Chapter 1
For some reason, I thought and hoped that that would be my final death. It wasn't.
I was back again, lying in the painfully comfortable bed that greeted me with each reincarnation into my nineteen-year-old body. Having experienced death in more methods than most dead people could boast of, the experience had become gruesome.
I'd died in several ways; stabbing, shot in the head, shot in the head by a sniper, suffocated with a pillow, war, bubonic plague, suicide, the list goes on.
But in total, I had lived a sum of nine lives and a hundred and seventy-two years. Yes, the experience was gruesome.
I sighed, done waiting for the puppeteer of my misery to reveal itself to me. Whatever pioneered this phenomenon around me. Unsurprisingly it didn't. After close to two centuries of life, I still had no clue what purpose my repet.i.tion served. I had no idea what mistake I was to rectify. If this was a game, I had no waypoint.
I sprung to my feet, unamused by my tenth reincarnation. I went through the routine, thinking of the things I had failed to achieve in past lives as I brushed my teeth, getting ready to receive bad news the moment I leave the room.
I spit.
Staring at myself in the mirror, the odd feeling of growing past the young looks of a young adult and waking up to such a young visage never disappeared. I played with my cheeks a bit, my sense of touch found it bafflingly odd too, still attuned to the old wrinkly skin of a sixty-year-old.
It wasn't all bad. I get my s.e.x drive back. So far, that's the only benefit I've seen to being reincarnated more than three times.
Now, what haven't I done?
The latest life was the longest. I made a family, I'd miss them. And I died outside the country, my country, Schelar. At the moment, the country was just ten-years-old. There's quite a surprising story behind it all.
Schelar was borne of Madagascar. Through means, countries are born from another. Civil war.
In the early 2000s, Madagascar was occupied containing a major bubonic outbreak. This would usually be a matter to be swiftly addressed and contained by the ruling government. It was addressed and contained, but it a sluggish and unbefitting manner of a government. Many were lost.
The government was justly criticized by its opposition party and many others on the international stage. A reason for the slow response of the government was never given but rumours and conspiracies gained wave. Silence reigned in the capitol and the President was often heard of travelling to foreign Arab and Asian nations for several diplomatic reasons. No one bought the excuses and at the same time, no one searched for the truth.
Then came the 2007 elections. After the sluggish response to the outbreak, many were of the mind to vote the President out of office. It was during these periods that tensions rose high.
He won re-election.
There were protests and riots all around the country. The media covered it all up and with a few ma.s.sacres here and there. There was peace, albeit soaked in fear.
Many of the opposition party started missing. Found dead by car accidents or shootings. I suppose the government thought they'd as well go all out
My father was part of the opposition party. Oh no, he wasn't part of those who were killed. He was the one hired to orchestrate their deaths. Luring his friends and colleagues into party meetings with the new Dictators men ready to kill them all.
Though I was young, I remember seeing red on his clothes a lot. My mother wanted a divorce as time pa.s.sed by. But she'd be killed if she left my father. She was a security threat.
Father joined the Presidents party and advised him on how to handle rebel threats. He was successful at his job. If he wasn't, I doubt Schelar would exist today.
In 2009 another outbreak occurred. And in 2009, Madagascar was at war with two neighbouring countries; Comoros and Seych.e.l.les. The state was scrambled. With people out in the streets demonstrating with signs, masks and gloves and an offensive campaign against two nations failing miserably. My father started a revolt.
With many friends and many favours, he ama.s.sed a suitable army and a necessary navy. How he managed to wrestle so much equipment from the hands of the Governments military forces, I'd never know.
Aged ten at the time, I knew enough to understand the dire straits we were in. Father had us moved from the capitol in Antananarivo with his army to Atsinanana where many naval vessels awaited.
We escaped to Seych.e.l.les.
As it stood, Seych.e.l.les saw us, rebels against the Tyrannical regime of the war-mongering President that declare war upon them, as allies. The fact that we brought over manpower and military might have helped as well.
Seych.e.l.les with the backing of India and with my Father's a.s.sistance was able to secure victories against Madagascar, capturing four vital coastal provinces; Diana, Sava, Sofia and a.n.a.lanjirofo.
With the plague still running amok in Madagascar, killing soldiers and citizen alike, the government received pressure to carry out peace talks with Comoros, who had with help from unknown parties, fended off the Malagasy incursion, and Seych.e.l.les who had taken from them control over enough provinces for a defeat to be eminent.
My father, realizing that the war would be over soon, and as a rebellion he and his forces had little bargaining pieces to throw-in at peace talks -Not that they'd be allowed in such a convention anyway-approached the President of Seych.e.l.les, asking for asylum for he and his forces as well as high ranking positions for he and his generals.
It wasn't a pleasant conversation as far as I could tell from the face my father made when he retold the events to me.
The President of Seych.e.l.les, Comoros and Madagascar arrived on neutral grounds; Namibia, to settle peace talks. Comoros walked away with an agreeable peace deal and Seych.e.l.les came back, unsatisfied and unfulfilled. The war went on with peace talks set for another date.
It leaked. It leaked that the President of Seych.e.l.les had promised to hand over my father and his cohorts to Malagasy officials.
"Attempting to betray me was the biggest mistake of his life." I imitated my father's gruffly voice and stern expression in the mirror
Father staged a coup. He and his men calling themselves citizens of Seych.e.l.les and getting actual citizens and government officials of Seych.e.l.les into their coup for good measure, usurped the President, killing him and his entire cabinet as well as half of the National a.s.sembly. The remainder handed over the country to him.
On the war front, secret orders were transmitted to his army, to eliminate or initiate Seych.e.l.lois military.
Hearing that their Government had been absolved broke their will. Many were initiated.
For the next peace talks, Father was present. And it was there that the world knew for the first time that the Seych.e.l.lois Government had been usurped. There were many legality concerns but they were quickly settled. You can't be President of a country you aren't a citizen of? Well, I've got legal doc.u.ments saying I can.
Father, temporarily handing over command to one of his generals supported his Malagasy rebellion as President of Seych.e.l.les until a referendum was held to determine whether the people of Northern Madagascar would gain their independence from Madagascar and form their republic.
The motion pa.s.sed with 87.3% of the population voting for. Of course, this result was manipulated. Following the independence of the Northern Malagasy people by fathers Malagasy Peoples Movement (MPM) the country's President, Luciano who was the general put in charge of the movement, quickly accepted Seych.e.l.les' offer for diplomatic annexation.
Father became a Dictator. But strangely, not an incompetent one.
I stepped out of the bathroom, scrubbing my hair dry with a towel and swiftly putting on my clothes. A corporate look, black trousers, a white s.h.i.+rt with an expensive watch and a black slim tie.
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I pocket my wallet and grab my phone from where it charged overnight/over reincarnation before stepping out.
And as I expected, "Master, I bring dire news." A man, middle-aged, hat in hand and a distressed look on his face was waiting for me downstairs.
I held onto the rails and went on with the script as I had all those years ago, "What is the problem, sir?"
He visibly gulped, his eyes shuffling around looking for the right words to express the terrible new, "Master, the council brings terrible news, your parents are dead. Schelar is without a leader."