One Piece Prior to Youth

ReBirth

Ages 0-8

Have you ever died? Probably not. Neither had Cass, yet... somehow she doesn't think this is how it's supposed to go. Cass was never a religious person, she never really thought about what would happen after she kicked the bucket, but waking up in a trashy hut was not what she expected. Honestly, after getting pushed into oncoming traffic by a jealous coworker- Cass expected to be in a lot of pain and either just fall asleep forever or wake up in the hospital. Maybe she was dreaming right now? No. That wouldn't make sense. If that were true, this would be a lucid dream. If Cass was lucid dreaming, she wouldn't be stuck in the pudgy body of a newborn baby. At least she thinks it's a newborn, she can't exactly move her body to figure that out for sure.

To be fair, though, even if Cass could move her body it wouldn't do much help. Who she can only assume is the mother of the body she was in right now could literally be holding her an inch away from her face and Cass wouldn't be able to see anything other than blurs on various ends of the greyscale. There were no colors at all, and definite shapes were virtually impossible to make out. To make things worse, Cass couldn't make out any sounds. No, she doesn't mean she just couldn't understand the language (which was true- whatever they were speaking, it wasn't English or Korean), she means literally none of the sounds hit her ears how she's pretty sure they should. The twittering and chirping of what were surely supposed to be birds sounded instead like the scratching of nails on chalkboard. The whistling of the wind sounded like faraway screams. It was quite disturbing.

For what felt like forever, but was in reality likely only a few weeks or months, Cass could do nothing but sit there. The irritation at being unable to do or interpret anything made her uncontrollably upset, but she refused to cry. Cass was raised by a very tough-love dad, she would not disappoint him by crying just because she was confused. It never even crossed her mind that the body she was in was that of a baby, meaning she probably should cry. Eventually, things started getting easier to sense. Colors started emerging from the plain black and whites of the world she'd been stuck in. Sounds started to organize themselves in a way she was familiar with. Her memory and attention span were still pitiful, she could only stare at a single thing for a few moments before boredom got the better of her and her short-term memory was practically nonexistent.

After what Cass determined to be around 5 months in this new place and body, she finally started to be able to move her pitiful muscles and could somewhat understand the words being spoken at her. And that was quite the surprise, being able to actually interpret the sounds of her body's mom, considering the small, grey-haired woman seemed to be speaking Japanese of all things. Thankfully, whatever bullshit being decided to mess with her and drag her to some remote place in Japan of all places gave her internal translation abilities. Though, maybe being unable to understand the woman would be better considering her topics of interest. Well- more like her lack of interest. Specifically, Cass herself. This so-called mother was constantly complaining about needing to deal with raising a kid. She would whine the entire time she interacted with Cass, and at some point stopped being physical altogether. Cass doesn't remember the last time the woman tried to pick her up or look her in the eyes.

All things considered; she wasn't the worst caregiver. She never hurt Cass, who would have been unable to defend herself. She at least normally kept Cass fed, even though she herself looked half starved most of the time. Maybe her apparent refusal to eat was what caused her demise. All Cass knows is that one day, when she was a newly turned one-year-old, she walked out of their bare bones bedroom to find the lady dead in their living room. How ironic.

After not too long, perhaps a week or so, someone finally came to investigate the smell that was getting increasingly putrid. Don't think Cass didn't care! She did want to give the woman a burial or something, but she was too short to reach the doorhandle or windows and too weak to push any of the furniture close enough to possible exits so she could climb them. A younger man in a uniform that looked almost like a cartoon police costume was the one to break down the door when nobody answered the knocking. The girlish scream he let out was so screechy that Cass couldn't hold back her wince. Then the fool made the mistake of getting a closer look at the deceased woman. He promptly grew completely white and passed out. Idiot.