The Lost Boys

Before we reach the studio entrance I stop one last time to check my reflection in a large store window.
I look at my face in the window. My long brown wavy hair has been messed up by the wind and I try to ease it down with my hands. I look closer and frown, my face starts to change, it is only subtle but it looks somehow softer...younger?

A drop of liquid falls onto the glass and it produces ripples when I realise that it is in fact no glass but a waters surface and I am kneeling down looking into it and the drops that now fall more frequent are my tears. I panic and feel as if I get sick and the contents of my stomach are in a painful turmoil. I dry heave for a couple of times until I get a grip on myself and push myself back sitting onto my heels and look around.

I am sitting on the edge of a little pond in the middle of the woods, my empty water bottle in one hand. I guess I came here to refill it.

I am still crying and I let myself fall to the side and curl up into a ball pulling my legs up to my chest and sob. Why is this happening? What have I done wrong? I can't do this anymore. Please somebody help me! I think I am going insane. I cry and slam my fist into the earth beside me. I stay like this until I run out of tears, I don't feel better but it's no use, I have to deal with the situation.

I groan in pain as I get on my feet, my body feels bruised and battered and I don't even know why. I look around for some points of orientation but all I see is trees, trees and more trees. There is a brighter area in the distance and I decide to go there. After a few minutes I realise that this is the clearing I have spend the night and I pray that my tent and equipment is still there.

For once I am lucky and I find my camp untouched as if I had just left it minutes ago. I guess it must be late afternoon from where the sun hangs in the sky and it is no use to pack up and move on this late in the day so I decide to stay another night and continue my journey tomorrow morning.

I sit down on my sleeping bag and contemplate. My first objective is no longer to find my way out of here, much more important, I want answers!

These two worlds both look, smell and feel absolutely real to me. My 'work' world as I call it isn't more realistic than the 'holiday' world only because I know the people that I interact with.

Maybe these are two versions of the same life? Am I moving back and forth in time or space or realities? And if so, why is this suddenly happening?

As if to convince myself I dig my hands into the ground pulling up a handful of moist and dark soil, I take in the smell and let the crumbles slowly run through my fingers. This feels as real as it can get. I sit back and shake my head.

I don't know for how long I have been sitting there just staring to the ground when a rustle of leaves catches my attention.
A smile makes it's way onto my face as I look up trying to figure out where the sound came from. "Alex? Is that you? Come here bro, you know I don't bite."

And really Alex appears amongst the trees with a shy smile on his face and comes closer as I wave him over patting the space beside me.

"Hi Mel." He says as he sits down and then just keeps staring at me with a small smile on his face.
We stay silent for some minutes, it is not uncomfortable though but then I decide I will have to try and get some answers so I take a deep breath and turn towards him, he notices and unconsciously draws back a little. I realise I have to be very careful with my questions as this boy obviously doesn't trust me yet.

"Uhm Alex, can you tell me when we met last time, I mean how long ago was it?" He looks at me and shrugs. Of course! I scold myself, how would he know! He doesn't wear a watch and the concept of time may not even be clear to him so I try differently.

"Was it this morning?" He nods. Okay so time seems to pass at about the same speed as in the 'other' world. Now for the more difficult questions.

"When I woke up, you were there waiting for me, but then something happened, did you- uhm - see it? Like, did I disappear or so?"
There was no way to explain this better although I was aware that I probably sounded like a lunatic.

Alex made round eyes at me and then looked down fiddling with his thumbs. He took a moment to answer. "I'm sorry Mel, when you woke up everything seemed okay but then you suddenly gasped and looked like you would have a seizure or something, I don't know. It freaked me out so I ran away. I don't know what happened to you after that." His cheeks flushed a bit and he looked truly ashamed.

Oh, so that left me with not much more than I already knew.

I sighed and patted his shoulder. "It's okay Alex. Nothing happened to me, I was just wondering." I stared at the ground for a moment lost in my own thoughts when I hear him clear his throat.

"Uhm, so Mel, would you mind if I bring a friend? You know I told him about you but he doesn't believe that you can see me and-" there he trails off and just makes puppy eyes at me.

I have to smile at him. Truth is, I am ecstatic to meet someone else, that means a bigger chance to get some clues as to what is happening here but I don't want to seam to eager and shy him away so I just nod and look at him expectantly.

He gets to his feet and whistles, I recognise it as the same tune that called him back the other day, then he sits down again beside me and watches a certain spot in the distance intently. I get all excited and follow his gaze to see what will happen only to stare at green leaves for a while.

Then after a few minutes there is something moving and another figure steps out into the clearing and slowly makes it's way towards us.

Another boy, a bit shorter than Alex, no shoes, no shirt, just shorts. A knife in a leather sheath dangles from his shoulders. His skin is almost white he has a lot of freckles because he is a ginger, his medium length hair falls into his brown eyes. As he comes closer I can see his face better, he looks the same age as Alex.

With the recent events happening and the little information my brain seems to have gathered I recognise the boy. I gasp and can't stop myself as I say surprised. "That's Alan"
He looks younger and he hasn't got any tattoos as his 'other' self does and I quickly check Alex's skin with a side glance. Yup! No tattoos there as well.

I look from Alex to Alan and see both of their jaws dropping in shock. I mentally slap myself, Oh damn, now I have frightened them again, they probably think I'm a witch or some demon or so.

