Transmigrating into an endless Death Cycle

4. Memories

It felt like I was flying in some sort of void. Everywhere was darkness until I saw a bright wave coming towards me. The moment the wave hit me, my surroundings changed.

There was a small bed in front of me with pink bed sheets. It looked adorable and I felt myself getting drowsy.

"Will Daddy come tonight to read me a fairy tale?", I asked my brother who was sitting next to me.

"Are you tired already? We just played a little bit", brother lifted me up and laid me down on the bed.

"But will he come?"

Brother was silent for a while. "He is the Duke, he has a lot to do. Lay down obediently and I will read you a fairy tail."

"Mmm! Brother is the best!"

"Of course I am. Now what do you want to read?"

The voice was slowly getting smaller and quieter. When the next wave came I noticed how I seemed to be even smaller.

"Daddy!", I ran towards my dad who I just spotted, "Da- Wahhh!" but I fell down. I-I couldn't cry, Daddy didn't like it when I cried. "Dad." I said but saw him turning around.

"Call the doctor and see whether she is hurt", he said.

He didn't come even when the doctor arrived.

It was my fault. I shouldn't have screamed. Daddy was always working, I couldn't worry him.

The next memory came faster.

It was about my brother. He was sitting at the desk, working on some sheets. "Brother, Brother, let's play! We haven't played in a long while!"

"I don't have time right now. Play with yourself or ask a maid. They will happily help you", he said without even looking at me.

"Bu-ut, I reeeaally want to play with brother. Please?", while pleading I tried to clutch his arm but after seeing his annoyed glance, I kept myself in check.

"Sophie, please. I have to finish this before school starts again. I will play with you later."

While dropping my head, I obeyed. "Then let's play tomorrow."

That summer I didn't get to see my brother often but he still kept his promise to play with me. Brother had it hard too.

I re-experienced a whole life like that. These memories weren't in order or chronological. Sometimes I didn't even understand the context. It could be a cold and lonely winter and at another time I had fun with my brother.

There weren't many memories of the Duke. He never seemed to care about his child. There was this one time while brother was still in the academy when I was ill. It was really, really bad and I had one nightmare after another. The doctors later told me that it was the magic disease which was pretty serious since your body couldn't handle the floating mana in your surroundings.

An adult had to slowly input mana into the child's body while the surrounding mana had to be drained as much as possible to appease the symptoms until the child's body was able to withstand the normal amount of mana in the air. It wasn't clear whether a child would be able to adapt but he never once asked me how I was.

Till today nobody knew what caused me to get the magic disease when I had been fine with mana before. It was a disease for newborn when a mother had a small mana pool and the baby had to adapt to a higher concentration of mana in the air after being born.

That was the moment, I think, from which on I also stopped caring. At least, I still had my brother.

He had to come back irregularly because of his strict timetable. He told me it was because he was the successor so he had to take more lessons and couldn't always come home even on holidays.