Leon Albun had always considered himself fortunate, a man blessed with a life rich in intellectual curiosity and the unwavering support of his family. Born in the heart of Romania, in the vibrant city of Cluj-Napoca, he had inherited his parents' love of knowledge and their deep appreciation for the region's rich history and folklore.
His parents, now retired, were a constant source of comfort and occasional exasperation. His mother, a woman of boundless energy and practical wisdom, often worried about his tendency to neglect his physical needs in favor of his research. His father, a historian with a penchant for dramatic storytelling, would regale him with tales of Europe's past, weaving together historical facts and local legends with a flair that would have made Shakespeare proud.
Earlier that week, during one of their regular video calls, his parents' concerns had been particularly pronounced. His father, his voice tinged with worry, spoke of the growing political instability in the region, the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape that seemed to threaten the stability of their homeland. His mother, her brow furrowed with concern, fretted about his health, urging him to take a break from his relentless research and visit them.
"Leon, you work too hard," she'd said, her voice laced with gentle admonishment. "You need to take care of yourself. We worry about you, so far away."
He'd tried to reassure them, explaining that he was fine, that his research was progressing, his business too, that he was planning a trip to Asia in the summer. "I need to see something different," he'd said, his voice filled with a quiet excitement. "Temples, mountains, ancient cities… it might spark something new."
"Asia?" his mother had exclaimed, her eyes widening. "For three weeks? That's a long time!"
"Beginning of August," he’d confirmed. “I need to recharge before diving back into this mess.”
"And you'll miss your birthday," his father had added, a hint of playful reproach in his voice. "And the summer science forum."
"A small price to pay for inspiration," Leon had replied, smiling.
He had also used the call to once again urge them to consider relocating closer to him. Their home in Cluj-Napoca was their sanctuary, a place filled with memories and familiar comforts, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they would be safer closer to him. They stubbornly refused, however, clinging to the familiar rhythms of their lives.
Yet, despite the fulfilling tapestry of his life, a thread of longing had always been woven through his days. A family of his own? Perhaps. But the relentless march of his career, the constant job relocations, his construction contracts, had left little room for stability. It was a sacrifice he had made willingly, but one that gnawed at the edges of his contentment. Perhaps that was why, in those final, fleeting moments, he had acted without hesitation, without a second thought for his own safety. The child had a future, a lifetime of possibilities stretching before them. He had already touched on his.
Beyond the confines of the lab and the labyrinth of equations, Leon found solace in the world of stories. He devoured the works of Murakami, Houellebecq, and Palahniuk, drawn to their unflinching explorations of the human condition. And anime, particularly series like Code Geass, Steins;Gate, and Berserk, resonated with him on a deeper level, exploring themes of fate, choice, and the weight of responsibility. These stories, with their complex characters and thought-provoking themes, fueled his curiosity about the nature of reality, driving him towards a career in scientific research, to understand the world and its mysteries.
His fascination with fantasy and storytelling had its roots in his childhood, growing up in the mid-90s when access to quality television and internet was limited. He spent his days crafting makeshift swords from sticks, reenacting heroic battles he’d imagined from the stories he saw on TV. This early immersion in imaginative play evolved into a passion for LARPing, where he could physically embody the characters and narratives that had captivated him. The intricate rules, the strategic combat, and the immersive storytelling of LARP provided an outlet for both his physical and intellectual energies, a way to experience the thrill of adventure in a controlled, yet exhilarating environment. It was more than just a hobby; it was a living, breathing extension of the worlds he loved in anime and books.
As the pain receded, replaced by a chilling numbness, and his senses began to dull, he expected nothing but the final, eternal oblivion. The cold embrace of death, the silent void where consciousness ceased to exist. A wave of profound regret washed over him, a bitter lament for the life he was leaving behind. He was too young, barely in his thirties, with so much left to experience, so many questions left unanswered. And beneath the regret, a primal fear gnawed at him, the terror of the unknown, of slipping into the absolute nothingness of oblivion. Despite his intellectual curiosity about the universe's mysteries, the finality of death was a terrifying prospect…
Yet, something persisted. As his brain sparked its final electrical pulses, Leon felt a sensation that defied every paper he had ever written. It wasn't the "nothingness" of entropy. It was a Gravitational Inversion. He felt his consciousness being pulled through a needle's eye, a sense of being stretched until he was thin as a quantum string.
He fell upward into a collapsing tunnel of light. This was the bridge—the moment where physics failed and something metaphysical took hold. He was adrift in a timeless void, a place where his 35 years of memories were being compressed into a single point of infinite density. He saw his life not as a sequence of events, but as a world-line in four-dimensional space, and he felt a profound sense of mourning for the equations he would never solve.
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Then, the void began to hum. It wasn't the mechanical hum of the Geneva Collider, but a rhythmic, organic cadence. A heartbeat.
A faint warmth began to grow—a gentle, pulsing ember in the vast darkness. He attempted to move, to reach out, but his limbs refused to obey. His body felt… different. Smaller. Lighter. Unfamiliar.
