Metempsychotic

Subconscious

Aile gave in to her hunger only ten minutes after trying to find Rush. Lucia offered all the sympathy she had for the girl.

"He'll turn up again later, he always does." Lucia offered. Aile gave a little nod as she lazily circled the inside of her bowl with her spoon. She had finished the curry not long before, and now she was questioning what idea possessed her to have the spicy food so early in the morning.

"Where would he go, though?" Aile questioned. "He's never gone this long..."

Lucia bit her lower lip a little in thought. As she was looking up, the baker saw that unpredictable red wolf-dog, and was ready to signal Aile before Lucia took notice of the boy accompanying the dog. It was at that moment Lucia thought that she had gone completely, and utterly insane.

"Lucia, do you have any boiled eggs left?" Aile asked, although the baker had completely tuned her out, focused on the boy with Rush. Aile picked up on this quickly, and turned herself around to look where Lucia was staring. What Aile saw was the back of the boy's head with Rush in front.

"Hey!" Aile shouted, jumping off of the stool to chase after them. "That's my dog you jerk!"

Both the boy and dog stopped. Rush took it upon himself to head back in the opposite direction toward Aile as if she had called him, and he was forever diligent. He leaped at her and proceeded to lick her face, completely blinding her from the boy as he walked over.

"I didn't know he was your dog." the boy said to her, sounding apologetic enough. "He was helping me with a mission of sorts, but now that I'm finished I was heading over to the transerver. He seems to have really missed you."

"It's not a big deal." Aile proclaimed as she tried to stand up. Rush kept jumping into her arms, obstructing her view of the boy at several points. "He does it a lot."

"I thought he looked like a trouble maker." the boy laughed, a laugh that Aile thought she recognized from a long time ago. Rush happened to squirm away enough for Aile to take note of the boy's shoes (they looked a lot like hers), his pants (they were the same color as hers, but longer), and just a tiny bit of his vest (which was not only the same color, but the same style too). "I nicknamed him Treble."

"Yeah," Aile agreed with a little laugh of her own, "Treble in trouble."

"It was nice meeting you." the boy then said to her as he turned away. "See you later Crea."

"See you soon Prea." Aile agreed as she headed back to Lucia's bakery. It didn't dawn on her until much later for what she had said to him.

. . .

Vent, however, had noticed all too quickly and was starting to question why.

'Only two beings have called you Prea,' Model X reminded him, 'Those facts alone do not make this something you need to take too seriously.'

"Maybe, maybe not." Vent agreed. "But it's very, very.... weird. Don't you think? When I first saw you, it was like I was being drawn in by something familiar -like an old memory- and with that girl... I didn't have to think about calling her that name. And when I think of it, she seemed kinda familiar too. I feel like I met both of you before a long, long time ago..."

"Vent, you're only 14, and I doubt that girl was much older. As for myself, I can assure you that I am much older than the both of you. How could you have known us when you're still so young?'

"I'm not that young." Vent defiantly declared. "We really need to get to the transerver- it's going to really suck if we end up failing a game of hide and seek."