'Who am I?'
Many ponder this question philosophically, but for this small girl watching the twilight turn into a golden sunrise, this question plagued her every thought, calling into question her very existence.
'Am I Ahrey or am I Theo? It's not like I died and woke up in a new body, I-I can't even remember how I died! The last thing I remember… was going back to college….' She pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to remember, 'that's right… I felt so ashamed of failing so many classes, but I worked up the courage and they let me back in. That anxiety, that fear that I'd fail again… it felt so real…'
The buzzing and popping sounds of the insects scattered throughout the fields began to be drowned out by the morning birdsongs as the fauna of the countryside stirred to life.
Ahrey flexed her small, calloused fingers, staring at her right hand as she contemplated the feeling as she wrote. 'It felt so natural… like I've been writing my whole life. Did my muscle memory carry over? Is that even possible?' she frowned, 'does the concept of muscle memory even exist in this world?'
In the midst of that thought, the wooden door behind her opened up with a loud creak, and Ahrey's father steps out from their home. "Ahrey, what's wrong? What are you doing out here?" The worry filling his face and the familiar sound of his caring voice and the soft, syllabic Sharra language he spoke to her in brought a warm sense of comfort to her chilly body.
She turned around and looked at him with tears starting to form in her eyes. The same scruffy, brown beard, the same piercing blue eyes, the same short yet muscular figure, the same wrinkly, brown pajamas he wore almost every night… everything about him is the same. In the midst of her turbulent mind, he stood there in that doorway like an immovable rock in a storm.
"Papa…"
Ahrey ran into him, clutching onto his back as she buried her face in his shirt.
"Whoa, whoa… what's wrong sweetie? Did you have a nightmare?" Shwa patted her head, trying to console his precious daughter, "it's okay, it's over now, it was just a dream…."
Sniffling and wiping her tears on his shirt, Ahrey nodded, "mmn…."
Shwa smiled, thinking back nostalgically to all the times he woke in the middle of the night and was consoled by his mother, and now he was here doing the same thing. "C'mon, come help your pop make breakfast. I've got a long day ahead of me, and I can't think of a better way to start it than by having breakfast with my cute, cute daughter!" he said as he pinched her cheek, squeezing it tight with his rugged, calloused fingers.
"Ahrighf ahrighf!! Cut it out!" Ahrey knocked his hand away, pouting as she rubbed her sore cheek. She shoved him back inside, following behind him as he chuckles at her cute response, and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. 'That's right…. Whether I have memories of this life or the last, I'm still me. As long as I have my family, as long as those I love call out to me with that name, I'm still Ahrey…'