Alari hadn’t believed in an afterlife; he considered himself a materialist: everything could be explained by physical matter. He fully expected that when his bodily functions ceased, that would be the end of his lived experience. He had hoped for something, but expected oblivion. So, when his eyes opened, and he found himself not in the familiar confines of his house, he was forced to reevaluate his entire system of beliefs. He had died. Instead of being terrified, the prospect of discovering new secrets about the universe filled him with childlike glee.

  Another obvious implication was that his preexisting knowledge and memories, as best as he could tell, had remained intact. There had to be a method for transmitting that data, which was another blow to materialism. Could his consciousness be transmitted across space and time through some as-of-yet undiscovered mechanism? The best word he could use to describe such a thing was a soul. He supposed that didn’t eliminate materialism, since it could be some form of undetectable matter, though that seemed like a semantic distinction.

  He wasn’t wholly unaffected by whatever shift had occurred: his mind felt sluggish and hazy, like he hadn’t slept in days. He wasn’t dumber, but it took longer to piece things together. Seeing his body, he could understand why: he now inhabited the form of a toddler. He hypothesized that whatever soul-like material had transmitted his memories and conscious experience was equivalent to software being transferred over the internet. His new toddler body was the hardware, and it was several generations behind the previous model.

  The room he found himself in was austere; the few objects were made from rough-hewn materials. They weren’t of poor quality per se, but the grain and texture of the wood were less uniform than he was used to, and his clothing and blanket had a hand-stitched appearance. A stifling heat also hinted at a lack of climate control. For that matter, there was an utter lack of anything post-industrial. Had he reincarnated in some less developed part of the world? That seemed likely.

  Stepping out, he entered a small hallway. From below, he could hear the cacophony of animated conversation. Alari hesitated; what would these people think of him? Would he be a stranger in their home? Had he taken over the body of a cherished loved one, and would he be immediately known as an imposter?

  Curiosity won over, and he went downstairs. A group of children sat around a massive table that dominated the small common area. They ranged in ages, from toddler to around eight or nine. Most appeared haggard and malnourished but seemed content. Each had olive complexions dotted with freckles, curly black hair in various states of disarray, and light emerald eyes. Alari noted his complexion was a similar shade and, running his hand through his hair, felt certain it was likewise.

  A few of them glanced his way, but none seemed overly surprised by his presence. A woman entered the room carrying a large pot. She was tall but unhealthily thin; her face was all sharp lines that did her no favors. Alari was certain now: wherever he was, it wasn’t as prosperous as where he had come from. His perspective had become skewed by his wealth, but that hadn’t always been the case.

  The woman spoke, the sounds unlike any language he knew. Yet somehow Alari understood her, as if it had been translated seamlessly through software. “Alari, sit down.”

  It took Alari a moment to realize she had been speaking to him. It was his name, but what were the chances that he had been reincarnated with that same name? He hadn’t believed in karma or fate, but perhaps he did now. However, the other possibility was that his consciousness had mapped onto some other entity. If that was the case, it likely used his existing knowledge as a frame of reference for interpreting this new information. Perhaps the translation had used his existing name and translated his new name as ‘Alari’.

  The woman set the pot down, then glared at him, hands on hips. Alari got the sense that she wasn’t someone to trifle with. He did as he was bade, and she handed him a wooden bowl. Inside was a small portion of a millet stew. The rest of the children were eagerly devouring their portions, and a moment later, he realized he, too, was famished. The watery stew wasn’t exactly pleasant, with a slight sour taste, but he had enough sense not to complain.

  He was the last one to finish eating, and as soon as he had, he found a bucket being pressed into his hand. Together, they left the confines of the house. Stepping outside, Alari was immediately struck by the local star’s intensity, which he couldn’t help but think of as the sun, even though that likely wasn’t correct.

  The terrain around him reflected that reality: arid, dusty soil covered most of the land, with only the occasional plant peeking out. He wasn’t sure how anyone could survive in such a place without modern engineering, which he saw no signs of.

  The young children, under the watchful eye of the older woman, presumably their mother, marched across the desolate terrain without complaint or insubordination. Not wanting to be the odd one out, he followed their lead.

  As they marched, Alari spotted the first signs of what they grew. The people of this area had built their fields against the slight rises in elevation that provided some shade. He saw signs that the hills had been dug into, making them artificially steep. The effort must have been substantial, yet it produced only a patch of marginal soil. Small, deep irrigation channels were dug into the ground, providing only a trickle of water.

