Reincarnated As A Lion In Another World

Kael currently didn't know where he was, but he was aware that he was aware.

It was a strange feeling, knowing nothing exists except you, knowing that you exist. That was how Kael felt.

Was it dark, was it bright? He didn't know, he had lost his perception of color at some point.

Was he even seeing? It felt more like he was closing his eyes, but he also felt like he was seeing something.

He didn't try to talk because he had nothing to say to himself or to anybody. His mind was blank, he knew it was blank, and he existed in this state for an unknown period of time.

How long exactly didn't matter that much, it could have been a second, I could have also been one thousand years, Kael had no way of knowing.

So Kael remained there, existing as nothing, he had no identity to himself.

And then, it began to come back.

His first memory, the first time he ever truly gained self-awareness, returned to him. He was back on Earth and he had been close to four years old then.

His parents were still alive and together, life was good.

He had just been staring at the television, watching an animated show made for kids his children his age.

It was at that very instant that his brain seemed to fully activate, his pupils shrank and expanded before returning to their original sizes.

He sat there, on the couch, confused, his brain starting to process things differently.

Yet, overall, nothing seemed to change, everyone just assumed he was growing smarter.

This was how it was for most…

But that was just the first memory, many more were to come. The memories unfolded before Kael like a movie.

A replay of his life, a last-ditch effort in his subconscious to restore his true identity.

He relieved his life again…surprisingly fast. It was like a summary, but a very detailed summary.

His mind lingered on the key moments of his life, those moments that marked him for life and defined who he was.

Those days when he stayed alone at home, having no one to talk to but himself. He remembered catching a little lizard in the backyard of his house and dissecting it purely out of curiosity.

How could such a small thing move, he would wonder to himself as he used a blunt stick to tear the abdomen open.

He was a child, how could he comprehend the pain he was causing to another living being?

That was before he even started having any real friends.

When he finally got to attend school with children who were developing their brains just like him, he began to interact with them.

So what happened? What made him become reclusive and antisocial? What causes him to become such a less-than-average person?

"That's a weird thing, Kael," One of his classmates had said after he discussed his interest in the biology of that certain lizard.

That was just where it started, a lot of Kael's ideas and interests as a child had been shunned by friends, teachers, and even his parents.

His parents had been so focused on themselves that they only allowed Kael to entertain ideas that did not involve a lot of questions.

"Where do babies come from?"

"What do you do for a living?"

"What happens when we die?"

Why is the sky blue?"

Many questions that Kael wanted answers to. His parents didn't even lie, they just told him that he would understand when he got older.

If his teachers and classmates had shunned his interests because it wasn't in their place, intellectual capacity, or profession to answer those questions, it would have not affected Kael that much.

But even his parents pushed his questions to the side, something they shouldn't have done.

If they didn't postpone answering his questions, they just told him to ask his teachers.

They didn't even lie about it.

And it hurt badly, his brain naturally had to find a way to prevent Kael from ever experiencing this…social stigma.

And so Kael kept to himself, he kept his ideas to himself, he kept his questions to himself.

What else could he do but keep it to himself, no one wanted to hear him out, they would criticize him if he did.

What was the point of speaking out then?

He grew up that way, the only thing he learned to speak about were the things society told him to speak of. He learned to adhere to the rules of society and keep every other thing to himself.

He finished school, average. He finished college, average. He got his first job, average.

All through, all he had to keep his mind active was his comic books and light novels. His consumption of these things led to him having a habit of procrastinating.

Many things he wanted to do, some of which he got inspiration from in his comics and light novels, were pushed to later dates.

At the end of his teenage years, Kael had already spent a lot of his time chasing after one form of entertainment after the other.

Find entertainment, consume, procrastinate, finish consuming, feel bored, find more entertainment, repeat.

The cycle was unending, and the results were apparent.

All his ambition faded away until there was none left.

A life of unique mediocrity.

Among the things he learned from society was the misguided idea of what women want.

Kael relieved his memories of when he found his first 'true love'.

Instead of him having been focused on his career, he had spent so much time trying to please her.

He was a nice guy, he was loyal, and he made sure to provide for her emotionally and financially with whatever he was being paid.

Every week, he was looking for something to impress her with, looking for what would make her laugh, looking for what would make her feel pleased with him.

She filled a hole in his heart, a hole caused by the subtle trauma of parental neglect. She gave him that validation, that attention, that love.

He was ready to do everything for her.

And he did.

He married her, bedded her, and had a son with her.

But who would have known that even men get bored?

Kael was too comfortable with the position he was in life, he was too comfortable with his job, he was too comfortable with not making any progress.

Both of them could see their peers moving farther in terms of success, yet, Kael was barely trying. He was busily simping.

Still, his wife was willing to endure, at least, they were not suffering and Kael was providing for her and the child.

That was until Kael was caught in a mass layoff at the company he worked at.

His wife left him the next month with their son. There wasn't much to divide during the divorce process but she still took what she could from him.

Kael could have never imagined that someone who loved him so much would do something so hurtful to him.

He was hurt, and this time, his brain did not have any countermeasures to deal with this trauma.

So Kael did not learn his lesson fast enough.

After all, society had told him how to think of women and not how women think of men.

A lot could have been avoided, but it wasn't.

When he was at his lowest, he met a lady who offered to split rent with him if he could allow her to stay.

Kael felt that he could squeeze his savings to make it work.

Kael, desperate at that time, allowed her into his home, and later on, into his fragile heart.

As expected, after she had extracted the value she wanted from Kael in the form of accommodation, she dumped him.

As soon as she found a rich man who was attracted to her, she left immediately.

Kael even suspected that his second lover had been pregnant before she left him but he didn't press it.

It was at this time that the company he had been laid off from called him and a few others back for their competency.

But even when his first true love heard of this, she did not return, she had found herself a better man, a man with a vision, a man who was not likely to lose his source of income.

Who could blame her, survival came before love for most women, that was just how things were.

Just because she was with you from the beginning doesn't mean she'll stay till the end.

That's what he got from it, unfortunately, it was too late to start again.

Thankfully, he learned his lesson. Alas, he was in his mid-thirties when he started getting some sense of his own self again.

Nothing changed, he lived an ordinary life, work, come back home, entertainment, sleep, repeat.

It was a mundane life, but at least, he was satisfied.

No, he wasn't.

He knew that he had failed, he had failed miserably, he had let people walk all over him, he had let the world define who he was supposed to be, and he had let society teach him how to think.

He was mediocre, he knew he was capable of so much more, and this fact disgusted him till the day he died.

Then, Kael opened his eyes.