Waking up after dying was bewildering.

  Waking up to your body feeling like it's on fire and somebody drove over it reinforced the feeling that I hadn’t actually woken up.

  I realised then that I was in hell, had to be. Only eternal torture would be the reason as to why I woke up to everything hurting. If it wasn’t the fact the pain was so immense I would have seen the irony in it.

  ‘I swear to whoever is in charge it was just a few sweets that I borrowed without returning.’ I muttered through the pain.

  When did having a sweet tooth become so costly? Also why did I phrase it like that in my head, weird, I stole some sweets as a kid, and it's the first thing I think of when I'm in hell? Maybe this is part of the torture, and it starts when I am young and cycles through all the bad stuff I did throughout my life until I am frothing in fear and pain of re living it?

  If so, then its honestly not a good start would expect more of Hell honestly. If it wasn’t for the pain then I would feel like Hell wasn’t even really trying.

  I have eyes, I realise. Stupid, of course I do, how else does hell exist without the ability to remove things from me of value. I try and open them, it's as difficult as trying to run a marathon up hill, without feet. A few moments of pain that felt like an eternity, I managed to pry my eyes open.

  I see smoke and fire, billowing around, possibly some human shaped things in the background. Clearly, they are here to exact Hell based torture on me. I was never this invested in religion in life, ambiguous towards it, now it is dominating my thoughts, which I guess isn’t surprising seeing as I died.

  I think about all the things I did in my life to deserve this; it wasn’t much of a life I depressingly think to myself.

  It seems to be getting worse with every new part of my body I start to become conscious of. As the feeling gets to my legs, I realise they are thrashing around from the pain, my nerve endings are on fire and without conscious thought my body is trying to fight it.

  My soul is confused by what has transpired, one moment I was in a car with friends, the next I'm in a freezing river, dying. To now, where I wake up and I am burning in smoke. I am trying to roll with the punches but it's getting to be too much, I can feel that my soul wants to shut down and go to sleep, fighting my natural instincts, I try and move my arms and in doing so I scream from the pain.

  ‘Wait, there is still 1 alive. How is this possible, the poison Qi I can feel running through his veins is enough to kill someone far beyond his cultivation.’ A voice comes through the hazy smoke.

  To my mind it sounds like a lifeline or a death sentence, I haven't decided what I should do next and before I can make a decision, I feel a cool touch on my chest and from it a glow emanates, it shines so brightly that it forces me to close my eyes, but as I do so I realise that the touch was cold! A relief from the oppressive heat.

  The second thought is that it was spreading, the blissful cold was spreading and with it the fire was receding.

  I hear a voice speak to me softly. ‘Survive, do not make all these efforts for naught’.

  I think to myself I just died, and now you're torturing me, and now you're telling me to survive what kind of sadistic torture is this, as I truly believe it doesn’t want me to die, as if it wants me to live so that it can kill me again! Devious truly devious. I applaud it in my head, and as I am thinking these thoughts a feeling I have never experience before rushes through my body, it feels like power, unadulterated power. It’s intoxicating, and I want it desperately. I am trying to cling to something to keep my mind whole and this feels like the best thing to cling to so that my mind doesn’t just wander into eternity and I am just so tired.

  No! I must keep going, I feel my soul roaring through me, coinciding with this power and as it washes through my nerves and in doing so clears out the pain and leaves behind a relaxing feeling of pure bliss. I can’t feel how long this goes on for, but slowly the power cools and calms my body, and entices me into a healthier sleep, it seems that with everything that has happened I have been subconsciously resisting its effects.

  I close my eyes and sleep.... or collapse but who’s splitting hairs.

  I wake up to the sound of birds and the wind lightly on my face, blessedly cool and without any pain.

  I am confused, I really don’t understand this Hell thing, as it now seems to me that it really isn’t that bad. I open my eyes and am surprised they open without any pain. The ambient light takes a moment for my eyes to focus, and I realise I am in a bed, there is what seems to be a servant standing at a door not far, he’s wearing clothes like books that I had seen be turned into films. Rough homespun cloth in a greenish blue hue that isn’t unpleasant to look at. With trousers that are black in colour and also look to be in a cloth material.

