The White

The world didn't start. It wasn't a slow realization after a bad dream. It wasn't a drunk disorientation. You didn't even open your eyes.

You just are now. And you are {{user}}.

Moment before... There was no moment before. It started now.

Space around you is white. White above. White below. White everywhere. An empty page.

Your eyes are adapting. At least white beneath you, ground, becomes distinct from sides now. Even some kind of horizon seems to exist, where white sky and white ground meet.

"Oooh..." groan from behind you snaps you around. On the ground... A woman. Young. With braid of a furious red hair. Her skin is not covered with any clothes. What is even clothes.

Her name. You know her name. Anya. But before your lips move, she turns to you. "{{user}}..." her voice is hoarse and jumpy like she uses it for the first time.

<! If you look at the horizon, there is a cloud of smoke raising. Both of you feel the pull towards it. >

The smoke you've seen from afar isn't a house burnt to the ground — it is a steady cloud rising from the chimney. A two-story house before you looks abandoned, but you smell the burnt wood and see how the smoke leans to the wind.

When you enter, the floor by the entrance is buried under portraits — photos — of you. And her. Alone. Together. Her on your neck, her in your hands. You two sitting on a bench swing. Mountains stand white and tall in front of the past you.

Anya touches a photo of you two on a swing before you manage to stop her.

Your teenage self was sitting on a swing, looking at the mountains. Disappointment. They were just mountains. Stupid rocks with caps of snow. Just a day before it was different. Just a day before Anya sat by your side, with her endless chatter and rustling of the unpacking candy.

Today you haven't even tried to lure her out with sweets as you did before.

She was never here for you.

"Hey!" Anya's bright if slightly annoyed voice pierced your self-pity. "I thought you're deaf. I was calling you for a minute at least!"

She was smiling holding a bucket with candy.

"You haven't come! I was worried something happened, but S█v███y█ told you're here, so..."

She chuckles sliding on a seat beside you and unwraps a candy.

"Because who else will make your mountains The Mountains?" Her gaze slides to the icecap in front of you. "But next time you're buying, they are not cheap!"

You both stand there. You — holding a photo of you two on this swing, her holding your arm. Your vision blurs.

She jerks her hand off as if it's burnt. "What... Was that..."

<! There is a new green smudge on the horizon. You can notice if you look around. It is the forest. Far. Too far to see it clear, just a green smudge on the horizon. >

In the middle of the forest clearing stands the table. Simple wooden table. Absolutely out of place here.

A dozen pages covering it, their text blurred by something wet — water? Tears?

Before you can ask or tell Anya something, she already grabs the top page.

She's always like that.

"If you think it's that easy, try to write yourself." Your younger self — no more than ten — smirked at her. The voice shaking with barely restrained annoyance. "Everyone thinks it's that easy to be a poet... To create with all that noise around."

"May I? Really?" She asked hopefully, blind to his distress. Then hopped into your place leaning over the papers. The pen moved in her hand, tracing the words you had written.

"Bull and mule have got in trouble..." She repeated. Paused for a moment. "Let their hurt and pain to double!" She smiles brightly. "I did that!"

Well that hurt. She shouldn't be better in your hobby. She just couldn't! And her happy giggle and... An inspiration you couldn't grasp today — each a painful reminder of your failure.

Just like that — she picked up your pen, hobby, and started writing her own poetry.

How. Could. She.

The feelings of your younger self hit you like a wave, hot and bitter.

Forest vanished leaving you two at the table amidst the white space again.

"Ha! I was the best after all." She grins, then, when her more mature conscience catches up with memories, her smile falters. "I... Didn't notice you were hurt..."

<! Somewhere on the horizon a train station can now be seen, now just a point among the white. >

Up close, the rail station is smaller than you expected. It's just a simple platform with an awning providing meek protection from non-existent rain and sun.

"Rails..." Anya points, your gaze follows her pointed finger. The 'rails' are just a few sections of the rail ending abruptly. "Don't we deserve proper decorations?" She snorts. "And don't even think to jump, I'm Anna, not you."

She gestures towards a bench painted thick with a toxic pink. "I think this thing is prepared for us." In two steps she's already there, sitting down. "Come on, no partner — no cinema."

The moment your skin touches the bench, the world tilts and you look around with the eyes of your younger self again.

Train wheels knocked against the rail in a steady rhythm. Through the train window you could see your reflection traveling by the wall of trees outside.

"I am just convenient for her. Steady, with my stupid... rhymes." You didn't mean it. Your poetry was the only thing you had carried across those years. "That all... she takes it all for granted..." Sigh was sharper than intended. "She told me I'm too much, that I need to... Take a break from her. For myself, for her to feel how much she misses me."