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  Alari sighed; of course, he was on a farm. However, if they were at a pre-industrial technological level, then that made sense. For the majority of human history, most people were dedicated to producing food. So, statistically, it was the most likely outcome, assuming this world roughly followed Earth's technological trajectory. Still, that didn’t mean he was thrilled with his prospects.

  They followed the irrigation until they reached a small brook that flowed along a natural canyon. Reaching it proved another challenge, as they had to navigate the rocky terrain with their buckets. The walk back was far more challenging, the water sloshing around unsteadily as he took faltering steps. The entire round trip was several kilometers, and he was sweating and breathing heavily. Still, no one complained.

  Alari drank greedily, the water tasting heavily of minerals with a bit of grit, but at that moment, he didn’t care. It was a bit depressing that half of what he had carried was depleted just to replenish the work he had put in.

  After a short rest, to his horror, they all picked their buckets back up and began the trek for a second time. Desperate for something to distract him as he trudged through the sandy ground, he looked for inconsistencies with what he would expect from Earth. He was so focused on the minute details, the biology of the plants and the geology of the terrain, that he almost missed the macro-level giveaway that he wasn’t on Earth. Throughout the time he had spent gathering water, he hadn’t noticed any change in the sun’s intensity. While that was an imprecise measurement, the sun's consistent angle confirmed it. This also meant the shade wasn’t dependent on the time of day, further supporting his conclusion.

  The most plausible explanation was that he was on a tidally locked planet. While that seemed sensible at first, a few things were off: the star was sunlike, which shouldn’t have been conducive to a tidally locked planet with water. The lack of a sharp horizon also meant the planet wasn’t some minuscule dwarf planet. That meant one of two things was true: either his understanding of physics was fundamentally incomplete, or his new reality was governed by an entirely different set of laws.

  “Are we really on a tidally locked planet?” Alari muttered to himself as he thought through the problem.

  As he said the words, he could feel their alien nature, completely foreign to the languages he had known on Earth, yet somehow intuitive to him now. He also realized all the words hadn’t been that way, and a few English words had come out.

  “You say the weirdest things. What is a ‘tidally’?” his brother asked, the English word coming out with a strange accent.

  Instead of answering his brother’s question, Alari had another thought. “This wasn’t out of character for me? I say strange words like that?”

  “I suppose,” the boy responded after a moment’s consideration.

  Alari smiled. One existential worry was now less probable: he had likely always been this person, and not some dimension-crossing body snatcher. His reasoning was that his Earth-based biases and adult-level technological knowledge had been spilling out when he was younger, so the strange question and alien words were typical for him. He had only just become conscious as his body matured, and he guessed this was the age when children first began forming permanent memories. His physical hardware could now run the consciousness software program, as it were. That also explained why he knew things like language and familial relations without being able to explain how: they were fragmented memories he couldn’t piece together into a coherent experience, but they were still things he had learned before becoming conscious.

  Having been lost in thought, the hike seemed less strenuous this time. He noticed they weren’t taking the same route, and they were climbing the largest hill. Cresting the rise, he reached a vista that provided an unobstructed view for kilometers in every direction. Most of the land was the same, barren and mostly devoid of life, but something strange caught his attention: a sheer black line cut through the air, as if some asset had failed to render, leaving a void in an otherwise continuous tapestry. It wasn’t large; little more than a speck from his perspective, but stark enough that it was impossible to miss.

  Blinking a few times and shaking his head, Alari ruled out a spot in his vision. “What is that?” he asked, pointing in the distortion’s direction.

  “That is a rift, dear,” Mina replied. Seeing Alari wasn’t satisfied with the name she added, “It’s a space separate from our world, a land made from strange things and inhabited by monsters. If you see one, do not go near it, and never, never touch it.”

  One of his siblings added in an excited rush, “That's what adventurers are for; they go into rifts and fight the monsters and retrieve wondrous items. They get stronger and richer every time; that’s how some of them become powerful nobles, like the last emperor.”

  “Adventurers are a necessary profession, but it is not all power, glory, and riches; most do not survive to get to that point. The few that do are talented and lucky, while the rest are lost to the rift.”

  Alari considered the implications. He certainly was in a world that was fundamentally different from Earth. He didn’t think it was a stretch to conclude he wasn’t just on a different planet, but was in a completely new universe. Everything he thought he knew needed to be reverified and confirmed.

  Considering Mina hadn’t corrected the gains to be had from going into a rift, it was likely real. With how hard life in this region appeared to be, Alari suspected the dangers of rifts hadn’t been understated. It had to be substantial; if it wasn’t, people would descend upon them in the hopes of escaping their circumstances. Still, given that they were teetering on the edge of starvation and ruin, he wondered if it might be a risk worth taking.