Chapter 2: Rebirth
When she awoke, she was blind.
The light was no longer artificial—it was golden, warm, and impossibly soft. Something gentle cradled her. A scent of milk, faint rosewater, and powder clung to her nostrils. Her throat couldn't form words, her limbs refused orders, and her head ached from the pressure of the unfamiliar.
She panicked.
But then—she was held. A gentle rhythm pulsed behind her ear: a heartbeat. Familiar. Human. Real.
She was a baby.
The world felt alien. The tightness of her skin, the softness of her chest, the inability to stretch or flex her fingers—the realization hit her like a cold wave. She had no body, not one she recognized, not one that fit the mind still echoing memories of a life once lived.
The scent of fresh linen, the faint trace of warm skin, and the soft murmur of voices felt distant, like echoes from a time long past. There was a comforting weight against her, a body that was hers but wasn't. Her chest rose and fell in time with another's, their breath soft and rhythmic.
A low murmur vibrated against her skin. "Shh, sweet one. It's all right. We're here."
The voice was unfamiliar, yet oddly soothing. A mother's voice. Or so it felt. The hands that held her were warm, delicate, yet firm, cradling her with an almost reverential gentleness. She could feel the warmth of her body, the rise and fall of the person holding her, but she was too disoriented to understand.
Her body felt like a foreign thing. Small. Fragile. Unfamiliar. Every sensation, every shift, was new, and it sent an unfamiliar panic spiraling through her chest. Where was she? What happened?
The confusion churned inside her, clouding her mind. Her senses felt heightened and disjointed, like a song playing out of tune.
Then, the world around her began to come into sharper focus. Her hearing, her sense of touch—those were the first to sharpen. The voice, soft and comforting, came closer again.
"You're safe," the voice whispered, this time with a note of relief. "Our little angel."
The warmth of the voice wrapped around her, soft and enveloping. Slowly, she began to realize the truth—she wasn't alone. She wasn't empty. There were other people here. They were close, so close she could feel their presence in her bones.
But it was then, as her awareness began to bloom in the haze, that the question pressed itself onto her thoughts: Where was she? And how?
A gentle hand rested on her head, soft and tender. The warmth of the person holding her had begun to calm her fluttering panic. She shifted in their arms and, despite her inability to see, she could sense the delicate tension in the air. There was a heaviness, an unspoken weight, like something not entirely right—but the feeling was fleeting, vanishing the moment her breath steadied.
This person was here. She was here. And somehow that was enough.
The room around her was quiet, suffused with a rich, golden light. A chandelier hung in the distance, casting ripples of warmth across the walls. The soft scent of something comforting—lavender?—lingered in the air.
It was then that she realized: she was in a nursery. The scent of milk still lingered in the air, and the soft rustle of blankets brushing against skin was the only sound.
Her tiny body tensed again, but this time, a new sensation pulled her from the panic. She felt… safe. Safe in a way she hadn't felt before. Her tiny fingers curled around the fabric beneath her, clinging to it, grounding herself.
"Rest, little one," the voice whispered again.
For a long time, she simply lay there, too weak to do anything but listen. The world was distant, blurry at the edges, but her awareness was growing—slowly.
Something was different.
She wasn't in the same world. She wasn't in the cold, sterile environment she remembered. She wasn't surrounded by machines and neon lights, where silence was constant and everything hummed with the faintest mechanical undertone. There were no monitors here. No surgical lights glaring down at her. Just warmth. Tenderness.
The next thing she felt was a soft kiss against her forehead. It was a touch that made her pulse spike for a moment, and she strained against the fog in her mind. But she couldn't focus, not yet.
Who were they?
She could feel the heat radiating off of someone—her new mother, she thought—her arms cradling her carefully. The hands were gentle and soft, but beneath them, she sensed an emotion, something like trepidation. A fear that she might break this fragile thing in her arms. A child. Eva.
She had always known that she was a thing of imperfection, but this? This was something entirely different. She wasn't herself, not anymore.
In the quiet of the room, the minutes dragged on, and as they did, she couldn't shake the sensation of being watched. There was something strange in the air, but no one spoke. No one seemed to say what she needed to hear—who she had been, what had happened to her.
The first person she saw when her blurry eyes opened was a woman—her mother, she supposed. The woman's face was beautiful but worn with worry. Her blonde hair framed her face, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. They didn't seem to expect her to be awake so soon, and the woman looked almost… guilty, like she had done something wrong. But Eva could not find the words to ask.
She only felt the weight of it—the love, the fear, and the stillness that hung in the air.
Her there another women I heard Vivienne was there, too, standing near the window, her hand resting on the back of a chair. She had dark hair and a strong jaw, but there was a softness in her gaze when it turned to Eva.
They didn't know. They didn't know who she was. But they cared.
And Eva, now two years old in this strange new world, couldn't help but feel a tiny flicker of something: a longing. A desire to belong in a way she never had before. Not the empty, emotionless world of her past life, but this—this warmth, this love, this silence where things could be different.
They didn't know the truth. They didn't know who she was. But they would.
And so would she.