I was settling into this new reality of mine.
Thus far, to my great disappointment, I hadn't found any proof that I'd made my way into a different reality. Everything was as one would expect it to be. No one in my family used any magic to clean the rooms. The food I saw them eat was normal and uninteresting. They washed and changed me by hand. None of the pictures moved, and everyone I had seen thus far was boringly human. No elves or cat girls. Poo.
However, the longer I looked the more I saw proof of my new family's wealth. When I was taken out of the house for drives, I was placed into either limos or strapped into a car seat in the back of what my untrained, uncultured eyes could only describe as a "rich people car" with smooth lines and clean interiors. My mother wore the sort of jewelry one might expect to find at a museum or auction house. We had servants – maids and cooks and butlers and chauffeurs.
I learned that I was, in fact, half Chinese in this life as I had been in my last. My family name was Rookwood, and my father, Roger Rookwood, once took me to some kind of lodge to introduce me to a group of his friends. It was clear from the way they gathered around him, spoke to him, looked at him, that he was well respected.
I was Huizhong Rookwood, son of Li Naling and Roger Rookwood. And I had just turned six months old. I found it amusing. Perhaps this was to be my eternal punishment. Afterall, I shared the same surname as the protagonist of my most hated show. When I first heard that my name was Rookwood, I immediately panicked.
Of course, my first thought was that I had been reborn into that horrible, horrible children's show. But, to my immense relief – and disappointment I would not acknowledge – I didn't recognize either of my parent's names from the show. In the show, there was no Li Naling or Roger. There was a Clark, but the difference between that Clark and my Clark was too stark to ignore.
The Clark in the show was the perfect cousin that the protagonist, Sam Rookwood, was always compared to. The cousin who excelled in sports and academics, who was built like a Greek god and acted a little too perfect and happy to be realistic. Also, Clark Rookwood in "Magical Miracle" was a coward of the highest degree, always running and hiding during every battle and nope-ing out of every conflict. This was for comedic effect, as it led the onlookers to theorize that perhaps Clark Rookwood was the true identity of the superhero known as Velocity: the speedster who rushed in to save the day once a week when a new monster reared its head.
Of course, it was never explained why there was a new monster in the city every week. In fact, there was a lot that went unexplained in the children's show. This was a large reason that many of its audience kept watching, waiting for the plot holes to be filled. But the producers of the show likely knew this, and so they kept dragging their feet, dangling the audience along behind them.
Not only that, but the pathetic love square between the two main male protagonists, Sam and Will! Not only did the confusion between the two heroes last three seasons, but then, in season four, they introduced a female lead out of nowhere! This angered both the long-time shippers of the main characters, as well as the LGBT community as a whole.
And, of course, the sudden appearance of the new female superhero was never explained or explored. All in all, it was a horrible excuse of a children's show that survived on bathroom humor and bright colors and moderately interestingly designed monsters.
Honestly, I could go on and on about how much I hated this show, how much there was wrong with it. And I had. I had spent hours of my past life on the forums and reddit pages and twitter accounts and official channels centered around "Magical Miracle." I left devastating 0-star reviews. I wrote veritable essays on the plot holes, inconsistencies, and disappointing characters. And, to my shame, I sent Ladybird15 DMs asking them why they sold the rights to the content. Why they weren't fighting for the integrity of the show. And… far worse. It doesn't bear worth rehashing everything I wrote or tagged them in. I was horrible. I knew it at the time, but I didn't care. But now that I have a face to go with the name… a life to go with the name, I can't help but bow my head in shame every time I think about it.
Honestly, it would be a suiting punishment for me to be stuck in "Magical Miracle," but I'm not. Thank all the gods.
And the proof of it was right before me. Clark Rookwood, my older cousin. The Rookwood family all lived together in the Manor at the edge of Rookwood, the city. Yet another difference between this world and "Magical Miracle"; the city in that abomination was simply called "The City." Creative, I know. The family consisted of my grandparents, whose names I hadn't yet come across, my parents, and my father's two siblings. They were named Clark Sr. and Lorraine. Clark Sr., the eldest son, married a respectable young woman from another wealthy family. Clark Jr. is their son and only child. Lorraine is the youngest, and lives in Malaysia for reasons I don't know. I only know of her existence and subsequent residency because of Grandmama's frequent complaining of the matter. She, apparently, does not approve of Lorraine's choice of spouse – nor her living in Malaysia.
The Manor was large, and so it was comfortable for the entire family to live there. It was so large, in fact, that I often went days without seeing either my uncle or my grandparents. But Clark was another story. Clark would come and visit me every day. I'm fairly certain Clark saw my parents more than his own. Whenever possible, Clark would come over to our section of the house and just… hang out.
And so, I was able to pick out the many, many differences between my Clark and the Clark of "Magical Miracle." Firstly, the Clark of the show was an extreme coward, to the point of being unable to sleep in his own room at night – he shared with the main character – and crying at loud noises. This was despite the fact that, in the show, Clark was a college student – perhaps about the age that I had been before I died.