His thoughts felt slow, tangled, like static turning into language over hours. His adult mind, teeming with complex neurological concepts and quantum theories, was trying to "sync" with a biological processor that was still under construction. The friction was immense. It was as if he were trying to run a supercomputer’s OS on a calculator. His reasoning felt sluggish, his memory fragmented.
With a monumental effort, a herculean struggle against the encroaching darkness and the biological lag of his new form, he managed to open his eyes.
Pain. His body ached all over. From the top of his head to the pinky toes of both of his legs, it spread in waves carrying agony through his muscles and bones, and just trying to move a bit made things much much worse.
What the fuck happened? What did I do? he kept asking himself in the hopes of remembering how it came to this. Did I get into a fight and got my head bashed in? I can’t remember! Where was I last night? Even thinking straight was proving a challenge.
Where was this pain coming from? An injury on the spine? Overloaded nerves? He briefly remembered that it felt as if the world was trying to crush him with the full force of its gravity from every imaginable direction.
This was not his first brush with pain, being a long time LARPer, not by a long shot, so after the initial surprise, he tried to focus, to move past it. He mustered his energy to force himself to remain calm, and it took a few tries but he managed to do it. The pain was still there, slowly losing in intensity, and his effort made it much more bearable. Once he got enough of his dulled senses back to a more functional form the world expanded to another level. It was no longer a small space only he and his pain shared, now a world awaited outside.
His body felt filthy as if went without a shower for the whole hot summer, accumulating sweat, and then went for a mud bath. It felt sticky, viscous, and entered places that frankly made him gag a bit and he was never easy on queasy. His whole face was covered in the stuff, and he tried to clean it off, but his arms did not respond as they should have. In a moment of panic, it occurred to him that he might have incurred some permanent damage from this... whatever the hell happened. But his arms were there and moving, just not in the way he ordered them to.
He didn’t want to do it, but he had to know where he was so tried to open his eyes and for a moment they fought back. He pushed the lids upwards and downwards parting them open for a brief glimpse. He managed a peek but as he suspected his eyes were blurry, coated in the same liquid as the rest of his body. At that moment the light assaulted his eyes, searing his retinas, forcing his instincts to close them back.
I will need a dozen showers to wash this filth away.
His stubbornness reared its head, and he forced himself to blink repeatedly in the effort to clear the blockade. In the meantime, he used other senses to investigate, and he was informed of new development immediately.
Like his eyes, his ears were stuffed with the same foul obstruction, only they proved that they were a bit more useful. They told him that people were talking around him, their voices a jumble of barely recognizable murmurings in a language that sounded so foreign even muffled he knew that he had not heared before. Then more things started getting across the other senses, registered into his brain. Someone was holding him. And you would think something like that was easy to identify, but no, not in this case. If his senses were not playing a twisted joke on him, the hands that were holding him were huge. Those huge palms held him like he would a newborn puppy, one under his back and the other was under his head and neck propping them up.
He was moving through space, his senses told him, the air chilly on his liquid covered skin. In a moment everything under his neck was underwater, it’s warm and pleasant interior shaped itself to his body, accepting him into its fold. He was carefully and gently scrubbed by those same hands that carried him here, even in some places he will not mention, but at the moment he did not care. It felt divine, as the water washed away the oily substance off his body, and the person to whom the hands belonged helped him clear his eyes and ears. Ever so thoroughly and gently every nook and cranny were thoroughly massaged and cleansed. Once out of the water he was dried with a warm towel of some kind.
Ahh, that is much, much better. he thought and enjoyed the moment with his eyes closed all previous questions forgotten in this surge of bliss.
With the sound of flesh finding flesh, a hit came that made his skull scream in white pain and he released a sound he did not know he could. His eyes filled with tears in seconds. What the hell? Then another came but this time he finally opened his eyes to see what the hell was going on. When they adjusted to the light, he could not believe them, stupefied with his mouth wide open he stared at the scene before him. In that moment of stupefaction, another hit landed on his butt, the crisp sound interrupted with another cry of his. This giant blurr was hitting him like he was a small misbehaving child.
What is going on? Did someone slip something into my drink? he thought to himself.
I must be hallucinating, or in a coma, or in a very vivid dream. He always avoided drugs of any kind, preferring to stay away.
He did have another idea, but it was so ludicrous he dismissed it as impossible. Then he saw his hand and things even less and at the same time a little more sense. No, not more sense. But it provided a reasonable explanation as to why she was hitting him. He was a baby. Small hands, the color light brown sand, with wrinkly stubby fingers greeted his view and as he tried to move them, they did so. The questions that followed were many and he could only guess the answers for them, so before he got in too deep, he stopped himself. What was way more important at this moment was to observe around and gather more information. The questions could wait.
While this old lady was wrapping him in another cloth, the humans around him continued to talk in their language that he did not understand a word from. He saw people around a bed moving frantically about, but it was a brief glimpse before he was settled down. Satisfied with her work the old lady laid him on a hard surface from which he could just see the ceiling and he could not for the life of him lift his head. So, with nothing else to do and finally alone and stationary, he thought it a good moment to think about what he experienced.
He was a baby.
