Another Timeline Without You

Chapter 1

1

Penny had to go through it again. Another round of pain and suffering. She's had enough at this point, but what can she do? She's only been living her life like everyone told her to...Like what Von told her to do...And suddenly, just like that, she's in the past again, remembering her dear friend and first love, Von.

It's been a couple lifetimes since she last saw him, and she spent half of them looking for him, the other half, thinking of him. But in every single one, she hopes to see him there. She hopes to see his short and fluffy brown hair, his warm and inviting smile, his old-fashioned stylization of clothing...him...

You might think that at this point, she should have already moved on, but knowing the feeling of being with someone like Von, someone that you trusted your entire being with, someone you trusted your soul with, how could she?

Tell me, how many human beings do you trust your life with? Certainly not a lot, and that was the case with Penny. In most of her lifetimes, she trusted no one, but of course, there were exceptions, like Peppalyn, or Lyn for short. She showed up in Penny's third lifetime, as one of Penny's third-grade classmates.

And unlike Von, Lyn kept showing up in the other lifetimes, though Pep's constant reappearance only made Penny hurt more at the thought of not seeing Von again. Where is he? She kept asking herself. Why is he not showing up anymore? When am I going to see him again?

Besides the fact that he was her lover, Von was Penny's best friend. Her shoulder to cry on. The apple of her eye. The missing piece to her puzzle. The chorus to her song. The ending note of an orchestral masterpiece. So every time she would think of him, which was always, she would break down and burst into tears. And every memory she remembered, struck a knife in her heart, just like the stories in the true-crime documentaries she'd watch every so often.

Though unlike the people in the documentaries, if she were to die a gruesome death, she'd just be reborn into another life, remembering the way she had passed in the last one. Traumatized for as long as she can remember.

On the topic of death, how many times has she been reborn? How many lifetimes has she lived? How many timelines did she witness? The short answer: a lot.

The long answer? Well, more than she could count and remember. To the point that she's overwhelmed by the amount of memories stuck in one mind, If Von were here, I wouldn't be having this problem, she thought. And she'd be right. She'd be too busy talking to Von that all her thoughts and logical brain cells would be focused on him and him alone.

If Penny were to tell people of her experience and past lives, they'd think she'd gone crazy, yet we're not too sure if she already is.

You always seem to be out of your mind or something, Lyn would tease, yet Penny, being Penny, ignores the 'stupid' comments. How long could Penny keep this up? How long can she go on without Von by her side?

But before she died in her first life, Von had said something that would stay glued to the back of Penny's mind:

Penny, my love, I must tell you something, but I can't tell you now...Not in this life...Please wait for me, my love...And I will be patient for you as well...

Those words stuck with Penny as a hopeful reminder for the first few lives she had gone through, but would later on become words of deceit, a 'lie' that Von came up with so she doesn't feel sad when she passes. But the love she felt for him was far greater than any hatred she'd ever known.