Forgetting to put on some footwear, I made a return back to 'my room' and quickly slipped on a pair of pure white slippers.
I turned back around towards the dining room, and possibly due to the shock of reincarnating going away, I was suddenly acutely aware of just how far my five senses had evolved.
The sensation of my slippers hitting the white marble floor reverberated throughout my entire body. It felt like my arms and chest were strutting along the ground alongside my legs.
'Howdy neighbor!' My lungs yelled to my fibula.
My heart and brain could be felt having a thumb war somewhere. My heartbeat was having fun torturing my toes in the slippers.
Worst of all was the information overload. It felt like I was watching five movies at once. Like I was touching twenty things at once.
All of this information rushing to my 'head' was causing an immense stress I had never dealt with before.
The mental toll this took on my brain was far too expensive.
Barely fifteen steps down the hallway and I could already feel my stomach and the body parts newly affiliated with it doing gymnastics. This much information was too much for a human to handle at once.
Back on earth, losing your common sense and rationality to useless videos or games wasn't uncommon.
In reality, it was normalized. Life sucked, and escapism was one of mankind's best friends. Sports, reading, eating, and movies were all just a tool to distract ourselves. All of these things were easy to fall into, and hard to quit.
Humans are simple creatures, you just need to give them a carrot and a stick.
It doesn't matter if the carrot is poisonous, they'll still eat it.
It doesn't matter if the stick is lined with razor blades, they'll still gratefully dangle the carrot in front of their own face.
All that matters is the carrot. Or rather, the idea of the carrot. The human dream.
Humans needed a dream to chase, an unattainable idea needed to be etched into their mind to keep moving forward. As long as the light ahead of you was bright enough, you were able to ignore the darkness behind you.
Thoughts like this only depressed me, so I gave myself an inward pep talk and begrudgingly walked to fix this nausea of mine.
After a quick trip to the gentleman's room to wash out my stomach, I felt much more relaxed. I was able to walk around with my eyes open and breathe without bending over in excruciating pain.
Now with confidence to match my new body, I made my way down the grand staircase that took about 45 seconds at a medium speed to complete.
Did I mention the staircase was also white? Why is everything in this hell of a household white? It's giving me the creeps.
As I reached the grandiose dining room, I finally realized something.
I was not confident at all.
Interacting with family was something I never seemed to be able to get the hang of. Neither in my old life or now it seems.
I was always disgusted by the way my family seemed to put up masks around each other all the time.
We grew up playing characters to appease each other and escape confrontation. It didn't feel like we were a family at all, more like roommates awkwardly trying to walk on eggshells around one another.
Despite all this, I knew I had to play the part of 'Altair Arasmas' so I forced a smile and sat down at the seat adjacent my father. To my surprise, my mother sat down across from me.
I looked around in confusion and noticed that despite the absurdly long table and the twenty-two chairs from top to bottom, my entire family was situated at the top section, surrounding one another.
We were sat like we actually enjoyed each other's company. I looked at 'my' new mom and I felt my face tighten.
'Wow.'
I'll admit it. My new mom is smokin' hot. Despite this, I didn't feel any physical changes. The old me would've probably started touching myself under the tablecloth already.
'Of course.' I had forgotten something important. She was my new bodies mother. I was probably hard-wired to never pitch a tent because of her.
Laaaaame.
I looked to my right and saw my two siblings, a pair of 12 year old fraternal male and female twins.
They looked quite prim and proper, so I immediately threw away the idea of cracking jokes around them. I could only imagine how these two geeks would respond if my humor was the slightest bit offensive.
I tried my hardest to remember, but it seems like the old Altair didn't care enough about these kids to bother telling me their names when he gave me that ol' info wave in the bedroom earlier.
Since it's come to this, I will painstakingly refer to them as 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' for now. As for which one is which, I'll let that stay interchangeable for convenience sake.
'Take initiative!' I said inwardly. I just received an important item from my father, so it wouldn't be unnatural of me to appear excited and confident today.
"Good evening, everyone." I said with a whole hearted smile on my face. I looked around in anticipation for their responses, but they only responded to me with dumbfounded looks on their faces.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 then responded in unison "Shut the fuck up, dumbass." And instantly moved on to eating their breakfast.
I held back the urge to spit out my food in surprise. I looked towards my parents with puppy eyes, hoping to incur some of a parents' wrath on their child for cussing, especially at the dining table.
Unfortunately, they seemed to pay no mind to this, as they had never even bothered to look in our direction once.
I felt my face loosen up. A shit-eating grin crept upon my face as I finally experienced what it was like to be a family. What it was like to hold nothing back in front of your closest people.
"Fuck you too, dweebs."
I picked up a fork and knife and started to eat my dinner happily for the first time since I could remember.