I Don't Care About Your Stupid Space Plants

Five

Not someone that looked like her, it was actually her. Same hair, same skinny, yet slightly muscular build, same sharp nose and rounded cheeks.

Her heart pounding, Maddie was frozen in place. How was this possible? What the fuck was going on? Her hands and knees were shaking like crazy, but once the other Maddie had turned and went back toward the hallway, she crept around the corner of the corner of the fridge and looked down there, watching herself walk from behind. The girl's stride was even the same as Maddie's. Same long steps and bouncy walk that she always got bullied for. The other Maddie went halfway down the hall before turning to her left and sliding the door open, going back into the room she originally came out of. Once the door was shut, she stepped back over to the table and read the new note, which was written on the back of the first one.

"i want to meet you too but im really scared. im warning you, this is going to be really fucking weird but i promise i can explain. just stay at this table and give me a few minutes to calm down and ill be there in a lil bit. im really sorry"

"Really fucking weird" doesn't begin to scratch the surface of what was going on here. Doing what the note told her, she sat down at the table in the same seat as earlier, and waited. After what felt like half an hour, the door down the hallway opened and the orange glow filled the area around it. Other Maddie carefully looked out the door and down into the kitchen, seeming very reluctant to come out. Now Maddie can understand why the girl was so scared earlier; she was about to meet herself. Other Maddie started moving again, slowly making her way down the hallway, while regular Maddie felt extremely awkward. She didn't want to just stare at her, so she forced herself to grab the pen on the table and roll it around in her fingers, looking down at it instead, until she approached.

Once other Maddie got to the doorway, she stopped and stared at regular Maddie as if she were seeing a ghost. Very quietly and nervously, she said "hey," and regular Maddie responded the exact same way, with the exact same voice. HER voice, that this other girl also has. Still talking quietly, other Maddie said "so, uh...we have a lot to talk about, I guess." She could hear slight shaking in her voice. She was terrified.

Regular Maddie tried her best to force a smile so she wouldn't scare the other her. "You could say that, yeah."

Other Maddie motioned to the table and said "mind if I sit with you, or would that be too weird?"

Unsure of how else to respond, regular Maddie took a deep breath and sighed lightly, struggling to keep her heart rate down. "This is already weird as fuck, so..."

She chuckled nervously and walked to the other side of the table as Maddie, setting the lantern on it as she sat across from herself. "Um, I'm not really sure where to start, so I guess, like...how are you doing?" Now that she's close enough, Maddie could see that this other version of her was slightly more skinny than she was. Maybe more muscular, too? It was a little hard to tell.

Maddie shook her head, unable to stop staring at her. "I, uh...I'm okay, I think...little freaked out, obviously."

There was a long silence between the two of them, before other Maddie broke it. With a soft voice, she said "so, what do you want to know first, I guess?"

Maddie took another deep breath, unsure what to even ask her. With the hundreds of questions she had, where the fuck would she begin? She thought of the biggest question she wanted to know, and went with it. "What happened to the ship? It looks abandoned or something."

Other Maddie rolled her eyes and laughed a little. "Of course, the first thing you ask me is something I can't answer."

Maddie furrowed her eyebrows and crossed her arms. "What do you mean you can't answer? Is it some kind of secret?"