All my life, I have been a burden to my family.
The reason? Because I'm a woman.
I was the first woman in our family after many generations of giving birth to only sons. My mother was happy to know that I became the first woman after so many sons and she rejoiced. But her emotions were crushed by the cruelty of our father and his relatives. They gave her and me a long cold stare and left disappointed.
My father gripped his confused wife tightly on the arms, making her wince, and grumbled at her. "We only have sons."
Though everyone was dissatisfied with my existence, they still kept me alive and with them.
I was always given remarks from here and there. Even mother was not spared, though if seen scientifically it was not her fault. The fault was with the father. But they only blamed her for all of this.
My father tried to get another child, but a son this time. But maybe god had some other plans. I would see my mother crying and sobbing because she couldn't get pregnant anymore. Even my father started to lose interest in her and just left us on our own.
We spent years in that house with our indifferent father until I turned 19 and saw something truly horrifying.
My mother and I were both kicked out of the house because our father had taken in a woman with a baby boy in her arms. He had an affair. He cheated on his own wife.
My mother cried and begged to be taken back, but it was to no avail. She took me to her parents' house. We stayed there until we got our own house with the money mother earned on her own. She said to never be a burden to anyone, even if it was their own parents.
We lived in our new home with difficulty until I found a job and helped alongside my mother.
I thought that our life had settled perfectly, but maybe it actually didn't.
One day when I was coming back from work quite late, I chose a shorter path to get home quickly. The path was narrow and dark and gloomy and it always gave me some chills. But nothing happened there until now so I thought it would be safe.
I was suddenly pulled by my arms, and a hand covered my mouth from screaming. In the dark, around me, I saw two men. They were smiling while breathing heavily.
That was the day I died after getting raped in a secluded alley.
I don't know, nor do I want to know, how devastated my mother would have felt to have lost her only family to two hungry beasts.
I don't know where I wandered, I just wanted to go to the afterlife and spend a peaceful time while waiting for my mother to join in. But instead, I opened my eyes to see a ceiling above me.
"Am I...alive?"
I got up and gasped for air. I cried as I touched my body, the one that was grasped horribly in the hands of those two men. Though I don't exactly remember how I lost my consciousness, I feel haunted just recalling their hands all over my body. I sobbed and wrapped myself, but the hands that came into sight were small and definitely not mine. I looked around immediately and found a large mirror kept right in the far corner of the bed that reflected my image. Well, not actually mine.
A young girl, around twelve, looks in the mirror with perplexity. Her dark blue hair flowed down and reached up to her shoulders.
I sprinted up from my place and left the bed. My feet touched the cold marble floor as I ran to the mirror. Brown eyes with tears in them stared back at me through the mirror.
I turn and look around the room, an unfamiliar one. I don't want to believe this. Did I reincarnate or something? Where?