The thing about being transmigrated into the body of a child is that your soul is locked inside the biological body of the child, which means my emotions were all over the place; I wanted to cry but I was also very happy and also having a panic attack. I had been living such a boring life as a young adult in the corporate world that all these feelings hitting me at the same time were way too much.
I transmigrated when this body was five years old. In my past life, I died going back from what I think was an after-work dinner with the office personnel, I was 22. It’s been many years since I transmigrated, so I don’t remember much of my past life anymore, but I do remember I hated the corporate world. Not enough to fall into a Multilevel Marketing scheme, but enough that when I died I didn’t really mind.
The day I woke up was sunny and I knew I had transmigrated almost instantly. There was no big event that caused the transmigration. The body I was now inhabiting wasn’t hurt in any way. One moment I was getting hit by the drunk CEO’s car, the other I was a five-year-old girl in the middle of a medieval town square. I stood there motionless for what felt like hours, but it must have been a few minutes at best. There were flowers, a water fountain, vendors in wooden carts, weird salami and sausages hanging from the carts in probably unsanitary ways.
“Ah, Fuck,” as I said the curse word a soft childlike voice came out and it sealed the deal for me.
I had read enough novels and comics to know what this was. But before I could think any further I was hit by someone and fell to the ground, was I dying again?
No. But once I opened my eyes, a dark-haired young boy with light brown skin and dark blue eyes was staring at me, screaming for me to wake up. My first impulse was to push him away at the jump scare, but my arms were much shorter and weaker than I remembered, so I barely touched his shirt. He let out a sigh of relief and backed down.
The boy extended his hand to help me get up, but before I could hold on to it a load man’s scream cut through the noisy town square.
“Stop, boy! Stop that boy!”
Three men came running in our direction and before I could hold his hand the boy was gone. The men were dressed in light blue uniforms, and I guessed they were the equivalent of police or knights. One of them lifted me from the floor, screaming at my face.
“Where is him, girl? Where did he go?”
Another one came shouting “How do you know him?”
My mind was a soup of emotions from transmigrating plus the pain from hitting my head and this asshole was now shaking my tiny body while screaming and spitting on my face. Even if I wanted I couldn’t say anything. But there was no need for me to try to answer, because from behind the men came a woman.
Her hair was as red as the sunset. She was wearing a beautiful deep green button-up flowy dress with some sort of laced hoop skirt. Her boots were made of brown leather with laces, and the leather pouch tied in her waist was filled to the brick with herbs and flowers—it was like she was just out of a fairy tale.
More than her outfit, what caught my eye was her aura. Yes, an aura. I’m not talking figuratively. Around her a sort of deep indigo fire aura was emanating; this was the first time I had seen anything like it (my original world has nothing of the kind– some people believed in it, but I never did.)
“I advise you to let the child go, soldier boy,” the woman said with her coarse voice.
The men turned around and faced her. The one shaking my tiny body dropped me in a heartbeat. Another put a good three feet distance between himself and the woman, and the third one pretended to be brave and met the woman’s gaze.
“B…Back off, Witch. We were merely doing our job and interrogating her.”
By this point, I was already amazed by this woman. Her attire, her attitude, her voice and now she was a witch?
“You are interrogating a child while shaking her like you shake your piss off?”
The townsfolk had started to gather around and I could hear a few laughs coming from the small crowd. This must have triggered the soldier standing safely three feet away as he gathered some courage and tried to speak up.
“Who do you think you are to—”
The witch only changed her gaze to him momentarily before continuing.
“Who do you think you are to put your hands on a Witch’s daughter?”
Fuck yeah, she’s my mom! I stood up as fast as my little legs allowed me to and ran towards her. I kept a small distance since I had no idea if the aura burning around her could hurt me. It looked like fire, and better safe than sorry.
The soldier trying to stand his ground was now visibly shaken but continued to try to justify his actions.
“A witch’s daughter or not she’s common folk, and we… We are the Empire’s Soldiers. We can interrogate whoever—“
“Not whoever. A child. A child not even old enough to know not to wet her bed at night.”
Mother! I blushed with the embarrassment that only a child feels when a parent reveals too much about them. I hid behind her skirt in shame.
Some of the crowd standing there watching the situation started to loudly agree with my mother. As other women and a few men stood up by her side her aura calmed down and became but a faint purple fog around her body.
The soldiers looked at each other, confused with the situation and the people gathering around us.
“I… I will let this one slide, Witch. But only because we have urgent business to attend.”
And off they went running while pretending to walk.
The townsfolk started to disperse. One woman petted my hair and another talked to my mom and caressed her hair; my mom’s aura subdued. She knelt to meet my eye while looking around my tiny body to make sure I wasn’t hurt.
“Alana, are you—” she stopped talking when our eyes met. Her eyes which were once flaming red were now more of a pinkish colour. The Witch looked at me with a mix of sadness and excitement as she held my face between her hands.
“Come, my child, let us head home.”
Before I could say anything she lifted me in a hug, shushed a few words in my ear and I fell asleep.
As I lay here, dying, I think of my mother—she, who I’ve never met and who I’ll soon meet in the afterlife. I wasted my years trying to fit into a family that never wanted me, I failed the people who never had faith in me. As I die I realize I failed my mother and myself. If I could do it again, I would do it differently.
I’d serve the People of the empire, not the Empire. I’d fight for them, but I’d also fight for myself. I resent the family that killed me, the father who never loved me and the brothers who never cared. But I also resent myself.
If I had a second chance, I’d live differently.
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