Dry Ice

Her laugh was dry. No matter how strong the glue, a broken vase was still broken.

   The first distinguishable feature of hers was her cold eyes. It started when she was thirteen and grew as she did. She would glower and frown and shut her mouth like that was the only thing she could do. Claire was Light and she should have been Ice.

   Alton knew what she was going through but he still thought her attitude was stupid.

   Then there was her moments of déjà vu and trivia of history no one paid attention to. The number of people who died in the Cold War--the duration of a war down to its hours--the weapons used to kill a prominent leader and its year of production. During those times Alton preferred to avoid her, because the glint in her eyes was something familiar.

   He knew that it shouldn't be so strange; they weren't normal, but even her best friend Nathaniel didn't deny his statement. She was insane with memories that should not be hers.

   It had been hundreds of years--approximately four hundred--since the world broke out in a war that wiped most of the population. It had been hundreds of years since it repopulated itself and started a fresh new life. It was 2493 and she remembered a life since 1873.

 

   The second distinguishable feature of hers was her sharp mouth. Granted, it was not really a feature, but it was definitely unique. Formal languages school didn't teach, scathing words he didn't deserve. He knew they hate each other in the previous life, though.

   Maybe that's what they were. Reincarnations.

   Her mouth was always set in a frown or a tight line. Sometimes he wondered if she ever smiled, and Nat would say that she does, occasionally, when Clarence would laugh and ask her to play with him. Alton slightly doubted his words but didn't dwell much on it.

   It wasn't like the information was important. It was just curiosity. Just curiosity.

 

   There were times when he thought of them both.

   It wasn't like they were close--far, far from it--but he thought of their similarity. He didn't hate her as much as she hate him. He was willing to compare himself to her--she'd be trying to pull his hair before he could open his mouth. Sometimes he'd make this observation and chills crept down his spine thinking he understands.

 

   He didn't want to understand insanity.

 

   The crazy glint in her eyes appeared in certain situations, like when someone had a pocket watch. But then the panic attack would pass and she'd look up and silently she'd say why is it me and he'd understand completely because that happened to him, too. He'd see a scale and immediately there was a gold silver snake sliding around it, and words would stumble into his lips but it would stop there. And sometimes when it got out, it'll be nonsense like I serve only Lady Justitia.

   It scared him. He never met any Justitia, much less someone he'd call a lady. His biology class never taught him any snakes with gold and silver scales. And there was an occasion when someone told him he spoke in Latin.

   He understood how she felt about things like this. He once caught her reciting in old tongue--something like Sanskrit. She'd avoid antique stores like a plague. She'd talk about spirits and other worlds--nonsense to her parents. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He abhorred that fact.

 

   Languages that should be dead flow from her lips like they were her mother tongue. She never stumbled during languages class. They never studied Japanese here, in New London, but she could write a novel with how fluent she was. The scary part was that he, too, understood her words.

   The formal language, too. She'd snap at him and he'd return it back without a second thought. Then their parents would stare at them like they spoke something they didn't understand. Nat would shake his head and Alton would get this feeling that he knew about everything.

 

   They were sixteen and put aside their unhealthy rivalry to sit down and talk about all the strange things. Nightmares, slipping memories, everything. They talked about the psychologist their respective parents hired for them and how stupid they were. Because their abnormalities come out only when triggered. Claire had flipped on hers, yelling that she should report to her parents that their child had Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Alton suspected she was right.

   Then there was this business about a Lady Justitia and for Claire, Emi. They agreed to corner Nat one day and make him talk, violence or not. After they finished talking about that, they went silent.

   'Who do you think we are?' he said. Her laugh was dry. It was raspy, a bit deep, and it had this strange cutting edge to it. It grew a bit hysterics and her eyes �"blue, blue like the ocean�" were wide, staring into his own. He could see the words she didn't say.

   I don't know.

And when the laughter stopped, it only started an onslaught of tears. And he joined her, because he was living a lie--a life where he must cope without knowing who he was, nor why he was like this, like this, and why there were memories of wars and deaths and blood all around him and heavy weight of guilt deep inside his mind.

   He felt like a lie.

 

 

   They were two lies, hating each other for some unknown reason buried inside their minds. But they shared this pain, shared the knowledge that they were more than "Alton" and "Claire", more than two teenagers with strange personalities. They knew they lived through enough wars to forget to count them, enough decades to disregard them. Even with memories slate clean, the scars and trauma would never be truly gone.

   Because no matter how strong the glue, a broken vase was still broken.

   So for now, he'd shrug and push away their differences and help each other through this life. Because frankly, ice was cold, but it was always used to numb pain.

Author's Note

I don't know what compelled me to publish this story, but I rather like it. Because I've seen and written stories where only one person is strange, insane, I want to post one where the narrator knows how it feels and hates it.
Might not make sense-- it's set on a world I'm very familiar with-- sadly, others don't.
Emi is a spirit of time, Justitia justice.
Only one line of dialogue! Le gasp. I'm always rattling off dialogues left and right.

Crits welcomed.