"My body feels hot this night; I think I have a fever. Do they have medicine in this world? Should I cry to get my parents here? It's a good idea since it's normal for kids, but it will be too embarrassing."
I start crying till my parents come in.
"Honey, can you go check on the child?"
"Hm, yeah, ok, I'll go."
My dad enters my room trying to see what happend
"What happened here?" He puts his hand on my forehead, then grabs me and goes to my mom's room.
"Honey, I have to get our son to the village's doctor; he has a fever." Says my dad in a distressed voice.
"I will come with you," says my mom with a scared look on her face.
"No, stay here; I'll be faster if I only go with him."
My mom looks down, knowing dad is right.
"Ok, get there as fast as you can."
"I will, bye, honey."
My dad starts running with me in his arms covered in a blanket to the doctor's house; we get there in about 5 minutes of running.
My dad started banging on the man's door, calling him
"What happend??" Says the doctor in a sleepy voice.
"My son! He has a fever."
The doctor instantly forgets he is sleepy and takes us inside.
"When did you find him?"
"He started crying, and I went in his room like 6-7 minutes ago."
"7 minutes?? How did you get here so fast?" The doctor says with a shocked face.
"Doesn't matter now, does it?" my dad said in an inpatient voice.
"Oh yeah, my bad, I was shocked for a bit."
The doctor takes the blanket off of me and puts his hands on my dead; his face brightens in a green light around his eyes.After a minute or two, I start feeling better.
"What even was that?" I asked myself
"Is it some kind of magic?"
"Thank you, doctor; I don't know what I would do if I lost my kid."
"It is no problem; I know how it is to be a parent."
My dad hands the doctor some money.
"Oh, no thanks, its ok, you don't need to pay."
"Nonsense! If you wouldn't have helped, my son would be dead; I have to pay you."
The doctor understood that my dad wouldn't take no for an assurance; he just takes the money.
"Looks like you really don't take bo for an answear. So how's your wife? Is she resting as I told her?"
"Yes, Mr. Goodman, she is resting as you said."
"Well thats good to hear, i am sorry but i should go back to sleep i have a lot of work to do tomorrow."
"Ohh, well, we are going to leave then. Thank you for your help, Mr. Goodman. Good day.. or.night, i guess."
"Hahaha, well, have a good night, boy."
We then left the doctor's house and went home; there, my mother was waiting for us.
She looked distressed, as if trying to understand that she could lose her son that night. Thankfully, I was alive and well.
I still couldn't understand what those marks around the doctor's eyes were—was it magic? Was it a superpower? How does this world work?
"You're back!" My mother said with the happiest face i've ever seen in both my lifes
She started crying and talking about how happy she is i am alive and that dad got there in time. Is this how it feels to have family?
After about 1 year, I got bigger and could talk and walk. In my former life, I didn't really think about how good it is to be able to talk and walk to where I want to be.
Life has gotten better; I can help my mom with some easy chores (mostly handing her stuff) and could also just walk away when my parents talk about something boring, and also being able to go get a book from the bookshelf is way easier since I won't need to point to the bookshelf and say "book book" and then be handed some dumb "book"—that is all photos.
Unfortunately, we mostly have books about economics and stuff; why do we even have that? We use coins made out of metal; the only way their value goes down is if they make a way to produce metals en masse.
We had some books about fighting, but there was one I was interested in the most: the books that explain the powers there are in this universe. The powers don't have an official name because most call them special powers, even though they are not that special. The most common ones are like super strength and enhanced speed; the ones that are more uncommon but still not so rare are powers like healing.
You normally unlock your power (if you have one) at around 13-14, which is a way too long to wait, but there is nothing I can do about it.
After I got to the age of 6, my dad said he would let me come with him to his job. Finally, after all that time, I was stuck with nothing exciting to do.
"Are you sure you want to come?"
"Yes! I am bored around here; I want to do something else."
"There is not a lot to do in the woods beside cutting down trees."
"Still sounds better than spending time doing house chores."
"Sighs." "Okay, you may come, but if there is any danger, like an animal attack, you run back to the wagon."
"Yes sir!"
That's how I got my dad to let me come with him to the forest.
After we arive, my dad takes his axe and tells me to follow him. He finds a small tree and says
"Wana try cutting it down?"
"Really? Yeah, I want to see if I can."
