Afterglow

Part 3

It was funny how this sixteen-year old boy could drop bomb of a secret and blow your mind. Like, really blow your mind...as if a real bomb was dropped. He got something explosive there, didn't he? I was sure as hell that I did not let a word slip through my lips in response for who knew how long, I was just there - just staring straight into his leaf green eyes, waiting for him to say something. He met my eyes too, and he gave me a look that showed me just how bad he felt for himself.

The air inside the train was nippy, slowly clawing invisibly on our faces, but none of us showed that we were affected by the coldness of the evening. I forgot the thoughts running circles inside my head – the rise of the opposition, the burning Town Center, the growing number of casualties in the capital, the soldiers beaten down by o'-two, and the people I left in the flower shop. They were all forgotten, swept away like some dirt on a windshield. The pretty light show from the distance–the city lights plus the blazing skyscrapers–was, nonetheless, set aside when I originally planned to stare at them all night until sun up. Well, it was because Yuu caught me off guard there.

Actually, a part of me wondered if he would still say he was from the future if I never asked a question right the moment we boarded the train, and if we never went down that topic. If I had recognized the wistful tone he had when he talked about his lost parents earlier, I could have known that this talk was a no-go.

Nevertheless, it excited me to find someone who was much of a science enthusiast to throw off a proof for a theory nobody had ever proven true for a whole century. And it was one, hard evidence at that–his existence.

I read a thing or two about time traveling and the multiverse theories, all of them remainedtheoretical until today. Two centuries had passed, beginning from the genius who invented the bomb until the tyrant who heightened the defense forces of my land, and yet time traveling was proved untrue. Why so? It was simply because of the acclaimed fact that only weightless things could travel at the speed of light. And if an object could travel at such speed, that would open a possibility to travel through dimensions and cut through the fourth dimension – the time.Nevertheless, humans could never be weightless, it was a common knowledge, because only electromagnetic waves could do that. Even atoms got a freaking atomic weight – heck, this wasn't making sense for me anymore. I should have not missed that scientific documentary last week just to sell a bouquet of roses to some romantico. Back to weightlessness – yeah, if this theory was held true, then by what means did Yuu get in this year?

After what seemed to be a lifetime of silence from me, initially not reacting to the blond boy's big revelation, I cleared my throat and looked away from those eyes. The longer I looked at those glistening orbs, the more I pity this boy. The more I would think that he was doing his best to stop the tears threatening to fall, and the more I would think less rational. I already said that I believed all of his words; my entire brain and all of my body systems compelled me to trust his words. I wouldn't take it back. His body language never lied to me, after all when people couldn't lie without words.

I gazed back at the ink-black sky and the glowing dots up there. Averting my eyes on the houses whose windows were still lit until this hour, I carefully traced constellations and named as many as I could. All I could hear was the rattling railroad and the combustion of the engine and the burst of ebony steam from the boiler. The train was heading quickly away from the cities and towns next to Ardio since everything seemed to grow smaller and smaller.

"You think I'm mad, don't you?" Yuu broke the silence first, unlocking the window latches with a click. Without a second thought, he pushed up the pane and the wind slapped our faces with no mercy. For a moment, I was deafened by the harsh wind. It also stung, it felt so sharp and icy. I couldn't even open my eyes against the wind, so I hastened to pull down the pane.