The In-Between

Chapter 1

 "Oh my god! What happened?"

A woman asks as she enters the area of the spectators. Several people briefly look at her as she comes to stand near them. An older gentleman responds quickly.

"The car came out of nowhere and just slammed into them."

"Ran the red light. I've never seen anything like it." A young woman added in a lower tone.

John side stepped away from the middle of the group. He had heard them repeating the same information for several minutes and had heard enough. Getting a better angle on the wreckage across the street, he could make his own assumptions about what happened. It honestly didn't take much to figure it out.

The car didn't notice the red light, didn't slow down, drove right into opposite traffic. Hit one car that hit another car in the next lane, and they all crashed into a gas station sign. Now the authorities were all over the place, controlling the single lane still accessible to cars, putting out the fire from the crashed vehicles, and closing off the whole gas station in case it blows up.

Car accidents happen all of the time. Way too much, John thought. But this one definitely has my attention. By the looks of it, there's no way any of them survived. Life cut too short. This is exactly the type of tragedies we keep a lookout for.

John scratches his chin absently. The fire is finally out and the authorities are trying to pry the car doors open. Seeing if anyone survived. There are more gasps and murmurs from the spectators. They are definitely getting their entertainment's worth, he thought as he gazed over them. I doubt they will take away the true lesson from this, though. He chuckles to himself as he turns away from the crowded street corner. The whole damn place is getting way too noisy with impatient drivers honking. Some people just don't care.

John walks down the sidewalk. He looks ahead of his surroundings, looking for the right place to hide. After two blocks he sees an empty bus stop with a bench. As he nears it, he peers around him, making sure there is no one close by who could see him. There's no one.

He gets to the bench and sits by the pole holding up the sun shade. A quick adjustment of his clothing and he leans against the pole, getting as comfortable as one can get in this situation. He closes his eyes and takes two long, deep breaths.

——

Everything around him suddenly becomes quiet. No more city noise. No more distant car horns. No birds chirping.

He opens his eyes to reveal a grey translucent version of the world he was just in a minute ago. The pole he is leaning on, the trees, the street, the buildings and sky; everything! It all has a light shade of grey and a translucence on the surface that makes it seem like it isn't there at all. John is the anomaly to this. He still wears the full spectrum of colors. The bench is an opaque grey, but as soon as he stands up, the translucence returned to the object.

Everything is very still. There is no echo. There is no breeze. There are no clouds in the sky. The temperature is comfortable. It is hard to focus on anything substantial in this world but there is still the awareness that everything is there. This place is like being in a dream. They call it the in-between.

John stretches his arms and lets the corner of his mouth curve up slightly. This is where he belongs.

Not bothering to look back, he makes the walk back to the intersection he was at. Back to the scene of the accident. As he walks, his footsteps make a sound, but its distant, almost as if it shouldn't exist. An opaque footprint is left behind with each step that quickly fades back to translucence.

He arrives at the corner of the street. Where the group of spectators all stood, now it is absent. If you focus enough, you could see the area had blurry figures, but only if you were really paying attention. His attention was focused on the other side of the street however. He didn't stop to look for traffic and walked into the street and over to the gas station. There were no cars. No activity.