When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was dazzling light. It

  grew to encompass my entire field of vision, and I squinted in discomfort.

  Once my vision adjusted, I became aware of the blonde young lady

  gazing at me. She was one gorgeous girl—wait, no. She was definitely a

  woman.

  Who is she? I thought.

  By her side was a young man of roughly the same age, his hair brown,

  his awkward smile directed at me. He looked strong, proud, and impressively

  muscled.

  Brown-haired and stubborn-looking? I ought to have reacted negatively

  the instant I saw this big oaf—but to my surprise, there was no feeling of ill

  will. His hair must have been dyed that color. It was a very fetching shade of

  brown.

  The woman looked at me with a warm smile and spoke. Her words

  were oddly indistinct and difficult to make out, however. Was she even

  speaking Japanese?

  The man said something in reply, his face losing some of its tension. I

  likewise had no idea what he said.

  A third unintelligible voice joined the conversation, but I couldn’t see

  who was speaking. I tried getting up to figure out where I was and to ask

  these people who they were. And let me tell you, I may have been a shut-in,

  but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how to talk to people. But somehow, all I

  could muster was this:

  “Ahh! Waah!”

  Nothing but garbled whining and moaning.

  And I couldn’t move my body. I mean, I could sort of move my

  fingertips and my arms, but I couldn’t sit up.

  The brown-haired man said something else, then suddenly leaned down

  and picked me up. This was absurd! I weighed over a hundred kilos. How

  could he lift me that easily? Maybe I’d lost some weight after being stuck in a

  coma for a few weeks?

  That was a pretty nasty accident I’d been in, after all.

  There was a good chance I hadn’t come out of it with all of my limbs.

  For the rest of the day, I dwelled on a single thought:

  My life is going to be a living hell.

  ***

  Let’s jump ahead a month.

  Apparently, I’d been reborn. The reality of my situation had finally set

  in: I was a baby.

  I was finally able to confirm that after being picked up and having my

  head cradled so I could see my own body. But why did I still have all of my

  memories of my prior life? Not that I was complaining, exactly, but who

  would imagine someone being reborn with all their memories— to say

  nothing of that wild delusion actually being true?

  The two people I first saw when I came to must have been my parents.

  If I had to guess, I’d say they were in their early twenties. Clearly younger

  than I’d been in my past life, at any rate. My thirty-four-year-old self would

  have written them off as kids.

  I was jealous that they’d gotten to make a baby at that age.

  Early on, I’d realized that I wasn’t in Japan; the language was different,

  and my parents didn’t sport Japanese facial features. They also wore what

  appeared to be some form of old-timey clothing. I didn’t see anything that

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  resembled home appliances; a woman in a maid outfit came by and cleaned

  with a rag. The furniture, eating utensils, and the like were all crudely

  fashioned from wood. Wherever this was, it didn’t seem like it was a

  developed nation.

  We didn’t even have electric lighting, only candles and oil lamps.

  Perhaps my parents were so poor that they couldn’t afford to pay the electric

  bill.

  But how likely was that, really? Seeing as they had a maid, I figured

  that they must have money, but maybe the maid was my father’s sister, or my

  mother’s. That wouldn’t be too odd. She’d at least help out with the

  housekeeping, right?

  I had wished that I could go back and do everything over again, but

  being born to a family that was too poor to pay for utilities wasn’t exactly

  what I’d had in mind.

  ***

  Another half a year went by.

  After six months of listening to my parents conversing, I’d begun to

  pick up some of the language. My English grades had never been great, but I

  guess it’s true what they say about how sticking solely to your native tongue

  makes it harder to advance in your studies. Or maybe, given that I had a new

  body, my brain was better suited to learning this time? I felt like I had an

  unusual knack for remembering things, perhaps because I was still so young.

  Around this time, I started learning to crawl as well. Being able to

  move was a marvelous thing. I’d never been so grateful to have control of my

  own body.

  “As soon as you take your eyes off him, he slips off somewhere,” my

  mother said.

  “Hey, so long as he’s good and healthy,” my father replied, watching

  me as I crawled around. “I was worried back when he was born and he never

  cried.”

  “He doesn’t cry now, either, does he?”

  I wasn’t exactly the age to whine because I was hungry. The times I let

  the wailing out were when I tried, and invariably failed, to stop myself from

  soiling my pants.

  Even though I could only crawl, I learned a lot from being able to

  move around. The first thing I learned was that this was definitely the home

  of a rich family. The house was a wooden, two-story structure with over five

  separate rooms, and we had the one maid on staff. At first, I’d assumed she

  was my aunt or something, but given her deferential attitude toward my

  mother and father, I doubted she was family.

  Our house was located in the countryside. Outside the windows

  stretched a peaceful, pastoral landscape.

  There were few other houses, just two or three nestled amidst the

  wheat fields on any given side. We really were out in the sticks. I couldn’t

  see any telephone poles or streetlights. There might not even be a power

  station nearby. I’d heard that in some countries they ran power cables

  underground, but if that were the case here, it was strange that our house

  didn’t have electricity.

