She was seven years younger than me when we first met. I was 32, she was 25. We met at work, and have been friends ever since. Still, though, I did wonder how our lives would have been had she been different.
Like me, Em was really into games and anime, though, in a lot of ways, we were very different. For starters, while she was more into the darker kind of shounen anime, my tastes lied more within the more lighthearted kind, often either shoujo or seinen. She was also more into JRPG, while I was more into strategy or point and click adventure. And, sure, we both enjoyed anime, but I just generally enjoyed any kind of animation.
And while she was asexual, I was madly in love with her.
I’m sure she wasn’t aware of how much I loved her, only that I had feelings for her. These feelings persisted even when we didn’t see each other anymore, due to us not working at the same job anymore. Despite that, though, we kept in touch, more often than I expected. I guess I just couldn’t let her go. And sure, those feelings I held for her would slowly fade, but they’d always manage to find their way back into my heart.
However, beyond those memories, things were a bit vague. I couldn’t seem to remember how it all ended, how long I’ve stayed in touch, if at all. I couldn’t even remember dying. Maybe my life beyond that wasn’t really that notable or important. And it wasn’t as if my life was bad or anything, it’s just that, the further in time I went with my memories, the more unclear they became. Like, I was still able to recall quite a few memories from my childhood, but absolutely nothing from my senior years, or well, not absolutely nothing, just glimmers and glimpses that would vaguely pop up, just to fade away again.
It was as if I had led a much longer life than I imagined.
I woke up, staring at a dark sky. There were dark purplish clouds hanging above me, with branches of a tree in my peripheral vision. I didn’t get up immediately, not because of any particular reason, I just wanted to take my time to process everything.
This place felt unfamiliar, alien even, and in any other instance I’d be terrified. It’s the kind of sky you’d only see in cosmic horror films. It looked ominous. The only thing that was missing to add to this eerie vibe was lightning.
Yet I was calm, as if there was someone or something nearby that eased my mind. I reached out my hand, for no particular reason, and noticed that my hands looked different. Familiar, yet still different. They were younger than I remembered, though I wasn’t sure if I remembered my hands as being really old or not.
I decided to sit upright, when I noticed that the tree I saw in my peripheral vision wasn’t just a simple tree. First of all, it was barren, there were no leaves anywhere, though it didn’t seem like it was completely dead, at least not yet. But I guess the most important part was the fact that the tree was big. This tree was the size of what I imagined would be a World Tree.
I estimated that I had to walk at least thirty minutes to even reach one of its roots, and probably as much to actually reach the base of the tree. I looked around to see if there was anything else before I headed to the tree.
The ground was dry, as dry as you could imagine it being. It was also immensely dense. I reached down to touch it, and while the surface was powdery, it was almost as hard as rocks. Nothing lived here, not even a tuft of grass. I wondered if the tree was doing right or if it was dying. I imagined it was the latter.
But I also noticed something else. There was a shadowy figure, the shape of a human body, lying on the ground, about a minute of walking away from me. I carefully approached the shape, but as I approached closer, I noticed that the body was moving a bit. As I got a better look, it was clear that this was a woman.
The woman got up, and like me, looked at the tree. She then turned to me, as if she was startled by the noise of my feet. I wanted to say something to reassure her that I meant no harm, but once I got a better look, I knew I didn’t have to.
“Em?” I said. “Is that you?”
“Gui?” she replied. She began laughing, then walked over towards me, arms open wide. “Gui! It really is you!”
We briefly embraced each other, happy to have seen a familiar face again.
“You look so young!” Em said.
“You’re pretty young yourself as well,” I replied.
Indeed, it seemed we both aged down, to around our early 20s. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but at the moment, it didn’t really matter.
“It’s been too long,” I said.
“It has,” she replied.
“I’m glad to see you again.”
She was as beautiful as I could remember, maybe even more so. I wasn’t sure what it was, though, but there was something different about her, something that I couldn’t exactly place. No, I knew what was different, it was the way she looked, her facial expression, her smile.
For a moment, my heart skipped a beat. I began to fall for her all over again.
“So, do you know where we are?” Em asked.
“I honestly have no idea,” I replied. “I mean, I think we both died at some point in our lives, right?”
“I don’t think this is the afterlife, though.”
“So then this must be another world.”
“Yeah, though it’s a lot different than what we expected, right?”
I nodded, while looking at the tree. I knew we had to go there, and I think Em had the same idea, as she grabbed my hand.
“Let’s go,” she said, with a smile.
It would take a long time before we reached the tree, time we used to catch up again. We talked about a lot of things, mainly video games and anime, but also about life. She was a lot more upbeat about everything than I could remember, despite talking about the same experiences she used to complain about when we were still alive in our past world. There had to have happened something in those years I couldn’t remember.
“Hey,” Em said. “I wanna ask. Back then when you confessed to me and I rejected you, how did it make you feel?”
“Where’s this coming from?” I asked.
“I was just curious. Or well, it’s more like, I’m trying to remember what my life was like after we met, after we became friends, and out of all the memories, this one came up.”
“Well, I just find it a bit uncharacteristic of you. I thought you weren’t into romance and stuff.”
“Yeah, true, but still. I feel like getting the answer might get me closer to remembering things.”
“Well, to answer your question, at first I felt a bit relieved, I finally got an answer.”
“But?”
“Well, it took me a long time to let you go.”
“Did you ever manage to do that?”
I didn’t answer, even though Em started to stare at me intently.
“Come on, you can be honest with me,” she said. “I won’t stop being your friend regardless of your answer.”
“If you wanna know, my feelings for you only got stronger, and they never really left, even after we stopped seeing each other regularly.”
“So you were still in love with me?”
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“What about now?”
“Does the answer matter?”
Em thought about what to say next, but answered, “No, I guess it doesn’t.” She smiled at me. “Well, either way, I’m just glad we’re able to hang out again.”
As we approached the tree, I noticed that the tree didn’t look as good as it did from a distance. The bark seemed really dry, and its color was more grayish than it initially seemed.
“So, we’re here,” Em said. “What now?”
“I honestly haven’t thought about it,” I said.
She looked up.
“This tree sure is big,” she said. “I wonder what it looked like when it had leaves.”
“It doesn’t seem to be dead yet,” I said. “I mean, it might not have long to live, but it amazes me that it didn’t die sooner.”
“It’s another world, maybe the rules are different here.”
I’m not sure what made us notice it, but we both saw a crack at the base of the trunk. A slight glow emanated from it. Somehow it was compelling, and without any thought, we both reached out to the crack. Our hands began to touch, but instead of backing out, we both touched the crack at the same time.
As we did, the crack began to open, and it began to form an entrance. Our hands still touched, but somehow, I didn’t feel embarrassed. I looked at her, but she didn’t seem to react, and just took my hand again.
“I wanna see what’s inside,” she said.
“Then should we?” I said.
She nodded, and, while still holding hands, we went.