Allister Hale's Story Graveyard.

Raven wasn’t able to process what he was seeing, and he was only just able to understand that he was being picked up by a person that dwarfed him as an infant compared to an adult.

Whoever picked Raven up was accelerating and while the person shield Raven from the winds, it was clear from what he could feel that they were going fast enough to keep pace with a vehicle going highway speeds.

Everything was fuzzy but Raven’s sense of touch was beginning to resolve into something he could make sense of, he still felt misshapen and felt so weak as to be utterly incapable, but it was encouraging nonetheless.

The next sense Raven was able to process was his sense of smell. His apparent rescuer had slowed down and carried him through a noisy environment. Muffled words were exchanged and Raven was passed to another giant who smelled of exertion and a faint milk sweet scent.

Raven was just barely able to begin understanding what had happened to him before he was held up to the woman’s breast to suckle. Someone said something that may have been a reaction to odd behavior for an infant, or nothing of consequence, either way Raven expressed his gratitude in his mind even as he began to suckle. He was much more hungry than he had realized.

Raven contemplated his situation as he ate. Being turned into a baby made a crazy sort of sense when he thought about how wrong all of his senses felt. There had never been any proof that any two people experience the world in a way that matches up. Raven figured that his new body sent signals to his mind in a different way than his old one, added to the fact that an infant’s eyes and ears weren't fully developed, it made sense Raven was struggling to process the world around him.

His new mother’s breast milk tasted terrible, at first, but luckily his body knew what was good for it and kept suckign out of instinct as his mind recalibrated his sense of taste. After eating Raven’s body fell asleep though his mind was still active and considering his situation. It was odd at first to be both awake and conscious, but the feeling passed quickly, though it was quickly replaced by a sense of awe.

The world around him was filed with a diffuse sort of light, there was little contrast, even less than his undeveloped sight, but he was barely able to pick out inanimate objects like the bed or a table like he was seeing them through a dense fog, though the fog was incredibly faint in the otherwise senseless void of his sleep. People were a bit easier to see, but they were little more than vague clouds themselves, except for two people in the room. They stood out like Christmas lights in the night, not shining, but bright enough to see clearly, even from a distance.

Once the adults were sure Raven had fallen asleep one of the bright people took him from his new mother and began examining him. This was both by feel and by touching him with emanations of light that left the figure’s body and entered his new body.

Once the figure, Raven figured it was a doctor of some sort, was done examining his infant body, it handed Raven back to his new mother who was so faint that Raven had trouble seeing her with his strange new sense. He decided that if he was going to be spending any amount of time both asleep yet aware, he would need to see if there was anything he could do to ‘see’ more clearly.

One of the first things Raven noticed about his new sense was that it was omni directional, though he was having trouble comprehending his full field of vision at once. After some mental gymnastics, Raven figured out a way to either narrow or expand the extent of his ‘vision’ that he was keeping in his awareness. Narrowing his focus made things easier to process and made the contrast between objects clearer, in turn opening his focus to more of the world made things less distinct even as he could see more at once.

Through a process of narrowing his vision, examining what he could see and then expanding his vision again, Raven slowly explored the room around him. He had trouble understanding what he was seeing, but his mind was slowly calibrating its new sense allowing him to see more with the same clarity as he continued his efforts.

At some point in the process, his mind tired and he fell full into sleep.

When Raven came back into awareness he was laying in something he decided was a crib. His new parents were asleep in the bed next to him so he began moving his body, trying to get comfortable with his reduced size and strength.

Before long a pain in his stomach made Raven realize he was hungry. After a confused start Raven began crying until one of his new parents was awake. He was picked up by his new mom and he began signaling that he wanted food. After eating his body once again fell asleep and he once again began trying to improve his strange new sense.

Training his new sense was exhausting. For better or worse his bodily needs interrupted his periods of dormancy when he was asleep both in body and mind. This helped alleviate the guilt he felt for waking his parents up at random hours of the day to feed or change him.

As his senses of sight and hearing normalized Raven added studying his surroundings to his waking routine. Most of the time this was just looking around the impoverished looking one room farmhouse he was now living in and comparing it to his strange new sense waiting for someone, usually his mother, to say something so he could try to mimic their words.

Every seven days or so a man, who was like one of the Christmas lights, would show up and give his mother a jar of a bitter cream which she rubbed on her nipples every time she fed him. Raven assumed it was some sort of medicine and ignored the bitter taste while he drank. After handing his mother the jar the man, who could have been his new fathers age began talking to him. Raven still had no idea what he was saying but he did his best to repeat the sounds the man made.

At the end of each visit the man would look at Raven sadly and sigh as he walked out the door. Shortly after he left Raven’s mom would bundle him up and take a walk into the village they called home to visit with her neighbors.

One week, instead of the medicine, the man brought pots of mush food and Raven began eating soft foods.

When Raven figured out the word to use for his mother instead of an excited joy, she wore a forced smile. Considering his past in this world, Raven figured he was talking early for a child his age.

Raven felt sad for the woman who was his mother in this life and gestured for her to pick him up. He did his best to give her a hug, even after he realized that the comfort was bittersweet.

Raven had no intentions of slowing his growth, but it was hard not to love the woman who was feeding him and cleaning up his messes.