'I succeeded in time-traveling at the cost of my body.
'So basically, only my soul that traveled through time, not my body.
'A soul can't exist for long without a body.
'I needed a body to survive, so my soul was instinctively drawn towards an easy target for possession, and what's easier to possess than the mortal coil of a recently decreased?
'But of all the corpses that could be possessed, it just had to be one in the worst condition possible.
'What bad luck.'
Sal sighed internally.
His luck was disastrous!
However, he knew that the path forward was not to lament over his ill circumstances but to understand and maneuver through them with the cunning and resilience that he had cultivated in his previous life.
Thus, he sat up, ignoring the sharp stings of pain from his bruised body.
Then, he began to plan his next steps.
Firstly, he needed to recover from his injuries, understand who he had come to possess, and why he was beaten to death. He also had to gather information about the world outside the fragile walls of this thatched shack.
In his current state, all of this seemed challenging.
'A man gotta do what he gotta do. It's going to be painful to move around in this body, but I will just force it,' Sal thought to himself as he stood up from the bed and slipped his feet into the worn-out shoes placed next to the bed, preparing himself to head out out the thatched shack, but before he could, the door to the thatched shack opened with a creak and in came a young girl.
She was holding an umbrella, which she had used to protect herself from the toxic rain while she was out in the streets. The umbrella blocked Sal from seeing her face.
Sal watched her vigilantly, wondering what she looked like and who she was. Maybe she was related to the original owner?
The young girl didn't notice anything strange as she closed the umbrella and put it down.
With the umbrella out of the way, Sal was able to get a clear look at her.
The young girl had an oval face.
The shape of her face was lovely, but it was covered in dust and mud, and so were her paper-thin clothes.
Overall, she looked very smelly and dirty like a street urchin.
The young girl's attempt to hide her beauty didn't fool Sal. With a glance, he could tell that if the dirt was removed, he would find a delicate face full of attractiveness, the type that could bewitch a man's soul with a wink or a smile.
'Who is this silly lass? Why has she caked her face with dirt to hide her natural beauty?' Sal wondered as he looked at the young girl with even more curiosity.
After placing the umbrella down and looking up, the young girl finally noticed that her sick young brother whom she had left tucked in the makeshift bed wasn't only wide awake, but also standing on his own two feet.
"Brother! You are sick and injured. You shouldn't be standing and moving about. You should be lying down and resting. Don't overexert yourself, lest you collapse again," she said to Sal as she hurried up to him with quick steps and helped him back to the bed.
Sal didn't resist.
He couldn't sense any killing intent from her, meaning she meant no harm. On top of that, he noticed that the gaze with which she was looking at him attentively seemed to be full of love, and sincerity, and without any falsehood whatsoever.
Such emotions couldn't be faked.
She meant what she said.
She was the sister of the original owner, and she seemed to care very much about him.
He didn't need to be wary of her.
Instead, he should think about how to use this opportunity to understand his new circumstances better. He should steer the conversation in a direction that would benefit him.
"Thanks for helping me back to the bed," Sal said softly to the young girl.
"We're siblings. What's the need to say such words between us?" The young girl said to him in a light-hearted tone as she reached out with her right hand and gently tucked a stray lock of his hair behind his ear.
"You are so kind... sister," Sal's eyes curved into a seemingly genuine and happy smile as he spoke to her.
"Sister?" The young girl looked at him with a gaze full of confusion. "Big Brother, why are you being so distant with me? You usually call me by my nickname 'little sparrow.'"
Sal acted startled, like a child caught stealing, and murmured under his breath, "I-I didn't know that. So I settled on calling you sister."
"What do you mean by that? How could you forget what you used to call me? You gave me that nickname," the young girl said in shock and disbelief as she began to look at Sal concernedly.
"I think my head was injured due to the beating I received, and that's why my memory is foggy. But I can tell you're my beautiful little sister. Everything else though..." a heavy sigh escaped his lips as he finished his words, "... seems unclear like a blurred picture."
The young girl gaped, her mouth opening wide enough to fit an egg.
Sal's hands felt sweaty seeing her like that.
Did she believe him or not?
"My poor brother, how much you must have suffered," Ann cried out.
It looked like she believed him.
Well, it's because the excuses he gave seemed legitimate enough.
Sal internally smiled.
Now that Little Sparrow has believed his lies, he has successfully avoided getting into a confrontation with her.
'This is a good start to a new life,' he thought.