In a rundown apartment, the splashing of the water could be heard from the toilet. The only person living in such a small room, a young man in his early twenties, is looking at his own face.
Just what did I do wrong that my life ended up this way?
The young man looked at his reflection with a distant gaze. Dark bags formed under his eyes. If you observe closely, you could see faint wrinkles. And then some parts of his hair turning gray. He looked extremely stressed.
Then slowly his hands formed a fist, raised up in the air.
And then... there is a sound of broken mirrors.
...
Blurry...
Everything around him was blurred. Like the entire world was made out of smudged painting. He couldn't recognize anything.
He recalled that he spent in a warm and comfortable place for a period of time, 9 months more or less. Then out of nowhere an extreme pressure forced him out of this comfortable place like putting his mind on a headlock.
Then after that was a strange sense of freedom as the sudden change of temperature rushed through his body, an impact on his small buttocks.
A soft fleshy thing was put on his mouth. He instinctively sucked into it resulting from a warm liquid quenching his tongue. Subconsciously as if by nature, his mouth moved continued sucking it to make the warm liquid come out and drank it.
After a few minutes he dozed off and closed his eyes.
...
Half a year passed by.
When his physical brain slowly developed, he started to become self aware. The memories from his previous life made him confuse at first. After pondering and reflecting about it for some time, he came into a conclusion.
Reincarnation.
In his previous life he didn't really believe in illogical phenomenon such as reincarnation or miracles. But after experiencing it for himself he came to understand that his thinking was too shallow.
As an infant, he was limited on the things he could do. He was restricted from his physical development. He couldn't even control his bladder when urinating or excreting waste.
He's spending his time on first developing his physical ablities. In the first month he practiced carrying his own head. In the second month, he practiced rolling his own body. In the fourth month, crawling. And currently after half a year he could already practice standing.
But he spent most of the day sleeping soundly after being fed full with breast milk.
There are times when he couldn't just do what he wants. Like his mother bringing him anywhere she wanted. He was able to get outside on their house to visit other homes, chatting with fellow ladies gossiping about this and that.
At times like this he would listen closely trying to comprehend this world's language. Because of this he came to learn some basic vocabulary.
Sometimes his mother would also do some storytelling when she's breastfeeding him or whenever she's doting on him.
Most importantly of all he learned the names of his parents including himself.
The father's name is Daren and the mother's name is Elena.
And his new name that his parents gave him is Merlin.
Merlin thought that it was strange they don't have family names. He just assumed that this world just have different customs.
As the days passed he continued to look for things to do.
...
Time passed and Merlin is growing steadily. He could now run with his two feet and could speak one or two sentences of this world's language.
Whenever he had free time, Merlin discovering new things about this world.
The technology of this world was undeveloped compared to his previous life. And the architecture and clothing aesthetics were very similar to a fantasy video game he played back in his previous world.
And then one day he discovered something that really interested him.
"Mages?"
"That's right, mages could use powers bestowed by the spirits called magic."
In the past Merlin would've been skeptical about such things. It was ridiculously stupid to believe in it just like how children believed in fairies and leprechauns. But after experiencing reincarnation first hand, he began to change his way of thinking.
Elena continued her storytelling. After all it was one of the ways that Merlin would learn about the outside world.
During this time of the day, Elena would tell Merlin stories. And everytime, Merlin would always ask Elena to tell him topics about the mages more.