Chapter 1: How the End became a new beginning

Nothingness enveloped me. 

No sight.

No sound.

No sensations whatsoever.

There was less than nothing.

Nothing would imply that something wasn’t there. Here there wasn’t anything there and there wasn’t anything that was supposed to be there. 

If a table is empty, there’s still air. 

In space there’s still particles and waves that make up the the majority of its volume. 

Here there wasn’t anything.

Was time even passing here.

I wasn’t even here. Yet I experience it just the same, this impossible feeling. 

Then suddenly after what feels like an eternity. Bright light comes crashing through, I feel my existence return to me. I still had no body, or mind but I existed again. I existed within this light, and did nothing more.

I felt another presence appear. It communicated to me, the meaning of it was lost to me, but I could understand that it seemed to exist beyond whatever this was. It’s conscious mind communicating to my existence. It’s communications warping and bending my existence. I could feel no pain, but I could feel my being, being stretched and pulled, scattered and compressed.

Slowly through this presences meddling I could feel my conscious mind return to me. I could comprehend again. Yet all my comprehension brought to me was violent static running through my mind, I could experience this unpleasant sensation through all that I was. The compressions made the static more sharp, and the stretching made my consciousness fade exponentially.

I suffered this until after one more compression, and in an instant, all sensation returned sight, sound, feeling, everything. I could feel again. This was proven by the immense anguish I was experiencing. Every fiber of my being was wracked with pain.

Once my body started to get used to the pain, I was able to realize I had a body again. Slumped over on my knees I looked up at the presence, to see if I could perceive what was causing me this suffering. A new impossibility appeared to me, as when I looked up at the presence what I saw was six interlocked rings of a color foreign to anything I’d known before. I’d gazed at it for only a moment before my body began to wretch, violently trying to expel the empty contents of my stomach.

This non-stop stimulation went on, until I eventually closed my eyes and tried to shut out everything I was experiencing curling up and clutching my chest as tight as I could. This presence continuing to assault my mind with what sounded like low pitched rhythmic barking, and a sequence of lights that I could still make out with my eyes closed. Until suddenly it all went away.

I kept my eyes closed for a while longer after that, the memory of it instilling a fear in me that I could not comprehend, until I finally opened my eyes to a sight that only served to further my confusion. The sight before me was foreign, yet not wholly unfamiliar.

As my eyes adjust I see a thatch roof, supported by a wood frame. The bed beneath me a coarse sack full of hay. I sit up in this bed and grasp at the linen shirt I wore, my mind spinning, grasping at anything to hold onto. I look around this small lived in shack surrounding me slipping further into confusion, until… 

“Dawn! Come help in the field already, how long are you gonna stay in bed!”, a woman’s voice calls out. I head to the window to get a view at this other person calling out. “Stop trying to get out of yer chores! I can see you there, hurry and get out here! This cow isn’t going to milk itself, hurry it up already!”

I look out the window and see a small farm with chickens, and a cow, wheat and vegetables, and a red haired woman, in her early thirties, wearing thick wool tunic. She holds a sickle in one hand, and glares directly at me. As she marches angrily in my direction I yelp and fall back onto the floor. The back of my head throbbing from striking the floor. 

“Dawn!” The woman calls out and rushes into the hut, concern evident on her face. “Are ya alright, ya daft fool.” She coddles me and checks my head, as she gets closer I slowly start to remember the character I was absentmindedly reading about.

“Sarah Heartmore?” I ask, in disbelief.

She stares back at me in bewilderment, “Is tha’ any way to refer to yer own mother? Have ya bumped yer head and gone mad?” 

This accented way of talking, the red hair and display of concern she’s giving right now only cemented in my mind that this person I was talking to was the character Sarah Heartmore, from the Light Novel I had been reading before the end. But, why was she calling me Dawn? Between this question and the ache in my skull I couldn’t focus.

After a while of me staring blankly at her, her concern grows, until finally she breaks and begins to pray. “Oh Allfarmer, please don’t take my son to madness, I have not the ability to tend this farm alone. Please let the seeds you’ve sown in this boy bear fruit again, and flourish with a bountiful yield!” As she concludes this small prayer I feel warm light, and the pain in my head went away.

As a sigh of relief escapes my mouth, she playfully shakes my head. “There I can’ do much more than tha’, but it should be more than enough to take care of tha’ little bump on yer head.” She smiles and I can’t help but smile back.

“Yeah, thanks.” I mumble. There’s no way, right? This can’t be one of those Isekai stories right? Just because I died reading that light novel, that doesn’t mean that I was reborn into this world right? This must be a dream, maybe I survived after all. I’ve got to figure out a way to wake up. 

“Don’t thank me, you should be thanking the Allfarmer, his power is what made you better.”

“Uhhh… right. Thank you Allfarmer.” Right… the Allfarmer… I never really understood why in these isekai stories the weird niche main gimmick of the story is what the world is built around. Like spiders in that spider isekai, or the one with the half elf and the witch. I guess the main character’s gimmick has to be the basis of the world or else there would be not chance of them climbing to the top.

“Well then, if yer feelin’ alright, ya better get started on getting those chores done. Else I’ll give ya a bump even so hard even the Allfarmer himself won’t make ya better.” I nod, and get headed off to feed the chickens, I guess.

“Ummm… how do I milk a cow?” 

She stares back at me in disbelief.

After I manage to get all of “Dawn’s” chores done, long after my “mother” had finished and gone back in the make supper, I slump down on top of the hay that I was just feeding to the cows. It’s not that I don’t like her. She’s kind, and caring. Stern, but understanding. She’s a hard worker who’s trying to make things go well after “Dad” was conscripted into the kingdom’s army. I. Know she’s a good person, but… 

I just know how this goes. My “father” is off losing a battle against the Demon King’s army. The King is currently falling ill due to a curse placed on him by his advisor who has made a deal with the Demon King, and our small little village is about to get overrun by an advance party from their army.

Dawn’s Mother tells him they’re going to hide in the well together, but instead, once I go down, she cuts the rope so that nobody can follow me down she yells down her last words to me, but before she can finish she’s struck by an arrow. She falls into the well with me and that’s the catalyst that begins the story.

I sigh to myself. How much time do I have? Will it even happen? My mind returns to that time I spent waiting in the bunker. To my parents sacrificing themselves to try and help me. I was helpless to stop anything then.

But I’m not Dawn. I’m not who I was before either. I’m not going to sit back and let that happen. I won’t let that happen.

I’m not going to lose everything again.