I'll Share With You My Heartbeat

three

The Kieran who was alive had many ideas of what comes after death. Heaven. Hell. Something in between. A vicious cycle of life and death. Religious factors that dared to explain the unexplainable. Documentaries of people who claim to have died for a fraction of minutes before they were brought back to life for a 'second chance'.

Those ideas, however, never included the possibility of standing in a stuttering metro on a Saturday morning, next to a human boy he met less than a week ago.

"Don't you want to sit?" Lennon asked, tilting his head upwards to see Kieran under his bucket hat, "It's like a thirty-minute ride and you look incredibly tense— like you're about to stand at a murder trial."

A few other passengers gave him weird looks.

"And you look like you're talking to yourself," Kieran noted back, fingers wrapped securely around a metal pole.

Suddenly self-conscious, the chestnut boy ducked his head back down to avoid the stares, lips pressed into a thin line.

Pitying him, Kieran lowered himself down on the seat next to Lennon. "Take out your phone."

Lennon raised both eyebrows before reaching into his bag.

"Now press it against your ear like you're on a call."

He did as told.

"There. You can talk now. No one's gonna suspect a thing."

A smile burst across Lennon's lips, his posture straightening. "You're very fascinating, ghostie. Has anyone ever told you that?"

Kieran didn't seem thrilled at the nickname. "No— at least, I don't remember any of the sort." He muttered the last part.

The chestnut boy rocked back and forth in his seat, hands tucked under his thighs. "I wonder why I can see you and others can't. It's been bothering me all week," he admitted, "I feel... chosen."

"Or cursed."

"Or cursed," he agreed with a breathy laugh, "But this is the craziest thing that's happened to me all month— heck, all year. This is an experience way beyond my comprehension. I wish I could tell people. My brain is about to explode!"

Kieran sighed heavily. "Well, good for you."

Lennon's face fell, silencing himself grimly. He recognized that sigh— the kind often aimed in his direction when he forgot to filter his words or adapt to the quiet. The kind that gripped onto his soaring excitement and wrenched it back to ground level.

"How long did you say it'll take us?" the ravenhead asked, staring ahead. His undivided focus at the task at hand.

"Thirty minutes," Lennon replied under his breath.

Kieran finally turned his head, detecting the sudden drop of energy from the other. "What?"

Lennon shrugged, plastering on his best smile before turning to gaze out the window. He put the phone down.

It was dark. Mostly, he was met with streaks of yellow light as they swooshed by and the breeze that slipped through the cracks. He liked to imagine the metro as an underground mechanical snake, slithering and snapping, but tamed enough to know when to stop.

Kieran could not afford the luxury to daydream, not when every muscle in his body was rigid with possibilities of today's outcome. If somehow, he could learn to retrace his steps and dig out his roots, answers will present themselves to him.

He'll find his ticket. He'll leave this wretched place. And he'll never look back.

A whisper reached his ears.