《Infinite Lifetimes》


 Prologue: The Soul

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    Prologue: The Soul


    A soul inhabits everything living. Souls reincarnate, and souls get destroyed. Some souls can only live forever. There are vengeful souls, souls that only experienve the vicissitudes of life only once before their untimely ends, souls that manage to transcend mortality and exit the cycle of reincarnation and live the rest of their lives as gods....


    Then there are the rare souls that are immortal themselves, being incapable of being destroyed. Those souls can be considered fortunate, yet also extremely unfortunate, as beings far more powerful than themselves sometimes pick them up to ease their boredom in whatever ways they see fit.


    But otherwise, these immortal souls continue living, dying, and living again in an endless cycle. They can become powerful through this, but each and every single soul is never exactly the same. Some do not wish for strength or power; some do not wish to reincarnate forever.


    If the immortal soul gains enough power to break free of the endless cycle, that soul will be bound to its flesh until its flesh expires. The torment of these souls, though, is that they will not die, even if their flesh is vaporized into the most basic elements. Their souls are truly immortal, and that causes some of them to go mad. So they forget.


    They forget their pains. Each and every life that they live, they experience joy, sorrow, rage, pain, love, hate, desire, bliss, and nightmares. The lives they live are never the same. Sometimes, if they wish for it, they can choose what their next lives will be like. For instance, a soul drowning in hatred can choose to be born in a powerful family within the same world of the target of their hatred. Of course, an enormous price must be paid, and only if the soul can handle that price can the deed be done. Even then, the price may not be worth the product, and their sacrifice is wasted for naught.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    If an immortal soul is vain, they can influence their appearance a bit in their next lives, but they almost never do that. The price of appearance management might take away their chance to punish their enemies after all. (Not that MC will be doing any of this anytime soon.)


    For each life a soul lives, immortal or not, they strengthen and grow. Have you ever heard of creatures considered geniuses among their own kind in comprehension or the ones that can burn their souls for bursts of power multiple times? This is the most common state of souls that have gone through several dozen reincarnations find themselves in.


    There are souls that are born strong, as well as souls that are capable of gaining more power each reincarnation as compared to others. Immortal souls can be born immortal as well. Anything can happen. As wise people say, ''The psssibilities are endless!''


    For this story, the life of an immortal soul will be followed. To the soul, it is merely living out life, like all other lives before it. This is a kind of documentation of the lives this soul has lived and continues living.


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    Far away from stars, life, and all physical matter, in a vast expanse of nothingness that twisted and rippled, a soft, light-green and glowing soul came into existence. The soul, with timeless divinity, floating along the rippling nothingness, gradually being pushed outwards toward the vast multiverse.


    The beautiful soul floated past endless realities, universes, gods, timelines.... Finally ending its long journey and landing in a peaceful place on a world in a universe forever away, the exhausted soul took shelter in the womb of a mother rodent, where his fleshly body was already halfway complete, along with the bodies of his future siblings.


    His first life will be a short one, but there are plenty of important things that he''ll learn.

 Life 1: Ch. 1 Rats

    The dark, damp walls of a cave deep underground echoed continuously with the squeaks of a mischief of rats. There was a plie of squirming, scrambling, four-legged rats slightly smaller in size than two rats combined. In the center of the pile were a handful of swollen-bellied female rats on top of soft grass looking to be in the middle of giving birth.


    Out pops one rat baby, then another, and then they multiply to cover the ends of the earth! Halleluja! JK.


    The mother rats, in the safety of the rat pile, give birth to a total of twenty-two little ratlings, with each mother giving birth to at least three. The rat pile, as if electrocuted, spasms mightily before swarming downwards and opening up the center. The newborn rats take their very first breath of fresh air, their tiny limbs and noses twitching. Their mothers, having given birth in their homes, had no need to transport their children anywhere else, so they began caring for their children on the spot.


    Of course, a tiny rat baby with unopened soft green eyes was among them, unnoticed, and not any different from the rest.


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    Home Cave


    It''d been 15 days since the babies were born, and they were getting used to being able to see what they could only smell before. The soft-green-eyed rat had grown slightly faster than the rest of his siblings, as it was visible that his fur had begun to grow. His core had yet to solidify anywhere in his body though, because he had yet to reach the half-year age mark.


    The soft green soul had been born into a mischhief of Earth-Water Rats, a species of magic beast rats with an elemental affinity to water and earth who were also fiercely protective of their young, as they had few females and only one ''mating season'' annually.


