See You at Seven [Shayne Topp]

1. Of Glitches and Agreements

Hey, guys! We're back to See You at Seven!

Um, I don't really have much to say. Wash your hands, guys? And don't hoard alcohols and sanitizers! You can't be safe if others aren't safe, because this virus is not supposed to be a competition. And take care!

Anyway, Shayne's point of view here. See ya!

-/-/-

Trains are loud, and by loud, I mean loud because you're here contemplating your actual existence in the universe and it makes really weird gear noises that you would not want to hear during your existential crisis.

Alex is sitting at the rear end of the train, silent as she thinks about what Seven is and how we'll get there on this train that doesn't seem to have a direction. By now, this train should have stopped because of the Committee, but they probably also realized that if this train stops, they won't be able to pick up the departed at Earth, thus cause overpopulation? I'm not sure, but that's what I thought of.

I take the flyer in my hand and realize how different I am. Everyone else arrived in this train, and they were all probably oriented about the Middle and the afterlife. But I just arrived seated on one of the benches, hoping no one would notice that I jumped a turnstile to get this flyer.

I walk towards Alex and take the handle bar on my left. "I just want to know how you thought I was a glitch," I say, "aside from the whole bench thing."

She looks at me. "You jumped the turnstile."

Okay, so someone noticed that. "Oh."

"You also got that flyer because you had zero idea of what was going on."

"Good point."

"And you stopped me," she finishes, and I raise my eyebrow at her in confusion. "I've been standing there for almost an hour, looking angrily at an empty void, and you're the first person to stop me. It isn't because you're a psychology graduate, it's because... you're a nice person."

I nod repeatedly, and she gestures me to leave. I don't think she's the type of person who likes brainstorming, but I stay anyway and even sit beside her. "So how'd you die?" I ask.

"I don't know," she answers. "No one knows how they died. The Committee keeps the tapes, but they don't give it to the passengers. Now, will you leave?"

"I just died," I tell her. "You just died too. Don't you have a bunch of questions about life and death? I mean, this thing that we're doing right now, I have zero idea on how it's possible. I don't know how I can even exist in this realm of the universe."

"Stop talking."

"No," I refuse, standing up. "I'm sorry I'm getting angry, because that is so unlike me, but I don't understand why you don't have a bunch of questions like I do. You were in the Middle for only a few minutes more than I was, so you probably have no idea what the heck is going on either. But---"

"I said stop talking, because you're in a universal realm and an existential crisis causes you to disintegrate," she says, covering my mouth with her hand. "Look to your left. It's just particles of you."

I do see little molecules of me floating away from my body and then slowly floating back as soon as Alex closes my mouth. Scarily enough, she's right: I am disintegrating because I'm having an existential crisis.

I take a deep breath and sigh after my body's back to normal. "Okay, that was some Infinity War thing," I mumble. "But I just really want... to know a lot of stuff. I haven't coped up with the fact that I died, and honestly, if I could, I'd ask my best friend right now on what he thinks."