The Strength of a High and Noble Hill (An Outlander Story)

Chapter 50: Death and Rebirth

A/N: Chapter 50 🎉🎉🎉

——

"Do not be afraid, it doesn't hurt a bit to die."

– Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser

Reincarnation wasn't anything like how it was depicted. He didn't magically have all the memories of his past life. An infant's brain couldn't handle the strain of having all those memories. In a way, it did all filter through to him through dreams but he never retained them, just woke up with the feelings they had caused. These feelings felt distant as if it wasn't him though.

——

May 1771

He dangles, kicking, and hears a far-off rumble from the crowd. He kicks and bucks, feet pawing empty air, hands clawing at his throat. His chest strains, his back arches, and his sight goes black, small lights flickering in the corners of his eyes. And then the stubborn impulse leaves him and he feels his body stretch and loosen, reaching, reaching for the earth.

"Brian!" Ellen's cry breaks through.

"I'll hold him. Cut him down, lass." Da speaks.

Hands take hold of his body round the middle, lifting slightly to take the strain off the rope. Brian moans.

The next few minutes had been a blur. Hands holding him steady as he's cut down. He can hear Da's frantic begging, full of apologies, Ellen's sobbing and Mama's practical doctor voice as she tries to help him but he can hear her voice wobbling.

"You're going to be ok, Brian." She whispers, her hands on either side of his head.

He tries to move, he tries to speak, but he can't. He hadn't died yet but he was, however, in the process of doing so before his parents' and sister's eyes as they cry and yell frantically above him.

Then another voice breaks through, an old memory that drowns out his family's voices. Instead, he finds himself on hard tarmac ground. A road?

"–Jeremy! Jeremy, don't leave me please!"

He doesn't reply. He panics. What's he doing here? Why's he here? Who's Jeremy? No– Jeremy was– oh God. How could he have forgotten?

Leave? No, he can't leave, not again.

The blackness envelopes him.

——

August 2016

Jeremy gasps awake and his hand immediately goes to his neck, rubbing it to make sure it's not, it didn't happen. He's been having a lot of those strange dreams lately, of him living this other life but inside a body he can't control. He knows it can't be real but he can't not believe it as well. The rope around his neck had felt so real as it choked him.

He's breathing heavily, panicking as he sits up in bed. The memories of his dream flicker through his mind making him shake, his breath catch.

He startles when his door shakes as a few thumps smack against it.

"Jeremy? Jeremy? Get up you lazy ass. It's move-in day. We have four and a half hours to get to NYU!" Cries his mother.

"I'm coming, Mom!" Jeremy calls back, flinging out of his bed. Here's to a new beginning.

——

December 2017

"Jeremy? Jeremy!"