    He, as his gender was now set as male (in this life), had opened the senses of his physical body for the first time since he came into being. He was amazed at everything he saw, heard, tasted, felt, smelled, and whaytever else his newfound senses sensed. His senses allowed him to know of anything that occurred within a little bubble around him, about the size of a queen-sized bed, and everything that happened on the edges of his senses were known to him as well.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Because of his over-active curiosity, he was among the most lively little rat children in the cave. He scuttled from rat to rat, rolling all over them and ran all over the cave walls with a few other lively little rats. The Earth-Water Rats, being magical beasts, were more intelligent than their regular cousins (but by how much, it differs individually).


    The adult rats watched with reminiscing gazes as the lively green-eyed rat and his friends dashed by, recalling the days when they themselves had just opened their eyes. They subconciously compared their younger selves against these baby rats, finding that they had only had one rat that had been so lively during their generation, and she was currently looking far more youthfully energetic than they were...


    The adult rats, snorting to themselves every now and then, gave up on their negative trails of thought and kept watch over the little rats. They kept an eye on the rats that weren''t as energetic as well, to make sure they were doing well and were healthy.


    The good old supervisor rats'' days were packed with baby rats running, baby rats nibbling on them, bringing baby rats back to their mothers for feeding, and so on and so forth. All was peaceful (baby rat opinion only).


    Around a week later, just about all of the baby rats had completed their coats of fur. The green-eyed rat had made a name for himself among his broodmates, known to them as the liveliest and the most curious one of them all. He was known for peeking in on nearly everything; from daily actions to using the restroom, and from watching and cheering on a dispute up close and personal to sitting on the chief Earth-Water Rat and watching and asking him about everything he did. Since the chief didn''t really mind too much, neither did anyone else.


    Currently the Earth-Water Rats'' children were considered to have grown enough to keep themselves safe, but not enough to be able to protect themselves, so they were all being taken outside of their birth cave for today. By this time of their lives,allof the young rats were energetically scuttling around.


    None of them had been outside of the cave they were born in, not that any of them hadn¡¯t tried to catch a glimpse. Of course, the best of all baby plans got exposed halfway through, resulting in their ultimate failure, which is why they were all so exited to go outside for the day.


    With the adult rats leading the way and young, jittery rats following behind them, foolishly happy in a simple way, with no knowledge of what is to come in the world outside of the cave.

 Life 1: Chapter 2: Beauty

    The cave was situated in the middle of an endlessly rolling green plain, a light breeze constantly blowing. Somewhere deep in the plains, the young rats, eyes wide, looked outside for the first time in their short lives, innocently taking in the beauty of the world they¡¯d been born into and would one day return to in death.


    The gentle wind blew, bringing the fragrant scent of life to their quivering noses for the very first time. That was the moment the soft-green soul fell in love with the world.


    Laying eyes on the dark, star-filled sky for the first time brought forth feelings of wonder in the young rats¡¯ hearts. They wondered what those beautiful, sparking dots so far up above them were. Why were they so beautiful, and why were they so far away? Why did they feel as though those sparking dots, like themselves, would never see the light of day? (What was day?)


    They hadn¡¯t realized then, that their feelings had sprung from remnant memories of their ancestors¡¯, who so very often looked up at the sky and wondered why the sparkling dots up there were so similar, yet so far apart.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


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    Back in the cave, the young rats, now more subdued, had recognized themselves as extremely minute existences compared to the rest of the world. They were silent, deep in thought as their young minds attempted to understand. The older rats let them be, and gave them room so they could ponder on their new discovery in peace.


    Whether or not the young ones grew weaker or stronger would be left to the young ones themselves. Whether they¡¯d decide to fight for a place in the vast world, decide to slip away, or whatever else the young ones could decide, was up to them entirely.


    The green-eyed day was curious. He¡¯d been born curious, and now his curiosity fueled his desire to see and learn more about the world outside of the cave. Just because his existence was tiny didn¡¯t mean it couldn¡¯t grow.


    And so he decided to grow. He decided to grow as he saw and learned more of the world, to grow as he discovered more about the very world he so dearly loved. Happily affirming his decision, he fell deep into the abyss of sleep to receive the gifts he would be given for his choice.


    And so rose the curtains on the short, star-like life of a green-eyed rat called the Seeker.