Dad hands me the axe and starts explaining how to hit it.
"Don't hit it in the same place over and over; go a little bit higher or lower, or else you won't be able to cut it down."
"Doesn't sound so hard."
I was the strongest man in my last life; cutting down a tree should be easy work.
I lift up the axe and start hitting it with all I got. In my last life, the tree would shater into splinters, but now I realize.
"I am not as strong anymore," I thought to o myself. I need to start training from now on.
After 10 hits the tree falls down
"That's impressive," my father said with a calm look on his face.
"Can you show me how you do it?"
"Ok, I'll show you how a grownup does it."
My father finds a tree that is about two times bigger than the one I had and said
"Hmmm, looks good."
I try to hand him the axe, but he refuses; he gets in stance and punches the tree. After one hit, the tree practically exploded; it was mostly splinters. As the tree falls down, my father catches it, puts it over his shoulder, and says
"Let's go load this in; I'll take the other one you cut down; you get the tools," he says with a nonchalant tone.
Amazed would be an understatement of how I felt. I just saw a man do something I couldn't do; in my last life I would've still needed an axe or a sledgehammer to do this. There are only two explanations: either people here are way stronger than in my last world, or this man I now call father is the strongest man in history.
I snap out of it and get the tools and start following my dad in the wagon.
"Hey dad, how strong are you really?" I ask with the tone an amazed kid would have, but this time I didn't have to fake it.
"Why are you asking that?"
"Well, you just shatered a tree with your hands and caught it midair."
My father thinks about it for a second and says
"You really want to know?"
"Yes"
"Well, I was the number one biggest threat to everyone when I was still in the army."
"What!?! You've been in the army?"
"Yes, didn't I tell you?"
"You never did; you also didn't tell me you are the strongest man in this whole continent."
"I wouldn't say the whole continent."
"Oh, is there someone stronger than you?"
"Probably, it's almost impossible to find someone like that, but always remember, there is always a bigger fish."
"Does it scare you to think there is someone as strong as you?"
"Nah, I am still the strongest; there is one guy right now that could compare to me, though."
"Who is it?"
"Sighs." "The man that is around my strength is a man with no name; since anyone to ever meet him is now dead, he only has some elite-level fodder that are his minions; I am the only one to fight him and win."
"What does he look like?"
"He is a pale man with long white hair and red eyes; he looks like a demon. If you ever meet someone that looks like him, I want you to run."
"Ok dad, I will run if I meet him."
"Well, it looks like we are done here. Let's leave."
After that we got our tools and left to go home, it was a cold winter when this happend, i can still remember the forest, it was one of the most beautiful places i seen.
We arived home after an hour with the wagon.
After we arived, we sat down at the table and started eating. Then it was the moment I asked my dad the one question I had for some time.
"Hey, dad? Could you train me?"
That was the moment I saw something weird about him; the air around him changed, the look in his eyes was different; it was like that question had awakened something in him.
"Yes. Training starts tomorrow. Once you are done eating, you go to sleep."
"What? It's barley even 8 now."
"Don't you want to train? If you want me to train you, you will have to go after my schedule."
"Yes sir."
That's when I understood that he wasn't my dad when training; he was my coach, the strongest man alive.
I get done eating and go in my room to sleep, but there is a noise outside my room.
"You can't make him go through that kind of training!"
"He asked me to train him, and that's what I will do."
"He is Barley 6 years old!"
"That's more time he can put into training; I only started at ten; he will surpass me when he is about 20-25."
"There is more to life than strength! What if he only wants to train because he knows how strong you are?"
"Then you go ask him that tomorrow."
My mom sighs and says, "Okay, I'll let you train him the way you want, but he will go to school and learn."
"Deal!"
After that, they also went to sleep, probably; I don't know since I slept right after that.
I get woken up by my dad yelling "pushups!"
"What does he mean? Its like 4 am."
Ge grabs my blanket and throws me off the bed.
"Push ups!" He demands in a tone a drill sergeant uses.
I don't know if it was out of reflex or i was listening to my dad but i instantly got down and started doing one armed push ups
"Hmm, where did you learn to do those?"
"Uhhhh, I was watching you when you were training."
"Well, I said pushups, not one-arm pushups, so do normal pushups; do about 100."
"100!" Is this man trying to kill me? I am 6!
And that's how my training started.