This Clark was nothing like that. This wasn't to say that he was a daredevil, but when my mother took the two of us out onto the Manor grounds for a picnic lunch, Clark had no problem climbing a tree. In fact, when Mother called him down to eat, he jumped down from about ten feet high in the tree. This wasn't much of a feat for a normal person, but the coward in the show would have never thought of doing something so dangerous.
This Clark slept in his own room, though he sometimes crept into my room in the middle of the night to peer into my crib and smile at me. This Clark, despite dropping me that one time, would sometimes sneakily pull me out of my various containers and carry me around to look out windows or to take me to a chair and read to me out of story books. Of course, whenever the maids or the nanny that my parents employed caught him doing this, he would be scolded. But, in the way that many little boys do, he quickly forgot any lessons learned and was back to lugging me around like a doll the next day.
It was very hard not to be fond of him. As a baby, there wasn't much I was able to do. With much effort, I could sit up on my own. Everything I touched, from my teddies to my rattles, were strangely heavy and would often slip from my grip. My tongue felt odd and clumsy in my mouth, and though I obviously knew how to speak, it was all but impossible to form coherent sentences. I could babble and mostly get my point across, though it was difficult to force myself to cry and scream like an actual infant would. My parents would often look at me in worry, and my nanny would side-eye me like I was some sort of bomb. But my grandparents would coo about what a sweet and good baby I was. So, I didn't worry about it too much. Sleeping through the night was another issue. To my great embarrassment, I couldn't control my own bodily functions. I would wet myself without even knowing what was happening until it registered why I was suddenly uncomfortable. And even then, it was hard to scream and wail like a normal baby. So, instead, I would simply scream an odd guttural, emotionless scream until somebody paid attention and changed me.
Luckily, I didn't have to be so proactive about feeding. And I didn't have to breast feed, either. Thankfully, for one reason or another, my mother was dissuaded from the idea of nursing. And so, the nanny would be the one to feed me from a bottle. She did this once about every three hours, and so, even though I was occasionally hungry between feedings, I never really felt the need to make that fact known, knowing that I would be fed sooner rather than later.
Clark was a welcome relief from the boredom that was being a baby. This was mostly due to the fact that many of the books he read were not baby books. Instead, he seemed to feel like it was only right that he introduces me to my "culture," and instead read some books that I can only assumed belonged to my mother. Wuxia, Xianxia, the occasional Japanese or Korean light novel. He even occasionally found manga and manhwa for us to look at. At ten years old, he wasn't the strongest reader. It was amusing how he stumbled over some of the foreign names and phrases, though he tried his best. To be fair, he did better than I thought he would. In fact, I'd had a couple students who weren't a strong of an oral reader as he. Though, those students were ones that never lasted long.
Many of the stories were some I'd never read before, though some I was familiar with. Yet another point in favor of this being my own familiar world. But nevertheless, these stories were a comfort to me. A little piece of my old life, as I had always loved those kinds of stories. I read them at a fast and hungry pace in my last life. So, it was a new and welcome experience to linger on the pages with my cousin, as his slow tongue caught up with my mental reading.
But then, listening to and reading these isekai and transmigration stories made me long for a more interesting world. Why couldn't I have been born on a mountain cultivation sect, or in Gotham city, or heck, even Iron Man's New York? Maybe even a medieval village or an elvish underground haven. Or a dwarven city. My mind would take in the stories that my cousin read to me and insert myself between the pages.
And then, it occurred to me. I was an adult in a baby's body. Just because I was limited by my body now didn't mean that it would always be this way. I could become an extraordinary anomaly! A child prodigy! I had to act now, while my mind was young and malleable.
So, during the nighttime hours, I force myself to stay awake. I treated my teddies and teething gummy rings like dumbbells and weights. I held them up for as long as I could, as high as I could (my head was too big for me to reach over it). I waved my arms in circles, being as consistent making the shape as I could. I pumped my legs and pulled myself up using the bars of my crib. I was determined to stand up!
It took nearly two weeks, but I did it. At six months and three weeks, I was able to stand on my own. All the while, I was training my mouth to make the sounds that I wanted. I ran through the alphabet, making each sound individually. Then I strung together the noises. To my dismay, this was even harder than the tiny physical exercises I was attempting. But I kept at it, knowing it was only a matter of time before it all paid off.
I eagerly showed my cousin my newfound ability to use my legs. And then, glorious moment, I took my first step. Clark held out his arms for me, face shining, smiling wider than I had ever seen him smile. I took another step, face set, mind determined. I was hyper aware of my feet, of my legs, of my arms spread for balance. Clark was cheering me on, deservedly so. This was harder than it looked!
The nanny in the corner dropped the toys she was picking up from the floor, staring at me with wide eyes. She seemed baffled, almost concerned. It was then that I realized something, and I lost all concentration, falling onto the floor, cushioned by my diaper.
I'd forgotten to crawl.