Cale’s world rocketed back into consciousness as he felt a firm hand slap his rear.

  “I do not consent!” he yelled as he pictured the creature with the scary eyes. While Cale was desperately screaming for them to stop, his world flipped around and instead of seeing the creature, his eyes opened and revealed a woman in a mask. Cale abruptly stopped screaming as his mind tried to calculate what was going on. This lady was HUGE! Her head was as big as his body! Cale found he was able to wiggle his body now, and it was then he caught a glimpse of his hands...

  CHUBBY! He thought to himself. Why are my fingers like little sausages?! I used to have the most perfect keyboard hands! Cale just stared at them while he lamented to himself. The conversation from the creature slowly went through this mind. The realization of what the creature meant finally dawned on him.

  What an odd experience, Cale thought to himself. The whole being birthed thing and then the spanking! That startled me! How could my mother allow that to be done to her child!? Unbeknownst to Cale, his little baby brain was struggling to contain his consciousness that had been sitting dormant inside the womb for months. The sudden influx of emotions came out as a very loud cry. The nurses quickly cleaned him up and handed him to his mother. At this moment the higher thinking of Cale’s brain gave way to his baby brain’s desire for food. Before Cale even knew it, his belly was full, and he had fallen asleep in his mother's arms with a little smile on his face. His first poo brewing inside.

  Being a baby was a bit new to him. He didn’t remember much from his baby years on Earth and was thinking that might have been a godsend the first time around. His body made so many noises during the day, and he was constantly waking himself during the night due to his farting. The most frustrating part of it all was that he couldn’t move his limbs very well. Trying to get his arm under control was like trying to hold his arm steady while two squirrels and a fox wrestled on it. Besides the sounds and awkward body control, the rest of his life was pretty good. He got fed frequently and his diaper was changed before it got too bad. He didn’t always remember everything since his baby brain would frequently take over. But that was ok to him. Baby life could be very repetitive, and he was ok with missing parts of it. Life went on like this for the next few months, the same pattern of eating, sleeping, and trying to get his limbs under control all while trying to rationalize the oddness his life had become.

  ***

  Blink. Blink. Spin.

  Blink. Spin. Blink.

  Cale’s eye twitched as he noticed what looked to be a blinking cursor in his view. Trying to recall what would have caused this, he thought back through his day, which had been different than most...

  His morning had started off differently than all the other ones. His mother had gotten him up early, which he was not happy about and he definitely made a fuss to make sure she knew. Then he was taken out of the house, but it was cold out and he couldn’t see anything, which he found extremely disappointing! When he was unwrapped from his travel attire, he found himself in what he hoped wasn’t a studio. But he was very wrong. There were props to the side and nice curtains in the back, in front of him was this square box looking thing on a tripod with a smiling lady behind it. Dread filled his baby tummy. He had to put up with hours of pictures being taken of him in silly outfits, and hats, and poses. It was all very embarrassing for his first day out of the house.

  He didn’t let the time fully go to waste. Since he was there so long, he did get a chance to scope out the camera technology. This world’s cameras were not very advanced and still required a stand due to their size. However, he noticed that there was no flash, instead some sort of crystal was used to hold the photo. Off to the side they had other crystals, but these were flat and were used to display pictures that worked a lot like those ones back home that cycled through photos. He would have to investigate that later.

  Crystal storage was not something he knew anything about; it was something he hadn’t seen before, and it excited him. However, that excitement slowly faded as he was forced to sit and look cute with no regard to his desire not to be involved. His dignity was almost shattered when his mother suggested that they take one of his bare butt. HOW DARE SHE, he thought, first she makes me get up early, then she tortures me by bringing me to the outside world and then blocking me from seeing it, and now she wants to take pictures of my bare buttocks to have it stored on a crystal that might never decompose or be destroyed!? EVER!!! In an act of pure desperation and baby brain logic, Cale pooped. He wasn’t proud of himself, but it had to be done. He had to draw the line here; the memory of the poop would fade faster than his butt would if it got stored on a crystal. This he knew.

  Cale’s little stunt worked and once he had been all cleaned up his mother had decided that it was time to stop for the day. As they left the studio, his baby brain logic, with little regard for how Cale felt about it, decided that now is an excellent time for a nap. Cale drifted off to sweet dreams of him smashing piles of crystal that had his butt stored on them.

  Cale’s sweet dream of smashing crystals was interrupted by an ever-increasing buzzing sound. He had awoken in a vastly new location. His baby brain translated his shock as pain, and naturally and embarrassingly, he starting to cry. Within seconds his mother had him in her arms and was giving him comfort. Cale’s baby brain calmed down once he realized his parents were not scared and that they were trying to console him. Crying is complicated, he thought. As his baby brain finally calmed down, he started to notice the details of the strange scenery before him.

  Lights floated along the ceiling illuminating the room below. They didn’t look like they were attached to anything, but instead they hovered with dim pulses of energy moving between them. Cale focused his attention downward and soaked in the view. The beauty of the room before him was stunning. Now this is what I wanted to see! Cale thought as he absorbed the wonder of his surroundings.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It looked like the entrance of a megacorporation lobby turned into the inside of a cathedral. The outer walls were sleek looking and covered in paintings of various symbols. There were pews ahead of him and pillars that were awkwardly placed, it made him think this room had a previous purpose. The floor was made of a white stone with purple speckles spread throughout. He was reminded of granite flooring from Earth, only it did not look like the floor had been waxed in a very long time; the main walkway was much duller than the edges.

