04┃the after you

2.2K 78 31
                                    


CHAPTER FOUR

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━


GRAY FILLED HER SIGHT WHEN she hazily blinked and regained consciousness. It was all she was able to process for the first few moments, the vast grayness. No imperfections were found within it, no hint of other shades; just a sleek, unmoving blank slate of gray. But then her peripheral vision faded through, and she realized there was more to her world than the gray.

Mila turned her head, seeing pavement, a ground; it was black, just as flawless as the monochrome sky above her, no bump or ridge along the smooth surface. She then felt the weight of her body on it, understanding she was laying flat against it; she reclaimed more and more of herself as she became aware of everything.

Beside the pavement, there's trimmed green grass but it's almost muted somehow, lacking vibrance. Her eyes follow it to see that there are houses not too far away. She was in what seemed like an ordinary neighborhood, but she didn't recognize any of it. Confused but not finding the energy to properly express any panic, she twists her head and looks back up at the sky where she notices there are no clouds.

"Mila."

At the mention of her name and the voice, the first real strike of familiarity, she turns to the other side of her, finding she wasn't alone in this simplistic place. He was already looking at her, motionless and dazed just as much as her, but when their eyes met, the fog that clouded both of their minds rose. She suddenly felt fully awake, fully alive, and remembered everything.

"Kai," she gasped and shot up, eyes wide and stunned while she recalled the last thing imprinted into her memory, her own death.

Through her shock and bewilderment, she still managed to piece together that the pavement they were both lying on was one singular road, one that seemed to go on for a very long while and — from what she could see — wasn't connected to any others. She glanced over back at the houses, trying to spot something recognizable in all of this unknown, but they all looked the same. All of them were designed the same, painted the same crisp white, and spaced the same distance from each other side by side. She ended her search by averting her stare over in Kai's direction, seeing no difference on his side of the street.

"Where are we?" She asked, frantic green eyes locking in on him for an answer.

"I-I don't know," Kai admitted, just as clueless, and stood up. He blinked rapidly at first, taking in and examining their surroundings himself.

"Is this another prison world or something?" Mila got off of the ground as well, the repetitiveness of the neighborhood already proving to be unsettling.

lifeline ⇾ kai parkerWhere stories live. Discover now