Jayce was confused. He could say he has a sense of self, self awareness that infants shouldn't have. But how did he know that infants shouldn't have them? He didn't know.
All this time, since his birth, sometimes he could feel something odd, but soon it'd disappear as he would lose his interest and energy to think further.
But this time, it's different. He could feel it. It's like how it starts to rain when the atmosphere becomes too humid. The constant accumulation over time resulted in this strange phenomenon.
'Mm. I don't really understand. The memories are too vague and disarray. Wait, can they even be called memories?'
He can't bring himself to call them his own memories. After all, it's too creepy to suddenly have knowledge or memories that don't seem to be yours in any way.
'But, these emotions... No, more precisely the way I feel about things. Are they really my way of feeling or is it...'
'I don't remember, no, I can't recall any of it, the faces of people or any detailed knowledge about the owner of these memories. It's like watching everything with a translucent layer covering the things which are already fading and foggy.'
'Let's slowly recall everything I could. And then make a judgement based on that.' Jayce decided as his infant body got tired of all the thinking.
...
Time passed and now it's been a month since Jay awakened his self awareness and sense of self. After that incident, Jayce was placed in a really precarious position as everyone started to feel strange that a newborn baby was not behaving like one.
From then onwards, he has pretended to act like a baby even though he's one himself.
'It's tiring.'
'It's unbelievable that I actually witnessed this, but this world has magic.... '
'Or... rather only the world in those memories does not have it. Not sure which is the odd one here.'
While thinking about magic, he got another ray of understanding which even deepened his knowledge of those memories. Jay was able to find out about the existence of magic via various incidents. Such as when the adults are conversing with each other or when they tell him stories or just by cross-checking the surrounding objects with the ones in his knowledge.
'Their technology seems different, but the core seems to be the same from my observation.'
'But still, the language I know is quite similar to the language others speak here.'
'Similar but not the same. Pronunciation and meaning seem to differ a lot. There are even some words they speak which use characters that I'm not even aware of.'
'How long can I keep this? What if I get found out?'
Jayce was scared and at the same time helpless.
All he could do was look for more and more answers to escape this predicament. The knowledge slowly started to become a bit clear, but in exchange, those memories started to become even more vague.
Every time he spends his time brainstorming over an answer, his knowledge of various subjects keeps increasing, but at the same time as he achieves it, he can also feel something leaving his body.
'It's like... It's like digesting.'
That's right, he's digesting the memories. Or it could be more precise to say his brain processes the data (which are those memories) and gets information (that is the knowledge that data contains) as a result.
But at the rate it's happening, he could say he wouldn't completely digest these memories any time soon.
"Baa" (Jayce)
"Jay, look what papa brought you. A new toy, gig gig giiig." (Scot)
Dealing with his dad, Scot, felt more tiring to Jayce than digesting those memories. He's even more pestering than his mother. If anything, his mother seemed to be overly protective so far. Well, it's a given, since he's her child, but she does not leave Jay unattended even for a minute.
After he awakened his sense of self, she found out about his changes right away the first thing in the morning.
And his grandmother seems to be reserved and has issues with expressing her emotions. She comes by every once in a while to see him and leaves him after staring at him affectionately for a while.
He also thought of the possibility of her scrutinizing him because of his change in behavior.
'But, it's not like I can do anything about it anyway.'
And there's also his aunt and cousin.
'God, could they ever be silent?'
Every time they came by he pretended to be asleep, afraid of being affected by their energy. His cousin, Joey, is like a clone of her mother, both mentally and physically.
Rather than cousin, it would be more apt for her to be called aunt because that's how she seemed to him by the way she behaved though she's only 10 years old.
But much to his dissatisfaction, as if they knew his plan, they switched the time of their visits every day to random timings. And Jayce could only suffer through their lovely and sweet 'torture'.
But, the strangest one among them would be his grandfather.
'That 7 foot guy is actually...shy?'
It's the question that has been plaguing his mind ever since that one incident.
- A short flashback -
One sunny day, outside it was scorching hot. But as if the entire place was air-conditioned, his room, or rather the entire palace maintained its temperature like usual.
Jayce was playing, no, pretending to be playing with his toys. But, suddenly, a silhouette flashed behind him and lifted him abruptly yet carefully. Jayce, shocked by the sudden happening, instinctively started crying.
As he peeked at the one who lifted him, it was actually his young looking grandfather, who was startled by all the sudden changes, hearing people coming, he hurriedly put him down on the floor and ...ran away?
--
'haa, no one would've said anything if he made his grandchild cry by mistake. But, he seemed too shy or embarrassed to let the others know about this, it seems..'
'Or maybe he tried to check something without others knowing, but the chances of it are so low. If he really wanted to, he could've done so stealthily.'
The easiest to deal with is actually his uncle, Leonard. He's the most normal one out of all of his family members he has seen so far.
*Yawn*
' I should follow the routine of pretending and trying to digest those memories. Thankfully, the knowledge I obtain now is linear unlike that time when it was jumbled across various ages and topi....'
Without even finishing that thought, Jayce fell asleep.
---