Beneath the Urban Stars

7: Just Us

I had spent the whole day researching any possible explanation to what we were experiencing. It was an inexplicable feeling of connectedness that I could not shake off.

The moment of truth had been seeing her again after closing my eyes at night. Her short orange hair framing her face, a face that held so much mystery and intrigue. I wondered what her story was, what secrets she kept hidden behind those eyes.

I learned that she spent hours crawling under seats, looking for things that made her feel less alone in the bus. As I watched her, I realized that we shared a common feeling of being out of place. It was a feeling that was hard to comprehend, but it was real.

Her sweet demeanor and infectious smile drew me in, but I knew I had to stop thinking about her in that way.

"Are you sure these things are not just decorations?" I asked after she showed me the trinkets she had collected. "You don't recognize any of this?" She shook her head.

I took a closer look all the things and noticed that they indeed felt different, more 'real' than the bus seats of the windows. It was as if each trinket had a story to tell, a history that had already served its time and expired.

"Decorations like, to make it look more realistic? Like a video-game?" She asked, I nodded. "It looks out of place, like your notebook. I think someone was here before us."

It was almost as if they were intentionally left there, as a clue for us to find, or at least to show us we weren't alone in this journey.

It was as if her words were filling in the gaps of my own thoughts, connecting pieces of the puzzle that I hadn't been able to see before. As she finished, I found myself nodding in agreement, my own eyes meeting hers in a moment of shared understanding. In that moment, I realized that perhaps we were not so different after all, and that there was much more to our connection than I had initially thought.

"Then why are we here now? And why us?" I asked, my anxiety beginning to bubble up inside me.

I tried to calm myself by taking a deep breath and looking out the window, but it didn't help. I needed answers.

I pulled out the notebook from my pocket, hoping it would shed some light on our situation. My companion leaned in closer, her eyes fixed on the pages. A part of me was convinced I would find something useful there, after all, it was supposed to contain a detailed description of my day.

Was it fate that brought us together in this moment? Or was it mere coincidence? Questions raced through my mind as I searched for clues in the scrawled handwriting. Despite the fear and uncertainty, I knew one thing for sure - we had to stick together if we were going to make it out of this alive.

"How are you able to bring stuff if we're asleep?" She asked, almost in a whisper. I felt her knee touching mine and I suddenly had to gulp.

"I don't bring it, it just appears here" I said, my voice sounding both raspy and nervous. I took a deep breath and continued, "You see, it's like my brain has a mind of its own and it's interpreting my subconscious thoughts." I made another pause, unsure if it was even worth to explain. When I heard all of that come out of my mouth, it sounded almost stupid. Who needed its brain to explain their own feelings? "It helps me to understand my emotions, I suppose, and get a clearer picture of what I am thinking and feeling."