Warm Bodies: Awakening

Seeing Double

R was dreaming. At least, he was pretty sure this was a dream. Wasn't like the last one though, as he'd hoped it would be. No sunshine, no orchard, no living munching happily at apples as they talked about the future. No Julie.

It was grey, dusk, he was outside, at the foot of the metal stairs he knew so well, leading up to the crew entrance of his 747. The metal railing was cold and rough with rust under his hand, and he stood there for a moment, curious.

What if everything else had been a dream, and this was reality? The thought was unsettling, and he tried not to dwell on it, determined not to after everything he'd been through.

But each step he took was with the same awkward lurch he'd always had, back when he'd been truly dead, and the unsettling thought gained some ground. His stomach sank.

So he was dreaming. His stomach had never done much of anything when he was a zombie, certainly no sinking. That was good. Relaxed now, he completed his corpse-slow ascent and opened the door, taking staggered steps around it to enter the plane.

He stopped.

This wasn't his plane. Gone were the seats, all of his records, all of his possessions. He was standing in a featureless room with three bunk beds lined up against windowless walls. There was a door to his left and a row of lockers against the right wall.

Sitting in one of the lower beds, staring back at him, was... himself.

R was dumbfounded.

It was himself completely and utterly alive. No shadowed, sunken eye sockets, no grey, veined skin. His unmarred face looked up at him, flush with health, appraising him with thoughtful azure eyes.

"God, I look like shit," his double said after a moment, tilting his head to the side. He pushed himself up off the bed and walked towards R.

R had no idea what was happening, and backed away involuntarily, overwhelmed by the approach of this vibrant living version of himself. It reminded him of when he'd looked in the mirror, after the girls were done with him and he'd stared at himself, amazed. Only, this reflection didn't look like a caricature of life, and moved eerily without his command. In front of this perfect version, he suddenly felt thin, hollow, more like a transparent shadow than anything that had a right to walk the earth. It was a horrible feeling.

His double frowned, and reached out to him, a consolatory gesture that made R shrink back further.

"Hey, it's okay," he said. "Sorry, that wasn't very cool of me, I just couldn't help it." He smirked and walked back to lean against the bunk. "I know this is weird for you. Weird for me too."

R's curiosity slowly overcame his fear, and he spoke in the hesitant, airless tones of the dead, "Why... is this..."

"Happening?" His other self finished. R was actually grateful, it was frustrating to speak like that again, after coming so far. He nodded.

"We're coming back to life," his double said with a smile. R was surprised that he'd said 'we', and found he liked that. Made him feel less.. hollow.

His alive self continued, "and I don't mean our body. That's already happened, though it's in rough shape right now."

R remembered being shot, and looked down at his chest, hand reaching instinctively to cover the wound again. No need, it wasn't there. Just the black slit where Julie's knife had hit him, and the old wound from Perry's rifle. He stared at his grey hand for a moment, then started when he realized his other self was standing directly in front of him.

He was looking down at R's chest with an odd smile. "Her aim is impressive. Doubt I could have done that. Probably would have stabbed myself in the foot."

That living, unmarred face became serious, "Hope we survive it. I'd hate to come this far and lose everything. Especially her."

R realized he was feeling what his double was saying, could almost feel himself forming the same words, moving the same way. It was so strange that he backed away again, but his twin reached out, quicker than R could track and clamped down on his arm. The touch was electric, and with it came waves of vivid, raw emotion - anger, fear, love, an overwhelming grief - R staggered under the assault.

His double's face was flickering, changing from life, to death, to life as the waves washed over him, and R felt himself flickering, hovering in some strange state of being both, and not. "This is important. What we're about to do. Are you... ready?" he asked himself.

"No," they both answered honestly, and the room and all thought evaporated in a blinding light.