  The room started out wide and slowly angled in toward a hanging orb. There was an upper balcony that looked added on and was made from wood instead of whatever sleek material the walls were made of. Up on the balcony was a row of people singing in low tones holding what looked to be candles. He did not recognize any of the words, but he enjoyed the ambiance it created. Rich carpets hung along the walls displaying different scenes of people kneeling, praying, and occasionally fighting.

  With all the beauty before him, he was not sure why there were screens on the wall displaying what looked like an error icon. They had obviously put a lot of work into making this room feel like a place of worship, in between the hanging carpets, the balcony, the people singing... Why leave something that looked so out of place? He thought that maybe it was the symbol of the church, but he noticed a different upside-down triangle icon with a flat part of it curved. The icons on the screen varied from circles with lines through them to bright colored triangles with dots in the middle. He may have thought it was something else, like maybe hieroglyphs, if all the screens he found weren’t showing the same symbols.

  Cale didn’t get a chance to think on it more as he was pulled from his reverence to find the people had stopped singing. There was a moment of silence before music began to play, and his parents started walking him down the center path toward the hanging ball. He looked at the people staring at him and he felt like he was the reason they were all here. Some were dressed in fine suits; others looked like they had just come in from work. Regardless of their dress, they were all looking at him and his parents. The ball started to glow a light pink when they were only a few feet away and his parents picked him up to touch his head to it. Cale did not like this development so he squirmed and swatted at the ball, but there was only so much his little baby body could do and at the end of it all, his parents – with the silly grins of onlookers – were able to get his head to touch the orb. The orb pulsed yellow twice and green once. The onlookers cheered and his parents started to cry. While all this was happening, his focus was locked onto something elsewhere... A cursor...

  #`New Soul Detected, Creating Soul registration.\. \.. Warning, Soul pattern does not match existing brain profile. `

  #`Starting Soul Check Protocol… used for twins, triplets, and those with potential mental deficiency. `

  Cale’s baby brain could do nothing but stare at the words. This place has an augmented reality system!? He screamed internally to himself. And crazier yet, it uses my soul?! What does it mean, potential mental deficiency?? Cale was not aware that he had started crying until his parents decided that it was time to take him home and he was being whisked away from the onlookers. By the time they got home Cale had become quiet as his baby brain started to worry. What if something was wrong with his soul?

  Does this mean I die? Will I see my late wife already? Sadness enveloped him as he thought about his wife’s passing, not being able to talk to his kids, and the fact that everything he knew was gone in an instant. He wanted to let the sadness take him and end the pain, but as he wallowed in it, he came to the conclusion that part of his pain was because he knew he would never give up and he was sad that he wouldn’t get to share those moments with the people he loved. And if he ever wanted to spend time with them again, he was going to have to find a way to get back to them, and he couldn’t do that if he didn’t try. Even though his conscience was a clone, he still wanted to live, and he would find a way!

  Life flowed through his newly birthed body after all, the raw chemicals in his brain easily covered the holes of his late wife's passing and forced it out of his baby mind. Those were adult thoughts, and the baby brain had no desire to dwell on those... So, Cale waited with about as much patience as a baby could muster. Regardless of his wishes, the Soul Check took hours. When something new finally happened, Cale jerked in surprise as the text in his view changed... His baby brain wasn’t sure how to properly display this emotion, and a new experience took over his body; he threw up. On his mother. Right after she had just changed into fresh clothes.

  #`Soul Check Completed; anomaly verified and cataloged.

  #Soul Details Loading:

  #Soul category; Single. Twin+ Check; Negative

  #Soul Size: S+. Warning. Soul has thin walls. Recommend soul strengthening exercises.

  #Warning: Anomaly detected. Unused Soul seed detected on edge of soul.

  #Warning: Age of soul does not match integrated conscience.

  #Notice: Default interface not found. Loading backup.

  #Notice: Backup interface found. Size smaller than expected. Errors Suppressed.

  ####Error: Though the age of the soul conscience qualifies for interface installation, the soul does not have enough stored energy and soul energy, creation levels are too low to sustain full installation.

  ####Error: Not enough room in soul to fully install local interface as is required by `Areon World Law`. This act was put in place during the war of @#f##rERRERROR

  #Notice: Installation of interface paused. Will resume once soul has met minimum requirements.

  What did it all mean? The words disappeared a minute later and snapped Cale out of his shocked state. First, he found it odd that the name of the war was errored out. That didn’t bode well, but the world he was in seemed happy so maybe it was something less nefarious and more something else… Before Cale could finish the thought, he felt a tug inside his body and out of nowhere a small burst of energy tore from him and headed up and through the ceiling. Cale followed the trail of energy back into his body and at the end of it he found a little glowing ball. Cale looked at it in awe, wondering if this was his soul. He wanted to look at it further, but his little baby brain had decided that it had been thinking long enough. With little say in the matter, Cale fell asleep. This was a huge relief to his parents. Normally after a baby is introduced to the world system the child falls asleep while it integrates with the soul. However, their child behaved the opposite. His temperature was high, his heartbeat faster than normal, and their little Xavier would not stop fussing. What they did not know was that extra energy was needed to run the diagnostic on their son's soul and the strain on their boy was making him fuss. By the end of the night, both baby and parents were finally able to relax. Cale dreamed of crystal storage units being smashed and his parents dreamed of their son throwing scripts around. Neither of them prepared for the years ahead.