Past Life

When the past comes back to replace the future

Image by Nightcafe

During The Split in the year 10001, the world became so unstable that it was split in three. The middle, Stability, stayed mostly as it was, with groups of people and societies that were resistant to change. The first of them, Growth, advanced rapidly, making great scientific and evolutionary breakthroughs in quick succession. The last however, Decay, did not fare so well. As fast as history was made in Growth, it was destroyed in Decay. The land crumbled as fast as the people, and the dwindling few who survived thought not of what was to come, but what had been. These drastic changes to life and perception came in many forms, but one of the most common was that of the Past Life.

A Rude Reawakening

"What was I to think? My little Thmgir of only a few months was now my great aunt, of whom I had barely a memory at all."
— Disgruntled mother, in the form of a 6 year old gray elf boy

In the first days of the era of The Split, the peoples of Decay were not yet aware of their predicament. They knew that something had happened to their world, but kept on as they were, until they started to notice certain signs. In many isolated incidents, various people of both human and faire folk started exhibting strange behaviors. They seemed to be forgetting recent events, then events from their past. And then, they remembered, but not of themselves. They seemed to have the minds of others who had died. The reception to this realization was, understandably, not well taken. Anyone could be struck by it, and families were unsure what to do with those who inhabited the bodies of their loved ones, and yet weren't. Further societal questions arose from the fact that humans and faire folk could be reborn in each others' bodies. The faire folk were forced to confront the ethical questions of their human slaves, while the humans were inspired to uprising. Lovers were put at the necks of their former fiances, mothers killed their newborns in the streets, and the castles were crimson long before they crumbled. In a decaying world, how could a broken society rebuild?

Transmission & Vectors

Any sapient being can randomly have it at any time. It is non-contagious, although Gray Elves, the children of those affected, have a higher chance of having it than others.

Symptoms

Symptoms start with memory loss, first in the short-term, then reaching back into the long-term. Patients in this phase are prone to not be able to follow conversations, and have extra meals due to them having forgotten about previous ones.

Treatment

Nothing can save one who has been taken by a Past Life.

Prognosis

The course of a Past Life starts with memory loss, first of short-term, then long-term. Patients will find increasing difficulty in remembering what they are doing, and will lose recollection of their past back into infancy. When all of their soul's memories are depleted, the past soul will push its way into its place. The Past Life will then live its life out in the new body, as if continuing from its past one. The body, trying to support a soul which does not fit, will deteriorate in certain places. Height loss already starts when the original soul is depleting its memories of infancy, and will continue for the first few years of the past soul's life. The average of height after this process is 3 ft. The skin will also shrivel, and this will cause more skin cells to go into the hair, making hair in all parts of the body, especially around the head, to grow faster and longer. The title 'Dwarf' was originally coined derogatorily in reference of these changes, but has over time become the accepted cultural term for one who has gone through a Past Life.

Affected Groups

Although receival of a Past Life is mostly random and overall equally likely between humans and faire folk, it is more common for a gray elf, that is, the child of a dwarf, to receive a Past Life, especially at a young age. This is due to their body's weaker hold on their soul. Dwarves are more immune to it than the others, as their souls hold fervently to their new bodies. It is also more common for a past soul to reinhabit a body when it has done so before, causing Past Lives in later years of the third era to have fewer new souls.

Cultural Reception

As noted above, most were not very fond of the Past Lives. They were often denounced as murderers of their original souls, and greedy when they had already lived a life of their own. Those who had been friends or family to the body would usually leave them at the arrival of the new soul. The old friends and family of the past soul were likewise disgusted, leaving the previously dead to wander the streets alone, often trying to start up communities with other Past Lives that were quickly ransackked, ruined, and burned to the ground. On a philosophical level, the previous system of humans being enslaved to faire folk imploded, as the faire folk had to confront their souls being reborn in human bodies and human souls in theirs. Amidst their debate over the roll of humans, many faire folk homes and castles were attacked by bands of humans inspired to rebel by the same delimas. Grudgingly at first, humans and faire folk constructed new communities, with both species being of equal stature. However, these communities were poor and unstable, as nothing can really grow anew in Decay. The initial slaughters led to only more societal decline over the next 5000 years, until Decay, Stability, and Growth were finally brought back together.