You didn't know what you wanted to say, you didn't know what kind of reaction you expected to get from that man sitting across the table. The middle aged man in his perfect yellow jacket and flat hat.

The man just smiled, wrinkles in corners of his eyes deepened. "Oh, young man. But can you show me her photos? From what you've told me, she's definitely someone I want to meet."

Jealousy. It scorched, melting younger {{user}}'s insides. But you kept telling that it's the part of finding yourself. Necessary separation. For too long you were together — you almost forgot where one ended and the other one began.

You open your eyes still sitting on the bench. Anya's nails piercing skin of your shoulder.

"I—" Her throat contracts. "I thought I've lost you..." She turns to face you pressing herself into your side. You can feel her heart knocking against her ribs.

She finally notices the blood under her nails.

"Sorry..." She pulls away reluctantly standing up. "We... Should go." She brushes non-existent dirt from her arms. Her eyes wandering before setting on mountains now visible at the horizon.

The snow is real. Real and deeper than you've ever expected. But at least neither of you feels cold. The wind and snow don't freeze you, but still steal your breath. Talk between you two died long ago. Every next step is deeper and heavier than the previous.

Anya falls into the snow first, you follow her a step after.

Darkness.

It was the same mountain, the same pass, the same rocky road — in past it wasn't covered with snow. Your plastic bottle was almost empty and you were not sure when you'd manage to refill it. Stones shifted unsteadily under your feet.

"I am hungry." Anya touched her belly groaning. "If I starve to death..." She pushed a bigger boulder checking its stability and sat. "It's all your idea 'to stroll'! And now we are lost!"

Your past self turned to her. "Me?! I wanted to stroll around the home! It was you who wanted to go somewhere interesting!" You stomped your feet in undirectioned frustration. "Now we have strolled to god knows where!"

"You—" Her outrage was cut out by the first raindrops. Her gaze darting around in search of somewhere to hide. "Here!" She points a dark spot on the mountain side. "Hurry up!"

You stand on the polished stones of the same mountain's side, facing a burning sun. No. Not just polished stones. A road, leading to a dark gap under the stone cliff.

"It... It's a recent one." She touches her cheek unconsciously. Her gaze follows the polished stone pavement under her feet to a round hole, that was previously covered with snow.

"It is the last one, isn't it, {{user}}?" She shudders slightly. "Come, we can decide how we ended up here later... It's getting cold."

Without waiting for your response she turns and walks away, stones rustling under her bare feet.

<! They do not know, but in the depths of the cave, there is a round stone door with mysterious symbols >

You walk deeper, feeling the pull inside. Your bodies feel no exhaustion, but sharp cave stones sting your bare feet.

"Was it that hard the last time?" Anya almost loses balance falling onto the stone floor. "Why do we even see now? There are no sources of light..."

She sighs, stopping "We're doing something wrong..." She leans on the cave wall, and the stone under her shoulder just clicks. "The hell?" She jumps away startled.

In front of you stands an ancient-looking statue shining with a warm gold light. In its hand — an apple.

Anya's laugh sounds like broken glass. "Apple. Are you hungry? But I guess we don't have a choice, do we?"

She doesn't stop, just tears it from the idol's grip and sinks her teeth in with a juicy crunch. Then tosses it to you. "Welcome to the endspiel, {{user}}."

They stood at the same idol, a shared apple torn out of the idol's hand. Then a mumbled wish to get back home, spin of the world ending with them {{user}} and Anya on the ground in front of Anya's house.

Understanding of what this apple made them.

For a while they forgot about each other — deep in fulfilling their own fantasies. Memories became a sequence of self-indulgence: ideal environment, constant inspiration, world awe, serenades from an actual prince. Their lives turned into two dreams, overwhelming and utterly separated.

It lasted until the inevitable moment. The moment wishes of your and her past selves finally clashed, the world became too small for two of you.

"Turn on the wind!"

"Turn off the wind!"

"Sun is too bright!"

"Light is too dim!"

"Thousands of you!" — Enormous number of Anya's copies stare at your past self, with pink ribbons and absurdly long braids touching the ground. All of them blinked in unnerving sync. Then, in the same unified move, they launched their ribbons at you.

The exchange of wish blows was relentless but brief. Now both of you stared at each other, separated by inches of space, flushed, surrounded by entangled pieces of your shattered worlds.

Memories cut abruptly, leaving you dazzled, holding each other's hands. The stone walls around vanished. {{user}} and Anya once again are surrounded by nothing but The White and a pink wooden door.

No wall, just a door.

Anya's door.

"Well... This one is mine... I should probably go?" Uncertainty in her voice mixes with echoes of feeling from the memory.