What I didn't expect is for Alan to close the remaining distance between us quickly and sit down on my other side, saying. "You can not only see me but you also know my name, how is this possible?" He awaits my reply while touching my shoulder and playing with a strand of my hair studying me intently and I feel like an exhibit in a museum. I look around to Alex and he gives Alan the 'I told you so' smirk.

What am I supposed to say? That I am from a different world, a different time or reality? I don't even know myself. I don't want to frighten or confuse them with my story of switching between two places. So I go with the easiest answer.
"Honestly guys, I don't know."

I rack my brain for the answer if I actually personally know Alan in my other life, I can't remember if we are friends or if we have ever worked together but the way he acts seems so familiar to me that I feel we must know each other there.

I turn around when I hear something behind me and see Alan going through my backpack, pulling out the contents one by one and dropping them beside him on the ground.

I jump up. "Alan, what are you doing? Stop that! " He looks up at me with a brush in one hand and a box of cookies in the other, a surprised look on his face as if he did nothing wrong. It seems nobody told the boys how to behave so my anger subsides and I have to suppress a smile as I crouch down in front of him and take the brush out of his hand.

"Give that to me. You know, you don't touch other people's personal stuff without their consent. You can keep the cookies if you like."
I start to put the things back into my backpack and he helps me by handing me the items, not without curiously inspecting every single one again.

"Mel, I really like your hair, it's so long and shiny, I didn't know girls were so soft and smelled so good." Other than Alex he isn't shy at all and he comes straight to the point. I chuckle looking at him and he continues. "Alex told me about the stuff you gave him to eat and said it was awesome, can you make me some as well?"

I raise an eyebrow at Alex but he only shoots me a toothy grin so I fake defeat and throw my hands in the air. "Okay let's make some more s'mores then."

It is slowly getting dark so I tell the boys to gather some wood to get the fire going and they are quick to oblige and in no time we have a pretty little campfire and sit down around it each of us armed with a stick for the marshmallows.

Here it gets really funny because they have no idea how fast a marshmallow can turn to coal and I topple over laughing at the look on their faces when they see their results while I bite in my perfectly roasted one.

They quickly get the hang of it though and we stuff ourselves with the sweetness and get really comfortable with each other when Alan sneaks up to me and calls my name. The second I turn around he rubs a gooey marshmallow in my face and falls back giggling holding his stomach.

That starts a war and even Alex gets involved in the food fight so after about 10 minutes we just plop to the ground exhausted, smeared with every possible combination of the foods I had. I haven't felt so alive and happy, so carefree in a long time. Alex rolls over and looks in my face his eyes sparkling and his smile wide. He reaches out and scrapes a bit of chocolate from my cheek and licks it off his finger.

"That was fun. What are we doing now?" He asks me grinning.

"We are going to have a swim in the lake to clean us off. Who is in first, wins!" Alan screams and pushes us over to get a head start.

Alex jumps up to follow but I catch his wrist and stop him. "Alex please help me, it is pitch black out there with my luck I run into a tree or get lost again."

He giggles and grabs my hand and together we run to the lake, possibly a lot slower than he would be on his own. When we arrive Alan is already in the water pretending to have been waiting for ages as he floats, laying on top of the water with his hands behind his head.

I look at Alex raising my brows and he nods slightly before we race into the pond and jump the oblivious Alan so that he is pushed under water by our weight.

He returns to the surface seconds later spluttering and splashing as Alex and I giggle and snort until he dives under us and pulls away our feet. We keep fooling around in the water for a while when I feel a weakness and tiredness take control of my body and announce that I will go back to the camp.

Alex immediately leaves the little lake and takes my hand to lead me back whereas Alan complains for a while and splashes us with water before he follows.

We sit around the fire to get dry and warm again. Alex and I sit back to back from lack of seating and Alan lies on the ground with his head placed in my lap. We are quiet for a long time staring into the flames, everybody lost in their own thoughts and I play with Alan's wet hair absentmindedly but then I decide to speak up.

"Guys I would really like to meet your king, I believe he could answer some of the questions I have and maybe explain some of what's going on." I don't have to see Alex, I can feel him tensing on my back but Alan doesn't seem stressed by my request at all.

"Yeah, maybe that's a good idea." He replies to my surprise.

"Alan, I don't think we should do this, it could get us in so much trouble." Alex chimes in clearly uncomfortable.

"Hey something like this never happened before, maybe it is even important that we inform him, I think he would want to know about it." Alan argues.

I can hear Alex sigh and he shrugs. "Well, you know the king better than I do. If you say so, then I'm in."

I'm excited about their decision and tell them. "Thank you so much guys this is awesome, you won't regret it, when can we see him?"

"We will pick you up tomorrow morning, with all the stuff you have to carry I guess it will be a two day walk until we get there." Alan gets up and motions to Alex to do the same.

For a second I wonder if I could ask them to stay with me for the night but I think I would be overstepping a line there so I just nod at them.

Alan bends down and gives me a hug and I could swear that his lips brushed the skin on my neck, when he stands back up there is a cheeky grin on his face.

Alex kneels in front of me and just looks at me, then he slowly tugs a strand of my hair behind my ear his hand lingering there for a moment. "See you tomorrow, Mel" he smiles.

Notes

Phew, super long chapter there, but I think you deserve it ;) another lost boy showing up! Will they return in the morning? Will the king know what is going on? Stay with me lovelies and maybe we will find out.

have a nice day! Xx