"Your trauma is valid, even if someone else has it worse. Even if it 'could have been avoided'. Even if it happened a long time ago. Even if no one knows." — Daniell Koepke
Auren had read it somewhere once and then forgotten it, just like thousands of other things that had come in his life and went through him without leaving any significant mark at the time. But this one line he remembered.. He never read it with the intention of memorizing it - but there are certain moments in a person's life that remain with them even if they think it insignificant at a time.
Like the smell of oranges on a winter morning when he was eight.
Like the way a classmate once looked at him when he answered a question no one else could.
Like a stranger's passing comment—"You'll be fine, kid"—on the worst day of his teenage years.
Like a line from a book that simply read, "You are allowed to begin again."
"Hhh.. Like hell you are. That was a stupid book.." Said Auren to no one.
His breath was visible in the cold, empty night road as he was walking aimlessly at 3.37 in the morning. Or was it midnight? It sure was dark. This road did not see much movement after midnight - which was why he had turned this way.
Auren took another sip of the beer, it tasted like nothing. The twelve-pack in his other hand felt heavier than it should have. He had quit his job this afternoon, tossed his phone into the ocean this evening and had decided to walk home today. Those smelly people in the trains can have none of this fresh air he was breathing in with each step.
So what if his home was 70 kilometers from the city?
The question that had broken him ultimately was - 'What was it all for?'
He did everything as he should have. Fuck, he did things for them which he probably shouldn't have. Yet he helped them, he stayed there even when it cost him his dreams, his career and even his relationships. He went above and beyond for them. But what was it all for?
He was not salted by the cruel world. Auren was in his 30s and knew very well the flaws of humankind - a bit too well at that. He did not expect a grand reward at the end of it all, he did what was required. Never was it for others to consider him a good person or even to become a hero.
All he wanted.. All he ever wished for.. was for them to finally find their way in life for themselves. A life where they did not need his presence, his money, his constant support to live a simple, normal life. Not a single one of them were functioning adults.
A happy family?
That was a myth. All he aimed for was a family that could live on their own and meet at holidays, share two things about their life - happy, sad, confusing? It didn't matter. Just an effort at conversation - one day of pretending their bond was not lost to time.
But they were gone. No more calls that made his blood pressure rise with each ring.. Because no more phone at all. He had finally stopped - he always wanted to.
Auren stopped suddenly, looked up and screamed,
"THEN WHY THE FUCK IT FEELS LIKE I AM SO FUCKING EMPTY?!"
The twelve-pack in his hand he threw with so much force - it went really high in the air taking a nice curve and landed - breaking the glass.
Huh? Glass?
'HNK! HNK!'
Oh, a truck was coming. The six-pack had landed directly on the driver's face. The driver lost control. Auren watched it from afar as the truck headed straight towards him - the two bright headlights clear as day. What funny shape it had. A few steps and he could be out of the way..
Nah, he was too tired for that shit. He had walked so much. Wonder why his home never came?
A crushing weight slammed down, knocking the breath from his lungs. Then everything split. Noise. Light. Bone. His body folded without permission, flung like paper, and the ground came at him sideways. No time to think. Just the crack of impact, the taste of blood, and a silence so thick it felt like drowning in concrete.
It flashed before his eyes - it was like he was watching a movie, like it wasn't him with whom all of this was happening. Then came cold and darkness. It wasn't winter cold though - this cold scared him, the abyssal black emptiness accompanying just made it that much worse. It stayed like that, Auren had no idea if for seconds, hours, days or years. Was he dead?
One day it all changed though.
For a long time, everything was just.. fuzzy. Auren was just happy that it wasn't dark anymore.
Warmth, soft sounds, light that came and went. He didn't really think, didn't really feel—just floated in it. Safe, quiet, small. Sometimes there were arms, a heartbeat close by, a voice humming something soft. But none of it stuck. No names, no faces. Just a blur.
Then slowly, things started to change. The colors stopped swirling so much. Sounds stopped echoing. Shapes held still. He couldn't explain it, but something deep inside him—something old—stirred like it had been waiting.
And one morning, he opened his eyes.. and the world didn't blur. A woman's face leaned close. She was smiling, a beautiful one. Her voice wasn't just sound anymore—it meant something.
That was the first real moment.
For the first time since the darkness Auren could form a one simple, complete thought. He could feel his hands, his legs, his body.. It was all so small. Was it really him or was he still watching some dream in his last minutes of dying?
No. It felt too real for it to be anything else but a reality. He had died and been born again. 'Fucking reincarnation? For real?'
That was the day Auren woke up in another world as a 3-year-old baby.