David was eventually discharged from the hospital with his mother coddling him the entire way home, and he began to plan.
This didn't seem like reincarnation, but regression, he stayed silent in the taxi as it took him lazily through London's streets, streets he had once played in as an adolescent, streets he once worked in as an adult.
His mother, Mary, he had heard one of the nurses address her by name, unless he had ended up in a parallel universe, this name was his mother's from his previous life, her face resembled his mother's 1 for 1 from his previous life.
As he approached extremely familiar roads, he knew where he lived, he hadn't lived here for decades, his mother slowly walked him up the grey polished concrete steps of a South East London council estate which he would call home for the foreseeable future.
He had regressed.
Yet, his circumstances remained the same.
Lower income family.
Single Mother.
And a dream he wanted to realise no matter what.
David didn't waste time.
At first, there was very little he could actually do. His body simply wasn't capable, and that frustrated him more than anything else. He was aware enough to understand movement, to recognise inefficiency, but not developed enough to act on it properly. His early months were spent in what felt like forced inactivity, limited to small kicks, weak arm movements, and brief attempts to shift his body.
Even so, he paid attention.
Whenever his legs moved, he focused on the motion. He tried to extend them instead of letting them twitch randomly, pushing slightly harder each time. His arms followed a similar pattern, pressing against whatever surface he was on, even if it didn't lead to meaningful movement. It wasn't structured training, but it wasn't random either. There was intent behind it.
As the months passed, that intent began to show in small ways. When he learned to roll, it didn't remain an accident for long. The first time it happened caught him off guard, but he quickly began to recreate the movement, breaking it down without fully realising he was doing so. A slight twist of the torso, a push from the legs, a shift in balance. It took effort, but once he understood it, he repeated it until it became consistent.
Crawling came next, and with it, the first real sense of progression. At first it was inefficient, his limbs failing to coordinate properly, his movements uneven and tiring. But he approached it the same way he had approached everything else so far. He focused on the push, the placement of his hands, the timing of his knees. Over time, it smoothed out. Not dramatically, and not in a way anyone else would notice, but enough for him to feel the difference.
By the time he was one, he could move across the room reliably. It wasn't fast, and it wasn't impressive, but it was controlled. That mattered more.
Standing was a turning point.
The first time he pulled himself up using the edge of the sofa, his legs shook under the weight. His grip was weak, his balance unstable, and he collapsed almost immediately. But the attempt told him something important. His legs weren't strong enough yet.
So he started working on them.
Whenever he found himself holding onto furniture, he began lowering himself slightly before pushing back up. At first the movement was shallow, almost unintentional, but over time it became deliberate. He would hold onto the sofa, bend his knees as much as he could manage, then push back up again. It resembled a squat in its simplest form.
There was no guarantee it would help, but it made sense to him. If strength was what he lacked, then strength was what he needed to build.
By the time he was two, walking had become possible. It started unsteadily, with short, careful steps and frequent falls, but he improved quickly. Each attempt was another chance to adjust. He learned how to position his feet more evenly, how to control his balance, how to recover when he leaned too far in one direction.
Walking became something he practiced rather than something he simply did. He moved around the flat more than necessary, repeating the motion over and over, not for exploration but for familiarity. The squatting continued alongside it, gradually becoming deeper as his strength improved.
Running began to emerge around three.
At first it was nothing more than faster steps, his body leaning forward slightly as he tried to increase his speed. It was messy, uncontrolled, and usually ended with him tripping over his own feet. But instead of forcing speed, he slowed himself down and focused on the movement itself. He shortened his steps, tried to maintain balance, and let the pace increase naturally over time.
Jumping followed soon after, small and inconsistent at first. He barely left the ground, but he could feel the difference in how his legs worked. There was a clear connection between how hard he pushed into the ground and how much lift he got in return. It wasn't technical understanding, but it was something he could build on.
By the time he turned four, his movements had changed noticeably.
To anyone else, he was just another child running around the estate, moving between patches of concrete and open space, occasionally chasing nothing in particular. But his actions weren't random. When he ran, he paid attention. When he jumped, he noted how his body responded. Even something as simple as stopping and starting became something he repeated, trying to feel the difference each time.
The environment hadn't changed. The same buildings, the same paths, the same surroundings he had grown up in before. His circumstances were identical in almost every way.
But this time, he wasn't drifting through it.
He had already started.
By the age of four, David wasn't fast. He wasn't strong. He wasn't anything special yet.
But he was building towards something.
And unlike before, he wasn't waiting for the right moment to begin.