My name is Aiden—though I used to be Mikazuki Ren, before death ripped me from one life and tossed me into another, in Avalon. Let me explain.
It was 2100. I was 21, fresh out of college, barely holding my life together after my parents died in a freak car accident just days before my graduation. My little sister, Mikazuki Yuna, depended on me. My days were long: office work that drained me, returning home to find Yuna asleep, the house silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. Life was routine—empty, but safe.
Until the war started.
Israel. Palestine. At first, I didn’t care who was right. None of it affected us… until the headlines screamed otherwise. Christians in America protested Palestine. President Matthew Roosevelt of America threw his country into the fight like a headless chicken, as if he didn't know that alliances would lead to a world war. Muslim nations followed, alliances began to form, and the globe spun into chaos. Japan stayed quiet… until our own president, Hayashi Naomichi, dared to speak out against the war. Three days later, Osaka burned under Palestinian nuclear fire. Rations dwindled, prices soared, salaries shrank. The war had arrived at our doorstep.
A year later, the sirens blared. I was at my desk, shaking, as the world outside went to hell. Everyone ran for cover, including me. I dove into the underground tunnels, frantically searching for Yuna—but she was gone.
Panic clawed at my chest. I forced myself back to the surface, dodging desperate strangers who tried to keep me inside. Then I saw it—the library.
She was there. Headphones on, oblivious. Safe, for now.
“Yuna!” I ripped the headphones away. Her eyes widened, tears glistening.
“Nii-san… are we going to die?”
“Not if we move!” I grabbed her hand. She tried to grab her things.
“Leave your things—we have to go!”
We ran, hearts hammering, toward the city center. The ground shook. Smoke and fire painted the sky. But before we could reach the underground tunnel, an explosion threw us into darkness.
Silence.
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I opened my eyes. Noise crashed over me before I could even think—a roar of voices, high and excited, echoing in a language I didn’t know. My head felt impossibly heavy, like it didn’t belong to me. I tried to turn, but my body wouldn’t obey.
The crowd below me shifted and quieted as a calm, authoritative voice spoke behind me. Its tone was strange—soothing yet commanding. I tried to focus, to understand the words, but they slipped through my mind like water.
Blinking, I looked down at my hands. Small, tiny, delicate and helpless.
A wave of recognition hit me, cold and sharp. Those weren’t someone else’s hands. They were mine.
I was a baby.
I tried speaking, but tears ran down my face in desperation. I was crying. I wasn’t a baby just physically, I had become a baby emotionally. The voice stopped for a moment, then thundered, pride filtering through the words:
”Aiden Johann Kaiser!”
I realized I had just been given a name. I was carried to the back and placed in the arms of a lovely woman. She had a fair face with kind big chestnut colored eyes. Assuming she was my mother, I buried my face in her chest. Then I heard a delighted laugh. She patted my head and handed me over to a lovelier woman with the loveliest blue eyes. I would have observed her more, but my eyelids were heavy. As I slipped into sleep, I heard another name.
“Eden Johanna Kaiser!”
As I woke up the second time, I hoped I had come back to my original body. I opened my eyes. A feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me as I realized I was still in the skin of a baby. It seemed I had been permanently reincarnated into this body. I looked around. Towering over me was the lady with the blue eyes. She smiled kindly at me and said something. I stared at her for a long time, trying to make sense of what she said. Then I heard the cry of a baby and a shushing sound. It wasn’t me. There was another baby. I tried turning my head. Although I turned only a little bit, I had a clearer view. There was a roof overhead that didn’t look like that of a building. As I puzzled over where I was, there was a jolt. I immediately understood that we were in some sort of vehicle. Considering the medieval dressing of the woman towering over me I assumed we were in some sort of wagon. A soft voice spoke. The blue-eyed woman looked up, listening to the voice. Then she nodded. She lifted me onto the lap of the chestnut-eyed woman.
“Aiden Johann Kaiser,” she said, “hier sind deine Schwester und dein älterer Bruder.”
She lifted me in such a way that i faced a blue-eyed baby girl and a young boy of about 5 years old. The boy smiled and waved. Then:
”Eden Johanna Kaiser, hier ist dein Bruder” said the chestnut-eyed woman.
My ears caught on the the last word this time. Did she just say brother? I had learnt English in high school. I could speak decent English, but I didn’t understand this language. Could it be one of the languages I thought sounded like English?
The young boy spoke.
”Ich bin Markus Karl Kaiser, dein älterer Bruder.”
