The Limbus

Ch. 9- Mirror Image

After a few minutes of flying, their silhouette is almost directly below me. As I start to fly lower I can hear them calling out to someone, calling out to anyone. They sound terrified, maybe they know what's happening. Or it's just like everyone thinks when they first get here, "Where did everyone go?" It's not a good feeling. Perhaps I can make them feel better. I pull in my wings, and start to scream at the top of my lungs, acting like I'm falling from the sky. They hear me, and look up. I can faintly make out them yelling "Oh my god!" as they run towards me with their arms outstretched trying to catch me! What're they doing! I don't want to break character, but I guess this will be a good way to break the ice with them. "Hey! You caught me! Guess what, I'm not dead! Yaaaaay!" From their voice and the fact that I'm increasingly getting closer to them, I can make out that Riley is a girl, but not a smart one at that.

She's running really fast, and it looks like she might be able to make it to me before I impact. I see her dive, but something else happens. It wasn't a dive. It was a launch! Wings fly out from her as she soars up to me, trying to "save" me. Yet before she does, knowing I don't have to hide it anymore, I pull out my wings too. She sees them, but not before we collide mid-air. Her face scrunches up against mine, our lips touching and our bodies are pressed tightly together. We're just floating in each others arms, awkwardly close for strangers. She pulls away, but her arms are still wrapped around my body. Now that I have a close look at her, she almost looks my age, if not a little older. I'm still taller than her, which I know because our feet are the same level at the moment. Her hair is farther down than her elbows, but it's not wide, just long. Almost silky. I wanna feel it, but that's just weird.

"Oh, so you have wings. And we just kissed basically. Umm, this is awkward." She pulls away from me slowly, looking downwards. Her face is red.

"Ya, you have wings too. I didn't know that. I was... uh... going to try and help you." I don't know what else to say or think. We just met and I already want to leave.

"No, I've... I've already got the wings to get out. And, uh, how is falling from the sky supposed to make me be fine with death?" She looks back up to me. I have no answer for it, I just thought it was going to be funny.

"Oh, that. It was meant to be a joke. I try to have fun here, you know, before I leave." She just looks at me funnily. Maybe she doesn't understand what I've been doing. Yet, how did she know everything on how to get out of here? I'll ask her later. "Here, can we get to the ground?"

"Oh ya, sure." She pulls her wings in, letting herself plummet towards the earth. As I do the same only one thing is on my mind. I PRACTICALLY KISSED HER!

"So, how long have you been here for?" She looks at me once we reach ground level. Now that it's solid, I can tell for sure I am a few inches taller than her so I was right on that, but why my mind was focused on that I don't know.

"Oh, um," I look at my wrist, taking what seemed forever to do simple math, being I was on the spot. "Around 12 hours. I could have left nearly 8 or so hours ago however. But people keep popping in and I've been helping them out."

"Why did you look at your wrist?" She walks over to me. "You gotta watch? I thought it freezes when we get here? She looks at my watch and reads the time of 7:17. I pull my hand away, and she seems offended by the action.

"No, the other side." I flip my arm over, revealing the shadow marks. Her eyebrows fly up, eyes widening. She extends her hands slowly and grabs my arm again. She feels where they are, but no bumps are present. It's basically a part of my skin, or my soul body. Whatever this would be called.

"Where did you get that, and is that me?" She points to her name. "And who are these people?" She moves her hand to the other names. "And is that you, the name on top with the 12 hours left? You're name is Alex?"