Some time later, as the sun began to set, Thomas and Lily took Hanna back to their house, Hanna came back with a satisfied and happy smile into the room. "Wow, that was fun!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flushed with excitement. "The sunflowers looked so great!"
Lily, busy at the stove, stirred a pot of hearty stew. She was busy preparing dinner for everyone. She glanced over at her daughter with a warm smile. "I'm glad you had a lovely time, dear. Now, go play. I need to finish making dinner."
Thomas, having cleaned and sharpened his sword, sheathed it carefully before setting it aside. He looked up as Hanna entered, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Your mother is right, Hanna. Why don't you go take care of your little brother? I'm sure he could use some of your company as he sleeps."
Hanna nodded, skipping over to Rei's cradle. She peered down at her brother's sleeping form, she was now excited that she was a sister now. "Come on, wake up," she coaxed, poking gently at Rei's tiny hand. With a frown at his continued sleep, she sighed. "You're no fun," she declared, before wandering off to her room to resume playing with her beloved dolls and stuffed animals.
In the kitchen, Lily and Thomas worked side by side, preparing the rest of the dinner and arranging them. Lily and Thomas would occasionally check on Rei whether Rei was awake or not. As the sun dipped below the horizon and three moon rose up one was red one was blue and one was yellow showing the otherworldly significance, the family settled, they went on doing their own pursuits, all while the baby Rei slept on however the dreams Rei was watching was far from peaceful.
As Rei slumbered, his mind drifted through a labyrinth of fragmented memories, each one a shard of a life that now felt as distant and foreign as a half-remembered dream. Concrete black towers stretched towards the sky, their cold, the towers cold and menacing, giving a dark aura. Neon lights flickered in the room with stylish furniture and paintings inside the room.
In his dream, Rei stood in a room surrounded by smirks and cold gazes of the girls, some were pointing at him and some were laughing. At the center lay a lifeless man killed by a knife, its dead eyes staring to the roof with a hint of regret and shock. The cruel laughter of those he once called friends echoed, their mocking words slicing through the fog of his confusion like a knife through flesh. It was like countless eyes starting at him and making him admit a crime he did not committed.
He saw himself, a man wrongly accused, his life stolen by the corrupt and fickle system. Countless days, countless months, countless years, all wasted in the bleak despair of a cell, a cage, a tomb. He had tried to ignore the violence, the anger, the hate that seeped into every corner of that godforsaken place. He had lost himself in the pages of books, in the words of poets and philosophers, in the hopes and dreams of those who had come before. And still, the years had slipped away, his hair turning white, his body growing old and weary, until finally, mercifully, he had been taken to that dark, final room.
The cold steel of the noose had bitten into his flesh, a final, cruel caress before the darkness claimed him. He had felt a searing pain, a ripping, tearing sensation when suddenly he saw a small light.
And then, he had woken up here. In this strange, new world that was so different from the one he had left behind. The face he made as he gazed out from beneath the soft, warm blankets was not the face of a baby, but the lined and weathered countenance of a man who had lived a life filled with more sorrow and strife than most could imagine.
The memories of his past life, of the injustice and cruelty he had endured, now seemed like a distant nightmare, a waking hell that he had somehow managed to escape. This world, with its simple joys and quiet comforts, was a far cry from the one he had known before, but perhaps, just perhaps, it was a chance for a new beginning. A chance to start anew, to find a purpose and a happiness that had eluded him for so long in that other life.
As Rei lay there, his heart swelled with a tentative hope, a fragile but persistent flicker of light in the darkness of his troubled past. Maybe, just maybe, this was his second chance. A chance to leave behind the pain and the sorrow, the anger and the hate, and to forge a new life in a world that, for all its strangeness and unfamiliarity, held the promise of something far greater and more precious than he had ever known before.