands that hold my arms delicately yet immobilize them with firmness, while another figure draws near holding something I can't identify through my blurred vision. Without warning I feel a prick followed quickly by another.

Considering the language they speak and the little I can make out of their clothing, I leap to the conclusion that they must be practicing acupuncture, since in ancient China it was considered just short of a cure for everything. For a moment, the logic of my past life reassures me. After all, acupuncture is known for its therapeutic benefits.

But then, upon receiving another prick, I become aware of my situation, and driven by an instinct of self-preservation I begin to scream and thrash, trying to free myself from the needles being stuck into me, since a baby that neither screams nor cries when being pricked would be far too strange, and who knows what they might do to me next. They might even decide I'm possessed or that I'm a demon, with fatal consequences for me.

On my fourth attempt to wriggle free, the figure inserting the needles stops abruptly, says something in their language, and then swiftly withdraws the needles. Hearing this, the others release my arms. I continue squirming, now adding a convincing whimper to my act, until unexpectedly I feel a new prick, this time on the sole of my foot. I let out an instinctive cry and try to move my legs, only to be reminded with a jolt of horror of the revelation of my paralysis discovered before I fainted earlier.

The figure continues pricking me several more times in the legs, and all I can do is whimper and scream to keep up the act while I struggle fruitlessly to provoke any response in my limbs, without the slightest success. This lack of connection with my own legs is bewildering, and if it weren't for the fact that in my previous life I'd used them with such ease, I might have doubted they were something that could be moved at all. They stop inserting needles and I hear them say something in a very serious tone.

Shortly afterward I'm lifted into someone's arms and handed to a figure that feels familiar. They carry me somewhere else and pass me to someone who is lying down. Focusing my attention, I recognize the person who fed me the day before. Beside her, the figure who had been administering the needles joins the conversation.

The voice of the woman I assume is my mother grows increasingly agitated until she finally breaks into tears, pressing me against her chest in an embrace that borders on the line between comfort and pain. Despite the discomfort, I choose to remain silent, convinced that right now it is the most prudent decision. The situation takes a new turn when, after a while, another figure approaches, the same one who had held me up during the earlier ritual. After a brief exchange with my mother, she clutches me even tighter.

My whimpers, soft at first, become more noticeable, urging her to loosen her grip. After a short conversation conducted in a serious tone, the person I imagine must be my father, or at least some figure of authority given how Chinese families and clans operate, turns and walks away out of my sight. My mother continues holding me for a long time.

Then, with a gesture that already feels familiar, she brings me to her breast to feed, and despite the embarrassment I feel at the act, the instincts of my new body betray me, and I soon find myself eating with a need born of that instinct. Once sated, I'm placed back in the crib, the same place where I first woke, and sleep claims me quickly, dragging me toward a world of darkness and silence.

In the moments before I succumb, a thought crosses my mind: being a baby, regardless of the unusual circumstances of my consciousness, involves a great deal of sleep.