Bright.
Too bright.
The moment the world yanked me out of the warm darkness of the womb and blasted me with air, everything turned into a blinding white explosion of sensory overload.
I would have tried to shield my eyes—if I could move properly.
Instead, I squinted.
Or at least… I thought I squinted.
Nothing changed.
Great.
I attempted the opposite, trying to open my eyelids wider, but that also did absolutely nothing. The world remained a glowing, washed-out smear.
Are my eyes broken? Did they spawn me with a visual glitch?
Voices echoed around me—sharp, urgent, but muffled by the chaotic noise of existence itself.
They didn't sound like English.
Actually… the cadence… the tones…
Is that Japanese?
My brain latched onto that fact with the slow horror of someone watching a car drift toward a cliff.
I couldn't pick out the meaning of the words—too blurry, too fast—but I knew that sound.
Thousands of hours of anime had carved it into my neurons.
No way. No way I'm actually…
Before that thought could fully form, I felt hands.
Soft hands.
Warm, gentle, holding me with surprising strength.
Then—abruptly—they changed.
The next pair of hands felt larger, firmer, controlled but not delicate. The shift made my tiny body jolt instinctively.
And then, moments later, back to the soft ones.
I floated between them like some kind of fragile collectible being passed between cautious owners.
And through all of it, the light continued to torch what was left of my sanity.
My head started to pound—tiny, newborn skull or not, the headache felt real.
A wave of crushing exhaustion rolled over me.
And honestly? I gave up.
I was a baby.
There was literally nothing productive I could do.
Fine, I thought, as the world tilted and darkened around me. Sleep it is. Maybe when I wake up, my eyes will stop trying to speedrun sensory overload.
I drifted off.
The next time I blinked awake, everything was dark.
Not pitch-black womb-dark, but a comfortable, muted softness.
My hunger hit me an instant later.
A deep, gnawing, all-consuming emptiness in my tiny stomach.
For a moment I simply lay there, baffled.
How the hell am I supposed to get food? I'm, what, ten minutes old?
Instinctively, I opened my eyes again.
Big mistake.
The world assaulted me with light all over again—less blinding than the first time, but still bright enough to make me want to sue someone.
"MMBhh—!!" I tried to yell, tried to curse, tried to demand less photons in my face.
What actually came out was a warbling baby noise.
A pitiful, pathetic complaint that had all the authority of an upset hamster.
But someone heard it.
Soft hands scooped me up again, cradling me with surprising confidence.
And then—
Something pressed against my mouth.
Warm.
Soft.
Wet.
Smelling faintly like… milk.
Oh no.
No. No no no no—
The realization hit me a split-second before instinct took control.
I'm about to breastfeed.
My adult mind recoiled with existential horror.
PLEASE NO—
My baby body did not care.
Any trace of pride, dignity, or resistance evaporated as instinct kicked in like a biological aimbot.
I latched.
And drank.
I was a prisoner in my own tiny body, helplessly watching myself do the most natural, most humiliating thing imaginable.
"This is the WORST," I tried to declare, but it came out as a muffled gurgle while I kept drinking like a starving gremlin.
The milk was warm.
Comforting.
Infuriatingly delicious.
By the time the feeding slowed, I was so emotionally exhausted that I didn't even protest when someone lifted me upright and gently patted my back.
A tiny, involuntary burp escaped me.
The shame was immeasurable.
The hands stroked my head gently, murmuring soft words I couldn't understand.
Japanese again.
Definitely Japanese.
And definitely soothing.
Which only made it worse.
As soon as I had enough energy to feel anything beyond hunger and humiliation, I started angrily babbling again.
"Bbbhh—nghh—AAAH—!!"
Whoever held me only chuckled softly and pulled me close.
I hated how comforting that was.
I hated how quickly my body relaxed.
I hated how sleep pulled me back under before I could build up a proper tantrum.
The third time I woke, everything was dark again.
At least I remembered why.
My eyelids.
They were closed.
With effort born of stubbornness, I opened them.
Light stabbed into my brain.
"NNGHH—!!" I squeaked in protest.
But this time, there was no one to immediately pick me up or adjust anything.
I lay there, squinting uselessly, until another sensation bubbled up.
A deep, slow, creeping pressure.
In my stomach.
Extending lower.
Oh no.
No, please—no.
My body tensed.
I tried—genuinely tried—to will the universe to stop.
It didn't.
A warm, wet rush filled the bottom half of whatever cloth situation I was wearing.
I felt everything.
The stickiness.
The heat.
The terrible, terrible realization.
I pooped myself.
I, a fully grown adult—mentally—had just soiled a diaper I didn't even know I was wearing.
My horror was so absolute that my baby instincts activated the emergency protocol:
I cried.
Loudly.
Terribly.
Pathetically.
It didn't take long—maybe seconds—before soft hands were around me again.
The voice that followed was gentle, melodic, unmistakably Japanese.
None of the words made sense.
But the tone did.
Reassuring.
Soothing.
Embarrassingly effective.
I felt myself being laid down again, but this time on something flat.
Warm fingers worked carefully, opening my diaper.
I wanted to die.
Kill me now. End me. Throw me into the nearest volcano.
The cleaning process was mortifying.
Utterly, completely mortifying.
But halfway through, the exhaustion from crying and the sheer sensory overload of being alive for less than a day began to drag me under.
My tiny body relaxed.
My eyes drooped.
I hate everything, I thought weakly.
And then I fell asleep again.
Because I was a baby.
And babies don't get to rage against their fates for long.