She turned her neck blankly, her gaze slowly sweeping across the room before finally settling on the yellowed old calendar hanging on the wall. The red numbers were clear and glaring: June 12, 2006.
Was this the day she was six years old?
She abruptly raised her hand and pinched herself hard. A sharp pain instantly confirmed it was no illusion. Trembling, she reached for the back of her head. It was swollen, and the pain when she touched it made her gasp.
Absurd. This was utterly absurd!
This wasn't a dream or a hallucination.
The calendar on the wall, her small hands, the familiar, dilapidated old house: everything was telling her an unbelievable truth. One moment ago, she had been in her rented apartment at the age of twenty-seven, dying with endless regret and despair. The next, she had truly been reborn, back in 2006, on the day she was only six years old.
A tremendous wave of fear, disbelief, and lingering dread crashed over her, leaving her ice-cold all over. She had died once. The pain of being drained of all she was worth, abandoned by the one she loved, and exploited by her own family even as she lay dying was still seared into her bones and blood, too vivid to ever forget.
“I was actually reborn, and I’m back at six years old…”
