Reincarnated

...Rachel...

Everything was dark, completely empty... The only thing I felt was a heat in my chest, a fury I couldn’t contain myself. The most I could do was try to hold it back, even if it was in vain...

A voice in my mind said this might be happening. The memory of fighting was still fresh in my mind. I could still feel the pain and adrenaline of that moment. The feeling of everything having stopped around me was tangible.

Then this darkness... Where was I? Had I really died? It couldn’t be. I was going home. I just needed to take the subway and I would be taken straight to the station near my apartment. As if the universe were completely indifferent to me, I couldn’t feel anything, except reliving the memory of that fight.

A fight others might call petty or silly, but it was very serious to me. The face of that girl Elisa came to my mind, her terrible smile made her look sadistic... If I was dead, that meant her path to Leo was clear. With my death, he would be devastated. I could see his heart breaking... Elisa would have to pay, and if it were possible, I would make her pay myself!

"All this hatred..." a soft voice said directly in my head. "With your willpower, you can truly take everything you desire for yourself... All your ambitions can become real."

I wanted to ask who that person speaking was. No, it couldn’t be a person. The way the voice was soft but indifferent, as if it were only stating facts with no feeling behind the words. Was it an entity? A god...? Could it be death...?

"I can guarantee you a second chance," the voice continued. "All that will be necessary is for you to become powerful enough."

I couldn’t yet understand what that voice was trying to tell me. The shock of everything still surrounded me, and uncertainty clouded my mind...

"You will be reincarnated and will have your chance for revenge... And then you will be mine," the voice said the last sentence like a threatening whisper.

How do I accept? I thought. And that was all it took... The darkness quickly began to dissipate, giving way once more to the bright light that had enveloped me, but this time it didn’t mean my end. It was the light of a new beginning. My second chance.

The memories of my life began to blur, two different sets of memories from different points in my life quickly merged. I could distinguish one from the other, even when I shouldn't have. I remembered studying in a school, I remembered my father and mother, I remembered happy and sad moments, I remembered my love, how I met him at one of his band’s shows, I remembered when I passed the entrance test for college.

And even so, it felt like I had lived a whole second life. I remembered running through dirt roads of a village like the ones you'd only see in fantasy films... I remembered stealing food from tents with other children while guards in armor chased us. Memories that shouldn’t exist, that should be no more than a delusion or pure fantasy, but they felt completely real.

The memory of a fight in a muddy alley, where I held tightly onto a small bag of coins, while a brute tried to hit me and take it from me. The coins clinked with every move I made to dodge, and as much as I tried to stay on my feet in that fight, I ended up being defeated. I was just a child, and that man was basically five times my size. One punch was enough to throw me against the wall of the dirty tavern from which I had stolen the coins.

I felt like my nose had broken. My back ached, and I fell face-first into the mud. Cold rain fell over me, and I couldn’t move... Defeated, humiliated, and alone, once the man walked away with the gold I had stolen—gold that wouldn’t make any difference to the owner of such a big tavern, but for a desperate child, it would’ve been enough to survive for a week...

Another memory appeared, it seemed a long time had passed... I was older, yet things hadn’t improved. I could hear the clinking of chains connected to shackles on my wrists, ankles, and the collar placed around my neck. Everything was so cold, and even so, I was wearing tattered clothes and my bare feet sank into the snow. I felt that with every step my feet would give out, and my legs wanted to collapse and stop.

And it wasn’t just me in that state. There were other prisoners. Men and women of all ages... Some were more injured than others, but none were truly in any condition to keep walking like that.

The men in golden armor didn’t care, though. In their eyes, everyone chained up was a criminal, and we were being taken to a terrible place to pay for our crimes. It didn’t matter how severe their crimes had been; everyone was being taken to the place where they would spend the rest of their lives paying for them.

Some seemed to accept this and kept their heads down... Others, like me, tried to hold their heads high and rebel somehow. There had to be a flaw in the chains, some chance to escape. Even if the chance was small, there had to be a way out.

The truth is, at that moment there was no hope at all. Everyone there, bound by chains, was no longer human. We had become slaves... I wanted to cry, it didn’t feel right. Those memories couldn’t be mine. Was I being punished for wanting revenge? I felt like my heart was being crushed by something that wanted to destroy me.

Am I so cruel that I desire punishment!? Is this my hell!? I tried to scream in vain, my voice couldn’t leave my mouth. I still wasn’t myself... I was just a spectator of another life I couldn’t control yet.

Another blank space in my memories... And when I could see again, I was in a dark place, and a guard shouted at me! He wasn’t wearing white and gold armor like the others who had dragged me like an animal. He was dressed more normally, but he had a whip and a metal mask covering his entire face, hiding his identity completely.

"This mark you have," his voice was muffled by the metal mask. I couldn’t see his expression, but if I had to guess, he was enjoying the moment.

I was kneeling on the ground, my arms chained upwards, lifting them as high as possible, while my neck was chained to the floor in an uncomfortable way that prevented me from moving. And if the pain from the uncomfortable position wasn’t enough, he was still holding a whip and striking my back. His justification for the punishment was that I had been lazy during work, but the truth was that he had some kind of interest in me—especially in the mark he mentioned.

That mark was on my right hand. I couldn’t see it from that position, and it was completely different from anything I had seen before. It looked like a tattoo, but when he struck me, it glowed. A faint light, but still visible, especially in that dark and filthy dungeon.

"I don’t know!" I screamed through the tears streaming down my face, also dirty from the earth and dust of that place. That answer didn’t please the man, and he kept hitting me...

Whip after whip, my back burned as if I were being hit by embers, though it was just a whip and the will of a curious sadist who saw me only as a mysterious object. The tears on my face weren’t just from pain. It was a mix of hatred, frustration, confusion... And a desire to destroy that whole place. I couldn’t see the face of that monster, but it didn’t matter. The only face I could see was Elisa’s. The girl with the terrible smile, the one who wanted my Leo... I was suffering because of her, because of her desire to take my life...

One more whip from the torturer was too much for my body. Mixed with exhaustion and pain, my body gave out, and everything went dark, with me fainting and ending that memory—leaving me afraid, because I knew that the moment I woke up, I’d once again be in control of my body and it wouldn’t be just memories...

If I wanted to have my revenge, I’d have to do it myself... And that seemed impossible in the hell where I had been reincarnated...

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