Beyond This Life

Beyond This Life (Pt 3)

I stared at my reflection in the small rectangular mirror. After only one glance, I already missed the big snake mirror at that other place. This mirror, the one I came home to everyday, now felt abnormal.
I touched my shower head. It was spotty, and I didn't get that same "running water" feeling. I felt nothing but a shower head. I left the bathroom, walked across the floors slowly, memorized every feeling I got as the carpet brushed my feet.

Warmth, just plain warm. I wondered what the titles at that other place felt like. I walked by my dresser when I entered my room. Weirdly enough, it was similar to the one at that other place. The texture of this dresser, my dresser, was rough. It was most likely caked with old food remnants. Not as elegant as the other one, but very similar.

I sighed, pulling my shirt over my head and throwing it somewhere. I climbed into my twin bed that sat in the dead center of my bedroom. Felt odd to not have a solid thing to press my back to, though my bed never felt that way before. I blew out a puff of air. I lay in my bed for many minutes until finally I fell asleep.

Except it didn't last long. The bed shifted just a little bit and I felt it.

"Beau," I said, knowing it was him but opening my eyes anyway.

His eyes glowed as he whispered, "Cherina." He took a lock of my hair in his fingers, raised it to his nose. "I've missed you, Cherina."

I blinked at him. His position was a mirror image of mine, both of us lying in a fetal position.

"Why are you here, Beau?" I asked.

"Waiting for you to remember so I can wake you up completely."

"I'm already awake."

"Not really."

We lay in silence for a moment, an hour, the whole night maybe.

"Why did you kill that man at my school? Why were you even there?"

He didn't say anything for a long time. I thought maybe he wouldn't answer when "I was watching you. Protecting you. From the Ghuard, a soul thief."

"Why? Who am I to you?"

He smiled, and this time I looked away. He'd had a point back there, his smiles wouldn't make me his Mistress, whoever she was. And now his smiles were just sad.

"You are my mistress, Cherina, and leader of the Troop. You were a great strategist, wise beyond your years. In your passed lives---you did have a thing for the Old Days---you were war leaders and in this life, you fought a much more important war. Against the humans. Many didn't know it, but with every passing moment, a human killed a Civilian. When you finally joined your people, you cut our deaths down by 30%. You were amazing. Strong despite your unimaginable frailty. You'd deny it all the time, but I knew even you could break like a China doll. My mistress was a treasure till the very end. When she traded her life for a better one. Less savage, she said. Less faking, she said. Less having to become something she wasn't meant to be. That's what she said. That's what you said, Cherish. You are my mistress, Cherina."

As he spoke, I saw all of what he said playing out in my mind. The vision of all those people cheering for me as we raised our swords, me before a large old table with points set up and various ways of attacking. I saw Beau grinning like I don't know what, picking me up and swinging me around as if I was nothing but a feather. And then I remembered sitting on a glass table. Beau's eyes were sad, on the brink of crying.

And then I woke up from my coma.

"Do you remember now, Mistress?"

I closed my eyes to keep from seeing his. "No. I don't."