Twice in a lifetime: Book 2

The void watcher

Joy was unconscious in a bed in the nursing station, as she had been all weekend. Yin had been watching over her the whole time. Still asleep, Joy's smile suddenly turned to a frown, and tears started to roll down her cheek. Slowly, Joy awoke and opened her eyes. She was alone.

Yin opened her eyes and looked around. Darkness everywhere she turned. She knew there was stuff there, she just couldn't make anything out.

"Hello brother." She heard a muffled voice echo out. "Or should I say, sister? As you are still in that form."

"Wh-who are you, where am I?" Yin blurted out fearfully."

"Have you really forgotten everything?" The voice asked. "You haven't even spent seven years in that world, nowhere near the twenty we spent together, on top of the ten before you died, and the five after that. I know you like to get into the minds of your roles but damn." Nothing she was hearing was making sense to her.

"Y-you shouldn't swear." She stuttered. "I-it's not nice!"

"ha ha ha, Now you're starting to sound like my brother!" The voice boomed.

"Listen!" Yin said, clutching her chest. "I-I am Yin Liu, little sister to Joy Liu, and I don't know you!"' Upon hearing this the voice started laughing even louder, and it slowly got closer, until Yin could make out a person. The boy stood a foot taller than Yin and wore all spiked armor. He stopped laughing and removed his helmet. His eyes looked like Yin's, only mirrored. He had the same hair style and color that Yin and Joy had. He cocked his head sideways and gave a smile like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"What? This ain't bringing back any memories?" He said, tossing his helmet into the darkness behind him.

Ignoring his incorrect grammar, Yin asked "w-w-where have you taken me?" The boy sighed.

"I guess that's as good of a place to start as any." He walked to his left, and two comfortable looking chairs appeared, facing each other. "Come, sit." He said, and Yin did so. "So this place." The boy said. "Is what I like to call the Void. I can shape it to my liking." He stuck his hand out into the darkness, and two wine bottles flew towards him. A bottle of red, which he caught, and a bottle of white, which smashed onto the dark floor. "I tend to keep it empty, tho. It suits me. Anyway, when I died, I was cursed to watch over it for all eternity or something something." He uncorked the wine and started drinking the bottle, letting it slobber down his chin. "This is the area between universes or dimensions or whatever M.O.P. is calling it. You and I, brother." He pointed at Yin with the bottle as the wine poured out, the bottle seemingly never emptying. "Are from a universe less fortunate than the one you've invaded. We were told we attended a school for future superheroes. We were told we were the human embodiments of human Empathy and Apathy, and we were named as such. Really the U.S. government had us imprisoned either to keep us that way forever or to train us into future C.I.A.  assassins or whatever, I dunno I died before we ever found out, then I was brought 'ere." He started to seem both drunk and sober simultaneously. "This shapeshiften trickster took my place, that's how you neva' noticed." He started to suck on the wine bottle. "Yadda yadda ya sacrifice ya-self to stop a nuke and then a brought ya 'ere." His words slew together, making Yin pay closer attention so she could fully understand. "We just hung out for a bit, then you saw her, Joy. Of course her ****** name is Joy. And she was incapable of havin' any other emotion other than happiness. She was perfect, you said. Then ya just left me to become her 'long lost little sis'." He thrust his hands into the air to make air quotes, letting the wine bottle fly out of his hand. "Am I getting through?" He asked. "Let me show you something." He moved his hand as if opening up a window, and Yin could suddenly see Joy in her bed, awake and crying. "That's right, she can experience the full emotional spectrum now. That why I brought you here. Still wanna go back?"

"Yes!" Yin yelled, not caring about all the truth that had been laid out before her, only caring about her sister.

"Ok, but ya gotta tell er' everything, I wanna visit sometime. I do get one day off every two months. I guess it's more of a job than a curse, but the pay is immortality and there's no quittin' or gettin' fired. I guess I'll send ya back. Close ya eyes." Yin closed her eyes, and as she opened them, she was outside the nursing station. She walked inside, and Joy poorly tried to hide that she had been crying.

"Hey, sister." Yin said. "Let's talk."