As The World Ends

Chapter 2 - Names

I spent most of my life alone.

I was almost always surrounded by other people, sure, but I was still alone. I spent my  years looking forward. I always looked forward because there wasn't anything to look back to. I always looked forward because I wanted to rush through to the next time I could be alone, because I was tired. Tired of being controlled by people I didn't even know. I spent so long desperately trying to control my own life, but failing because I never had someone to help me fight back. Failing because I was alone.

I always had friends, people I could talk to, wave to in the corridors, sit with on lunch breaks, but my friends never knew me. Yeah, they knew my name, my favorite color, the place I want to live when I retire, but they never knew that my dad had died before I was born and my mom followed behind him a few years later. They never knew that I hated myself because I spent my time being shoved into boxes that didn't fit me, they never knew that my mom had spent her time alive pretending everything was fine.

So when I met someone new, someone intriguing, someone who made my heart flutter and feel things I'd never felt before, I was bound to do something stupid. The question was when.

******

I was sitting at my desk reading a book when a soft knock on my door distracted me. I slid a piece of paper between the pages to hold my place and softly shut the novel. Standing, I crossed the small room and pulled open the door, raising an eyebrow at the person standing in front of me. "Hey, what's up?"

"Do you wanna go to the bookstore in the next town over? I heard from a guard they got restocked."

I don't know why I agreed, but I did. "Sure."

I stepped into the hallway with them and pulled the door closed, locking it. We started walking, the silence filled with them providing tidbits of conversation. As we reach the end of the hallway, they offered me their hand. I studied them and hesitated for a moment before taking it. We were both quiet as we walked down the hallway. "You know," they started, "you never told me what to call you." I shrugged, "you haven't either." They considered that for a moment.

"Jasmine."

"Alex."

"Alex," they repeated quietly, "okay."

When we reached the gate, I scanned my ID, signed Jasmine out as a guest, and left the compound.

We were quiet for a while, but there were questions gnawing away at me. Questions that needed answers.

"Jay let you leave?"

Jasmine seemed momentarily startled, as if I shocked them out of a daze, but they recovered quickly. 

"Yeah. Something about me not being a prisoner and him trusting you to trust me. I didn't really pay attention."

My lips twitched into a smile. Jay was as cracked, stern, and unforgiving as a military drill sergeant, but he trusted a complete stranger to freely roam and leave the a very secret and sparely guarded base. Maybe it was because they were with me. Putting that out of mind, I asked my next question.

"Feel free to slap me if this is a bad thing to ask, but, uh, what are your pronouns?" I shifted awkwardly as they burst out laughing. "Well Alex, that is, in fact, not a bad question, and to answer it, I'm a gender bender and my pronouns change pretty much daily, but I won't bite if you use the wrong ones on the wrong day." They snickered. "What about you? What pretty little pronouns does a very fine person like yourself use?" Jasmine quirked an eyebrow as I went slightly red. 

"I don't really care." 

They nodded, "That's the spirit. Grammatical freedom."

A laugh burst out of my chest. A genuine laugh. It scared me so much that my mouth snapped shut and I froze. Jasmine stared at me. 

"Are you okay?"

No, but I didn't say that. "Yep. Sorry."

They started walking again when they realized that I wasn't going to say anything else.

I unfroze and lengthened my stride to catch up. I didn't know how they knew the way, and when I asked, a shrug and a mumbled "the guards" was all I got.

I disassociated until Jasmine shook my shoulder. 

"Alex, come on, we're here."

I nodded quickly, and followed them inside a building labeled "Benny's Books".