Carnations

When Takashi tried to move his arms, he found that they were a little… short.

Ok… he silently thought, maybe we manifest as our purest forms when we die, and that just so happens to be our child selves.

It wasn’t like he was oblivious to the concept of isekai—in fact it was his favorite genre to read—it was just that based on the current situation, an afterlife seemed more plausible.

After all, there was no god or goddess here to greet him and give him special powers, and most isekais he was familiar besides the niche concept ones had the person retain their age and bodies. Since neither of these applied to the current situation, his only thought was that he had perhaps ascended to heaven. He had always imagined that a beautiful night sky like the one before him existed there.

Confused, Takashi decided to sit up and assess his surroundings.

Despite the snowy scenery around him, he felt quite warm, and he quickly realized that he was snuggly bundled up in some brown woolen robes.

Beside him, and gently caressed around his body was another pair of woolen robes much larger than the one he was wearing. The size of it seemed fit for an adult woman, but beneath them, there was no one there. He questioned why there was another pair of robes and why the sleeves of it were wrapped around his chest, but ultimately thought nothing of it after being unable to come up with a plausible conclusion.

There were other things that perplexed him more anyway, like the abnormally huge trees that surrounded him and the flowers that seemed to be blooming perfectly fine in the snow.

The flowers were the things that caught his attention the most. He was a huge flower nerd you see, for they were one of the few things that he admired about his world, and his time at the library was sometimes spent reading botanical encyclopedias. Because of that, he was able to identify exactly what type of flowers they were.

Carnations, he thought, but he also wondered how the hell they were blooming in the snow since that was something that carnations didn’t do. Another thing that carnations didn’t do was be naturally blue, which these carnations clearly were. Blue carnations had to be dyed that color, and yet here they were; both blue and blooming in the snow.

Takashi attempted to stand up to admire them, but upon his attempt he wobbled and fell shortly after.

Weird, he thought, but to compensate for now, he decided to crawl to the carnations instead. Upon getting close enough, he happily began observing them, but that happiness would be quickly cut short by the sudden rustling sound from the bushes around him.

His body immediately tensed up, his fight or flight response kicking in, and it was here that he began to really take in the predicament he was in. His thought process went a little something like this:

What if this isn’t the afterlife? If it was, shouldn’t there be some kind of primordial entity here to greet him? And since there wasn’t, isn’t there the possibility that he was directly born into another world without the whole god or goddess shabang? But if that was the case, then he was currently in the body of what seemed to be a 5-year-old child, completely alone in the forest, and highly susceptible to being attacked by a wild animal or creature of some sort.

His senses immediately widened as he stayed alert for more sounds, but after a few moments of nothing, he figured that the rustling must’ve been caused by the wind. Nevertheless, the sound gave him a rude awakening, and he decided that his next best step was to relearn how to walk.

As he attempted to stand up for the second time however, his legs trembled and he collapsed once more. It was as if the body he was in hadn’t moved in days and had only recently returned from the state of rigor mortis. After a few more attempts, Takashi eventually managed to stand up, and a few more attempts following that, he managed to take his first steps.

Now that he was capable of the most basic tool of survival, his next goal was to find the nearest civilization, but he had no idea where exactly that would be. Deciding that somewhere was better than nowhere, he headed off into a random direction and soon stumbled upon a massive lake.

It was still and clear like a mirror, and like the many other strange occurrences he had seen so far, the lake wasn’t frozen despite the freezing temperatures. The clear lake allowed him to notice his reflection for the first time, and upon seeing it, he realized that he was in fact not in the body of his younger self like he had originally thought.

His black hair was now as white as the snow around him, and his dark brown eyes were now a blue as deep as the night sky above. Amongst the center of his iris, he noticed glimpses of white stars twinkling translucently.

Woah, he silently thought, is this my angel form?

It was the only explanation he could give for his new appearance, but every second that passed by, the idea of him being in the afterlife was starting to become more distant, and the idea of reincarnation, more plausible.

His fingers reached down to touch the water, and as they did so he could almost swear they froze on contact. The touch sent ripples that vibrated throughout the entire lake, and as he watched the spectacle unfold before him, he realized that he was currently very thirsty. More so than that however, he was also hungry. It was as if the body he was in hadn’t had anything to eat or drink or days.

Summoning the audacity he had in previous life, he cupped a handful of lake water and drank it. It was freezing cold, but it felt refreshing, and surprisingly it tasted perfectly fine, clean from any impurities that typical lake water would have.

As he was enjoying the freshness of the lake however, another rustling sound from bushes caught his attention. This time it was followed by the snap of a twig, and a child's voice crying out, “ow!”

Takashi looked at himself.

It wasn’t him that said that ‘ow’ that’s for sure. Sure he was a child, but he figured that his voice didn’t sound that girly right?

Curious about the noise, he walked over to where it came from, and much to his lack of surprise, he found a little girl on the floor.

She had short, light brown hair with dark streaks of black blended into it, and her striking eyes were the color of honeyed amber. She was wearing a black winter haori with golden dragon imprints sewed along the arms, and on her left chest was a small sakura emblem with a reddish-brown plating behind it.

The little girl had a guilty expression on her face.

“Just so you know,” she said, her face half-winced in pain, “I wasn’t spying on you.”