Sometimes, it was best that things were forgotten. It might be an embarrassing moment at school, when your parent shows up while you're out on a date, or - just throwing it out there, times like when you are murdered in your home during a robbery?

I was supposed to start college next month. I was supposed to have fun and get a degree. Have friends, relationships, kids, a career... But in the heat of the moment, the chance for all of that was stolen from me. It wasn't like growing up was any easier. Dad was a deadbeat, Mom turned to alcohol. I made the meals for myself and my siblings at 7. I cleaned up after her binges over the weekend. I taught the younger ones how to do their schoolwork and would stay late at school if they had wanted to do anything, to make sure they could get home.

Getting my foot out the door like this was supposed to be my first breath of freedom - And now I'll never know what that's like. What's it like to feel loved? Missed? Wanted? What would happen to my siblings now that I was gone? Would they be alright? Did they meet the same fate?

Pain. There was so much pain.

I didn't know you could feel pain when already dead. I also didn't really expect that I'd be thinking about all of this while I'm probably bleeding out in my bed. But here, it's dark and warm. It would almost be pleasant if this pain wasn't unbearable. No matter how much I try, I cannot scream. I try to flail, to close for anything, but there is nothing. The even weirder thing is, is that it doesn't even feel like there is air around me. Just what is happening..?

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I don't know how long it's been, but it's like everything disappeared. I thought... I had disappeared? But I'm here - Wherever the hell that was. I'd awoken with a start in a small bed, panting weakly and looking around while reaching a hand to clutch for my chest. That's weird, that didn't look like my hand. This also was neither my nightgown, nor my room? The walls were comprised of rough wooden slats, with windows that bore no glass but instead wooden shutters. A hearth was crackling as the fire had been dying out and an armoire stood erect in the right back corner. The bed I was in sat against the back wall in the center of the room and otherwise the room was empty.

I opened my mouth to speak but it only brought a rather unsettling coughing fit on. Amidst my razing coughs, I could hear noise outside before there was a hurried knock and a man had nudged the door open. It was not a young, strapping man but instead a somewhat feeble older man. He held a walking cane and wore his beard messy and long. His clothes were odd and resembled poorly seen rags - I've had to Frankenstein things together after all to get our clothes to last longer.

He began to speak in a hesitant and gentle tone, but the words that fell out of his mouth were absolute gibberish. I don't know if it was my vacant look or the fact I hadn't responded but he shortly walked over towards my carefully and moved a trembling hand to my forehead as if to check my temperature. His touch was warm and soft, and much appreciated in this minute. Despite the fact he was basically decrepit, he still looked somewhat large to me. It wasn't until he'd picked me up that I realise I was actually me who was small. I was a.. Child? How the **** did that happen?

He carried me out to what would soon become my home, and him my adoptive grandfather. He had been living alone as his own family had been killed by a plague I learned over the years, and having me was apparently a great addition. This man took me by the hand and taught me everything I would need. He taught me to speak, he taught me to read and write, distinguish safe foods, dangerous creatures in the area, and basically how to survive. But the issue with living with an elderly person was that he couldn't really.. Go far. As such, I've never been outside of the relatively immediate area. If I was ever gone too long and something had happened, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. I just did my best to make him happy. And who was this man? Rynel Hauwl. A strange name, but one I learned to cherish.

It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I was a child again. After looking into a pail of water I came to decide I must have been about 5. Was this the gods repaying me for the crap life I had before? I'd spent days trying to wake myself up from this dream, only to find Rynel worried about my odd behavior. He probably thought he'd found some unruly child grown by nature or something considering everything I did. I met Rynel in that room ten years ago and have cherished every day. I remember cooking with him and making an utter mess of his beard, yet he just smiled and laughed with me. I remembered when he made a kite with me from wood we had dried and scraped thin before painting it with pigment made of the nearby wildflowers. On the anniversary of the day he'd found me, we celebrated with song. He had been more of a parent to me than either of my own in my past life, and that was why I was filling in his grave amidst the rain with an empty expression. Rynel was the only thing I knew of this world. He was my world, and now it was gone. Moving forward would be the only thing I could do, but staying here just... Wouldn't be possible alone. I'd absolutely lose it. Tomorrow I will take my first journey and see what lies beyond our meadow.