Lost & Found

Chapter 7

"Roger! Roooggggeeeeerrrrrrr!!!!! You're back!!!" The blazing orb flew across the empty landscape and collided with the dull red orb that had just appeared. "You're coming back! I'm so glad; you're back!"

Oliver slumped down on the ground beside the two orbs, and Pipsqueak followed a second after. "That was exhausting."

Pipsqueak purred slightly in her throat as she rolled onto her side and sprawled out. "Yes. This is the last time I will ever come here."

"Heh. If only. Just be glad you won't feel any of this when you wake up."

"Oh, good. I was wondering if I would have to deal with this limp later." Pipsqueak yawned and closed her eyes. "That's probably the only good thing about this place."

"Pretty much." Oliver chuffed and stretched his head out to rest it on the floor, closing his eyes while the two spirits went through their reunion.

He grumbled when he felt something nudging at his side and realized Pipsqueak was speaking to him. "Oliver, wake up. Roger is asking me questions, and I don't know what to tell him. And it's kind of annoying."

Oliver grumbled again. "Yes. It's very annoying when somebody asks you a bunch of dumb questions they should already know the answers to." The orange cat stretched out on the ground, then sat up and opened his eyes.

The blazing orb was bouncing happily, but Roger's dull gray orb was hovering in front of him. "I'm sorry to wake you. I was just wondering what will happen next."

Oliver yawned and shook his head. "Now we go back back to the land of the living."

"Err... but I'm... um... what's going to happen to me?" The dull orb wobbled uncertainly between the two cats. "I'm... you know. Dead."

"Oh." Oliver flicked his tail behind him. More explanations. And of something he had already explained to Pipsqueak earlier, no less. "You'll be back at an earlier moment. Whenever it was that you made the choice to come here. You'll get the chance to make that choice again. And since you've changed your mind and willingly left this place, you might actually make a different decision." The orange tabby stared up at the dull sphere and slowly blinked at it. "I strongly suggest that you do. Pipsqueak and I went through a lot. I'd hate to know it was for nothing."

The red orb dipped and rose in a slow imitation of a human nod. "I will. Um. What's going to happen to the rest of you?"

"We go back to when we would have woken up, right?" Pipsqueak glanced at the blazing orb behind Roger, then looked back at Oliver. "That's what you said before. That thing with the dirty spot that we can't see?"

"Yes. If Roger makes a different decision and changes things, then we might wake up in a different place, and with a second set of memories, depending on how much of a difference his new decision causes. But it's not that big a deal. You get used to it." Oliver stretched, arching his back and tensing his muscles... then he relaxed and meowed up at the two orbs. "Are you ready? I think we're all tired of this place."

The dull spirit gave another 'nod' of a dip and rise, and the blazing orb zipped back to his side. "We're ready."

"Okay then. Back to the land of the living we go..."

~

Oliver yawned and uncurled from his comfortable position on the couch cushion. He stretched out his forelegs, meowing cutely as his sleepy brain kicked slowly back into gear. He didn't remember falling asleep on a comfortable couch...