  As he sees me awake and staring, he knocks on the door quietly, and somebody on the outside opens it. He murmurs something, and I am surprised that at a good 15feet away and that this person clearly whispered it even with all that I heard it clearly.

  ‘The young sir is awake, please go get Elder Shen’.

  At this point I realise that the room smells more vibrantly that I can remember ever smelling anything from my previous life. I can smell the petals of the roses outside, individually, they smell of vanilla and orange and as it wafts into the house through the open window, I now realise I can hear the wind.

  Which is a confusing concept to explain.

  I don’t mean I can hear where the wind passes something at speed. No, I can hear the cadence of the wind as it slowly winds through the window and out past the leaves of the roses, slipping between them and over them. Onto the rolling grass garden, where I can hear, the children skipping, and some teenagers not far away toiling with some kind of exercise. I can feel the wind tell me this.

  It takes me a moment to ground myself as it felt like my soul was starting to float way with the wind.

  I hear a door close, catching me in my wilderness journey with the wind and bringing me back to the present.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I see an elderly man looking back at me, not with a unkind expression, but to be honest I couldn’t discern what it was he was thinking.

  ‘Ryun, can you tell me what happened in the cultivation baths?’ The old man asks.

  I take a moment, firstly as he very specifically names me Ry-UN. As 1 word, it wasn’t deliberately mispronounced nor a mistake, I can tell that he believes this was how my name should have been said.

  Secondly, I have no idea what a cultivation bath is, and even less clue what happened in said baths, and I obviously I am worried that he is going to think me an idiot. I decided to go with mostly the truth.

  ‘I am not sure. I suddenly woke up to my whole body in pain, and I felt like I had been run over a truck, where am I?’

  He looks at me now with a definite puzzled expression. ‘Interesting, I healed you of poison Qi ravaging your body. You were having a bath for your cultivation with several of your friends, I am afraid to tell you, they are all dead. You were the lone survivor, and honestly that was close as well. If it wasn’t the massive injection of Qi that entered your body just before I got there then I suspect you would have died with the rest.

  This time I heard him correctly and I didn't misunderstand and he didn't mumble. He said words that although made sense within the sentence had no place being there and didn’t make any sense to me.

  ‘I am sorry if this is not helpful, but what is this qi you mentioned and why was I having a bath for my cultivation. I have honestly no idea what you mean?

  His face changes again from puzzlement to concern. ‘You do not know what Qi is?’

  ‘I do not.’ I reply quickly eager now to get some answers, as I should be in a hospital after what has happened to me not in some rich old man's bedroom.

  The Elderly man looks at me, his name I remember is Shen from when the waiter/servant guy from earlier said it.

  I look at him as he seems stumped for a second and before he responds I offer a response.

  ‘I can’t remember much about where I am, or who I am, I remember my name to be Ryan, I pronounce the AN very specifically. Not Ryun. I have never heard of Qi and I do not know you healed me with your own body.’

  It is at this point I truly look at my own body, and to my horror, I realise this is not my body. The body looks like it's probably about 12 years old, I immediately feel like somewhat of a pervert. As mentally I feel in my mid-twenties and there is somewhat of a disconnect as I start to feel dizzy with the disconnect, it feels all the more uncomfortable with the fact that I am realising my facial expressions are giving away a lot to this old man.

  ‘This was not the response I expected’. He chuckles softly, and although my gut is telling me this could be a terrible idea, I decide to go whole nine yards and just trust this person. He healed me from death, I owe him something and I think I am just completely thrown off by being in the body of an early teenager, hormones are telling me that I want to let him know everything.

  I am really fighting hard to not go into some kind of panic attack/catatonic state, I am breathing heavy. And can feel I am going under and want to curl up.

  I think he sees this, and for a second he hesitates, and then he reaches for my hand and holds it. It feels completely unreasonable for him to do this to someone in their mid-twenties but I can see from his perspective I am a child confused and lost. This perspective suddenly hits me and it helps me control my breathing. I am not really sure as to why it grounds me, but it does. Maybe it's that I know something and this insight helps me?