He smiled again. This time, I was certain. Ich bin? It was German. How I wished at that moment that I had Yuna with me. She was so passionate about German. She could have helped me. Then I remembered she would have been a baby too. I looked at the baby girl in front of me. She must be my twin, I thought. Could she be Yuna? She had the same lovely eyes as the blue-eyed woman and their faces were strikingly similar. She must be her daughter, and if I was her twin, I probably had the same beautiful blue eyes.
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Yuna
I settled down in the library and took out the new no-noise headphones my brother bought for me on my last birthday despite the lack of money. I put them on my ears for the first time. They were wonderful. Not a single sound penetrated from outside. I took one of the book tablets in the library. I put it on, the e-book opening on its own. I started reading. Captivated by the story, I was totally oblivious of the panic all around me. Not many people came to the library, and the few that were there brushed against me, rushing somewhere. I'll check it after this paragraph, I thought. I finished the paragraph, then another, and before I knew it, I had read more than a chapter. I looked around. No one. It seems the trouble's over, I thought and went back to reading my book. About 30 minutes later, someone pulled my headphones, screaming my name. The sound of the bomb alert sirens filled my ears as I looked up to see the alarmed face of my brother, Ren.
"Are we going to die, Nii-san?" I asked.
"Not if we move. Leave your things, we have to go, now!" he replied, desperation in his voice.
He gripped my hand and pulled a stumbling me outside, toward the city center, the underground tunnels. I fell more than once, slowing us down. But Ren never abandoned me. He helped me up and started running once more. But my feet couldn't keep up and he was obliged to slow down. Just before we reached the entrance to the underground tunnel, there was a loud boom. An explosion threw us into the air. I felt Ren tighten his grip on my hand as everything faded into silence.
I heard shouts as I woke up.
"Es lebe der König! Es lebe der König!"
I opened my eyes. I was lying on the lap of a beautiful woman with chestnut-colored eyes. Startled by the noise, tears rolled down my face.
"What?" I thought. "Why am I crying?"
Looking down at my hands, I saw tiny fists.
"Seems like we died" I thought. I looked sadly at my fists.
"I was a burden. My brother died because of me" I thought. This made more tears flow down my face.
"But this time, it'll be different. I won't be a burden on anyone. I'll make sure I'm self-sufficient. I won't let anyone die because of me." I resolved, and turned my attention back to the noise. It seemed to be the sound of a great crowd.
"Es lebe der König! Es lebe der König!"
"König? Long live the king? What's German doing out here?" I thought.
"Stille, bitte!" said a voice somewhere. It was calm, but laced with authority. The crowd quieted.
The voice started talking in such rapid-fire German that I could hardly follow. My LearnBot surely never spoke this fast. Then it intoned, pride filtering through the words:
"Hier is mein Sohn... Aiden Johann Kaiser!"
Then, footsteps. Gentle hands picked me up, and a young, handsome face looked down at me, blue eyes glinting with happiness. He walked a bit, and sunlight fell on my face. As he presented me to the crowd, I saw that we were on some sort of cantilever, hanging over the eager crowd. He spoke. The calm authoritative voice belonged to him. More rapid-fire German. Then again, with words laced with pride:
"Hier ist meine Tochter... Eden Johanna Kaiser!"
I realized that we were in the middle of a naming ceremony. My new name was Eden Johanna Kaiser. As I savoured the beauty of my new name, I realized the similarity to the first name.
"Do I have a twin?" I thought. "Aiden Johann Kaiser... I can't wait to see you." I thought as I drifted to sleep.
A jolt woke me up. I opened my eyes to a cute baby boy. He looked at me curiously, his eyes full of intelligence. For a moment, I wished I had Ren by my side. He could've known something, being such a good judge of character. I stared back, trying to look as intelligent as possible. The baby blinked. He stretched a palm towards me, then withdrew. I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in his deep blue eyes. I suddenly realized that Ren would be a baby if he had been reincarnated with me. I tried speaking, but my speech was slurred and gurgly. The woman holding me laughed. She gave me her finger. On a childish impulse, I tightened my fingers around hers. I let go, horrified about my babyish behavior. My face must have been very funny, because the woman burst out laughing, her brown eyes filled with tears of laughter. I smiled too, a gurgle escaping from my throat. I heard a melodious voice say something. The chestnut-eyed woman nodded, still laughing, and handed me to a beautiful blue-eyed woman, with eyes bluer and more beautiful than blue skies. She held me above her head. She smiled brightly.
"Erkennt du nicht deine Mutter wieder?"
Then she tickled me till I cried.
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