To absolutely no one's surprise, being reborn was exactly as gross as she remembered.
Warm, wobbly, wet. A floating consciousness stuck in a sensory deprivation tank made of mom.
"Cool. Great. Love that for me."
Her thoughts weren't sharp yet. More like soup. But she could still string them together well enough to reach the important conclusions:
She was a baby. Again.
The Void had not, in fact, left her alone.
She was glowing.
Not full sparkle-radiant yet, just the low hum of something wrong with this fetus.
Her mother didn't seem to notice. Not consciously, anyway. But the way her heartbeat changed when Kaley stirred? The way she instinctively placed her hand over her belly when Kaley started "buzzing"? Yeah. She felt it.
And that was... comforting.
For now.
Day 12: Tried to punch something. Realized I didn't have elbows. Or wrists. Just wiggly baby flaps.
Combat readiness: 0/10. Void status: smug.
Day 37: Kaley successfully wiggled her foot. Then accidentally phased it halfway through her own ribcage.
"Okay. That's new. That's... probably not supposed to happen."
The Void flickered—briefly. Like a cat knocking things off a shelf just to see what would happen.
It didn't break her yet.
But it was watching.
Day 83:
She'd stopped trying to use words by now. Her tongue didn't work. Her mouth mostly gurgled. And every time she did try to focus, her entire brain lit up with symbols.
Glyphs.
Old ones. Familiar ones.
Control. Return. Bloom. Restraint.
"Okay but where's the 'mute' button for my own skull?"
Her mother had started a journal. It was hidden inside a hollow wall panel, wrapped in an old scarf.
The first entry read: "She knows when I'm in the room. Before the door opens."
Month 4:
She cried once.
Not because she was hungry. Not because of discomfort.
Because she had a dream.
She was walking. Holding a blade made of light. Her skin shimmered like Void-washed armor. People around her screamed.
Not in fear.
In awe.
"Kaley," they said. "Kaley, save us."
And she had.
And she remembered.
Just a second.
Just enough.
She woke up sobbing. Not from sadness.
From homesickness.
For a place she couldn't name.
Day 142:
Levitated a rattle. Accidentally folded it into itself. Didn't know you could make a baby toy into a tesseract.
"10/10 Void Trick. 0/10 Mom Reaction. She thinks it vanished."
Her mother had stopped asking pediatricians questions.
They had no answers anyway.
The strange surges. The lights flickering. The moment she floated five inches in the air and stayed there.
"You're just special, aren't you?"
Kaley wanted to scream, "That is NOT the comforting kind of special!" but instead she sneezed and accidentally blinked out of phase with the floor.
Her mother kept journaling.
Entry 5:"Twice now I've caught shapes flickering on the baby monitor. Not camera glitches. Symbols. Glyphs? Why do I remember those shapes? Why do they look familiar?"
She stared at the baby through the bars of the crib.
Kaley looked back.
Just a baby. Just wide eyes. Just the faint shimmer under her skin like light trapped in water.
She reached down and whispered:
"Project Quiet Angel... what did you do to her?"
Day 200: She burped. A nearby lamp exploded. No cause, no source. Just... gone.
"Guess I'm lactose-void-intolerant."
And then, one night, it happened.
She blinked.
Not with eyes. Not physically.
With her whole self.
For a breath, the nursery wasn't a room.
It was threads—light and shadow and time strung together like a web.
She saw her mother as a pulse of heat and kindness and guilt.
She saw the house. The lines of power running under it. The flicker of something watching from outside the world.
"You are waking."
The glyphs spiraled around her like stars.
And then—
It ended.
She was back in her crib.
Sweaty. Trembling.
The baby monitor screen briefly blinked a single line of static text:
REMEMBER.
Then it went dark.
Kaley smiled.
Then cried.
Because this time, she knew she wasn't dreaming.