AN: Brain: So this is a thing...aliright *clears throat* We don't own anything but our OC's personalities and the general plot, anything else belongs to the respective owners. This is part of Sleepysaurus Rex's Riftverse.

Bold: Please leave questions in the comments and remember that Flames will be used to fuel bonfires for marshmallows.

Brawn: Now enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 1: REBIRTH

Okay, so I died….how you ask? Well it all started after they lifted the quarantine in America…

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It was early summer, my parents had finally decided that we were going on that vacation we'd planned years ago: Head off north to the Carolinas and travel, visit landmarks, and enjoy the beach…

I remember enjoying the trip, it'd been a while since I'd felt so...alive. I was having fun, enjoyed my family's smiles as we saw a cat trip on it's own feet when we were at a restaurant, saw statues from American history, and even tried some new foods...

My parents were happier than they'd been in years...oh how I wished what happened didn't because I know they mourned.

My niece, my sister, my brother-in-law, everyone had got together to enjoy this trip... we'd finally had a moment to ourselves and then that day happened: we had only a week before heading home and were on a boat to a nearby island.

We had planned to spend a day out there then go South as we headed home...the perfect car trip.

We'd gotten on the boat and separated into small groups: my parents, my sister and her husband at the bar, my nieces and nephews running around on the deck, my brother talking to our grandpa out in the back...my grandma reading her Bible...and me: I'm playing the Endgame Chapter on Fire Emblem Awakening, sitting in a deck hair when I look up and see it: my niece is hanging on the railing….and she falls out into the water.

I get up, unconsciously putting my 3ds in my cargo pocket, and I jump in, no thought needed and grab her.

I start kicking my legs and heading back towards the boat as it chugs off, my niece clutching to my neck for dear life, cutting my breath down to near nil. As I swim back, the water pulls me away...I push harder, kicking my legs, the boat crew throws a lifesaver out and I throw my niece out to it. As I see her pulled up...the current pulls me under...and the wave hits.

Burning. My lungs are burning. I claw and grasp at my throat as I lose more air and a salty taste fills my lungs, whether it's blood or water I can't tell anymore. My mind feels so hazy right now...what do I regret? Getting the girl? No, I couldn't care less any more. My career? Ha! Not getting to say goodbye? Yes. That's my greatest regret...but at least I saved her….my niece…. what's her name again? I can't quite grasp at my memories at the moment…. My body breathes its last...and then… a light...and my mind clears. I'm floating in a void of blackness, then flashes of memory: my whole life before my eyes, every mistake, every heartbreaking moment...but also the good times, laughing faces, small things that made the days bright...and then my death...and the aftermath. My family cutting the trip short, the grim line on my father's face, the tearstained face of my mother. My niece had lived...no marks no injuries, I even remember her name again... Annabelle...sweet kid, reckless...I hope this doesn't scar her...my family is moving on though...I see them burying the corpse they find a week later...nice coffin too...my friends, co-workers who bothered to remember my name, Family, teachers...I didn't think anyone really cared but this….this reminds me why I kept going.

Being dead sucks...the light fades and the images become ghostly outlines before disappearing as if never there. Darkness...for who knows how long. Bor-ing. I kept sane somehow...repeated some songs in my head, recited Bible verses, remembered people's faces….then an itty-bitty light shows up, being bored and dead I did what any insane person or sane one would do: I booped it. And the pain and the feeling of burning shoots through my being as I can't think of anything else but it...the pain taking up all of my being, a warm sharp intrusive thing…..yet with it a feeling of promise? The pain hit it's height...and then I blacked out. Great job, Me! Really!

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Sunlight fills my eyes as I slowly come to my senses, I remember: The vacation, the boat, my niece hanging off the rails, the wave, jumping into the water, throwing her back to the boat….and the current pulling me under. I drowned to death. Why am I dry, let alone breathing?

And that's how I got reborn…