  This place was way too pastoral. It grated on me, since I was used to

  the comforts of modern civilization. Here I was, having been reborn,

  practically dying to get my hands on a computer.

  But all of that changed early one afternoon.

  As the things I could do were pretty limited, I decided I’d look at the

  scenery. I clambered onto a chair as I usually did in order to get a peek out

  through the window, and then my eyes went wide.

  My father was in our yard, swinging a sword around.

  What in the world was he doing? He was old enough to know better

  than that. Was this the kind of person my dad was? Some sort of fantasy

  dweeb?

  Uh-oh. In my daze of astonishment, I started slipping from the chair.

  My underdeveloped hands grabbed the chair, but couldn’t support my

  weight—not with how top-heavy my head made me—and I fell.

  I hit the floor with a thud and immediately heard a cry of alarm. I saw

  my mother drop the load of laundry she was carrying, her face going pale as

  she brought her hand to her mouth.

  “Rudy! Are you all right?!” She rushed to my side and picked me up.

  As she met my gaze, her expression slackened with relief, and she stroked my

  head. “Aw, you’re fine, see?”

  Easy there, lady, I thought. Careful with my head. I just whacked that

  thing.

  Given how panicked she’d looked, I must have had a pretty nasty fall. I

  mean, I did land right on my head. Maybe I was going to be permanently

  stupid. Not that that would be a change from the usual.

  My head was throbbing. I tried to reach for the chair, but couldn’t

  muster the energy. My mother didn’t seem so nervous now, though, so I

  probably wasn’t bleeding or anything. Just a bump or something, in all

  likelihood.

  She peered carefully at my head. The look on her face suggested that,

  injury or no, she was taking this pretty seriously. Finally, she rested her hand

  atop my head. “Just to be on the safe side…” she began. “Let this divine

  power be as satisfying nourishment, giving one who has lost their strength

  the strength to rise again—Healing!”

  What the heck? Was that this country’s version of kissing the boo-boo

  to make it all better? Or was she another fantasy nerd like my sword?swinging father? Was this a case of the Fighter marrying the Cleric?

  But as I thought that, my mother’s hand shone with a dim light, and the

  pain in my head was instantly gone.

  Bwuh?

  “There we go,” she said. “All better! You know, Mommy used to be a

  pretty famous adventurer.” Her voice rang with pride.

  My mind reeled in confusion, various terms whirling through my mind:

  sword, fighter, adventurer, healing, incantation, cleric…

  Seriously—what just happened?

  My father, having heard my mother’s earlier scream, poked his head

  through the window. “What’s the matter?” he asked. He was sweating,

  probably from swinging that sword of his around.

  “Honey, you have to be more attentive,” my mother chided. “Rudy

  managed to climb up onto the chair. He could have been seriously hurt.”

  My father seemed much more composed. “Hey, boys will be boys.

  Kid’s got a lot of energy.”

  This sort of back-and-forth was pretty common with my parents. But

  this time, my mother wasn’t simply backing down, probably because of how

  I’d hit my head. “Honey, he isn’t even a year old yet. Would it kill you to

  show some more concern?”

  “It’s like I said: falling and stumbling and getting bumps and bruises is

  how kids grow up to be tough. Besides, if he does get hurt, you can just heal

  him!”

  “I’m just worried that he might get hurt so badly that I can’t heal him.”

  “He’ll be fine,” my father assured her.

  My mother clutched me more tightly, her face going red.

  “You were worried early on about how he wouldn’t cry. If he’s this

  much of a little scamp, then he’ll be fine,” my father continued, and then he

  leaned in to give my mother a kiss.

  All right, you two. Get a room, will ya?

  After that, my parents took me into the other room to put me to bed,

  then headed upstairs to make me a baby brother or sister. I could tell because

  I could hear the creaking and moaning coming from the second floor. I guess

  there was life outside the internet.

  And also…magic?

  ***

  In the wake of all that, I paid extra-close attention to the conversations

  my parents had with one another and the help. In so doing, I noticed them

  using a lot of words I wasn’t familiar with. Most of these were the names of

  countries and regions and territories—all clearly proper nouns that I’d never

  heard before.

  I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but by this point, that could only

  mean one thing: I wasn’t on Earth anymore; I was in a different world.

  A world of swords and sorcery.

  And it occurred to me: if I lived in this world, I could do all those

  things, too. After all, this was a place of high fantasy, one that didn’t obey the

  same rules of common sense as my past life. I could live as a typical person,doing the typical things for this world. Where I stumbled, I would get back

  up, dust myself off, and forge onward.

  My former self had died full of regret, died feeling frustrated at his

  powerlessness and how he’d never accomplished anything. But now I knew

  all of my missteps. With all the knowledge and experience from my past life,

  I could finally do it.

  I could finally live life right.