  I turn to him and pull my hand away, he frowns but lets it happen, even though I can feel his strength in his grip is belied by his elderly looks.

  I realise I need to be frank to get answers, and ask ‘Where am I, as in the planet that we are on.’ Start with the basics and then I can go from there.

  He looks at me for a second wonderingly and says, ‘Organa is the planet that we live on, and we are currently in the Kingdom of Ruhn.’

  I give him a moment to speak further and when he doesn’t, I take a deep breath and dive in.

  ‘That is somewhat scary to hear, and I am going to have to ask that you trust what I am about to say is true and that I am not crazy.’

  I give him another moment to say something but he doesn’t and is respectfully quiet with a face that suggests to carry on.

  ‘Huuuuh ok, so I am not from this world. As in, to be more specific the planet I came from and lived on was called Earth. I died there in a river, and then woke up in this body, dying again to fire and smoke. Until you healed me. I am not a early teen ish-year-old as this body suggests, but I died as a 25-year-old man. We did not have magic to heal people with our hands, but had to use medicine to do so. It seems from the clothes that you guys wear in terms of technology you are behind where we were, but I guess that is due to the fact you have magic.’

  The silence in the room following this outburst is uncomfortable. I am not sure how I am supposed to fill it, and it is starting to get to the point that I feel like I need to ask if he heard me properly. He does seem every old.

  ‘You are telling me that you are reincarnated?’ Shen asks softly.

  ‘I... uh... yes, I guess. If that's what has happened and you can understand it like that then I guess that's the best way I could also put it.’ I state in as jovial voice I can muster, as I can tell he is having difficulty believing me.

  ‘I can talk in greater depths about mathematics if that would help, I suspect the knowledge I have on it is probably more than would be commonly known around here.’

  I know in books that I have read you get smited by gods or they come and tell you to stop spreading truths that this planet is not ready for. Nothing happens here disappointingly, I was hoping someone would come and take me back realising their mistake of being here. I guess fucking not.

  As a teacher of Maths for college students I feel like my understanding is fairly comprehensive and something I could use as proof.

  ‘Mathematics?’ He quizzically questions.

  ‘yeah, you know, 2 plus 2 equals 4.’

  ‘Oh, you mean accounting and finance, yes we use numbers for this.’

  ‘No no no, mathematics is the building blocks for how the world works. The way to track all sorts of things from the speed of the moon moving to the earth's revolutions to the understanding of molecules.’

  He doesn’t speak for a while and when he does, he surprises me.

  ‘Your world is a soulless world then? You told me that you do not know what Qi is, which is used in cultivation of your body and soul. So am I to assume that this does not occur there, and use these soulless magics as a way to bridge the gap with what we can do here.’

  ‘That is a fairly apt description even if I would describe it differently in terms of specifics. I feel like it isn't a loss to say that what we had there was worse and here is better, but just a divergence of different paths. Where we can’t have someone’s hands to heal something our medicine has advanced so that it does that for us.;

  As I am saying that I realise that there probably wasn’t any medicine that would have kept me alive in the same way he did with his hands. Maybe some soldier medic stuff might have been able to do something, but the likely nature of it would have meant that I didn’t come out of it as healed as I am now.

  ‘I don’t need to hear further of this other world. I would advise you to tell nobody else of this, until you can truly trust them. The reason is as follows, reincarnation has always then meant there is a period of upheaval. Always.’

  He punctuates the second always with some heat, the first time I have heard it. It startles me a little as he has seemed to be somewhat gentle so far.

  ‘Because of what you have told me; I will let you know of some events that have occurred. Who you are and essentially what got you to where you are. Now the oaths the previous soul that inhabited this body agreed to is not affecting you and as such after I have given you this information, I will ask you to also hold an oath. The oath is not a slavery contract but an oath to not willingly give away secrets that this sect has on cultivation to other sects, as it is the lifeblood of how we survive.’

  I nod that he can continue and that I understand, knowing that he can’t force me to do anything and as I haven’t cultivated yet then it doesn’t really affect me.