Meteors: Chapter Eight - The Ghost of Friendship Past

Person holding a stethoscope. - Credit to Ivan S on Pexels

Read Chapter Seven here.

Read Chapter Nine here.

Owain rolled his shoulder after finishing the exercises he was meant to do ever since the beginning of the month. Getting pieces of boat embedded in one’s arm is never a good idea, and Owain was still suffering some of the consequences of his injury.

The house seemed so quiet without Ivona or his dad. He carried on expecting Ivona to come running in and yammering about something or other, or the creak of his dad’s wheelchair, the stomp of his cane when he was up for walking. It was just him and his mum now, and she was quieter than usual too. She didn’t sleep anymore, Owain could see that in the circles around her eyes. There were entire days when she wasn’t distracted by volunteering and she’d sit staring at her computer or phone waiting for any sort of message or communication from either of the abroad family members. Owain had been doing the cooking, and he worried that on the shifts he worked over mealtimes that she wasn’t feeding herself. That was why he was going to employ the help of Ruth and maybe her parents to make sure that she was looking after herself. Shifts at the hospital were long, what with people sent there from nearby scraps to recover, injuries from the bombings, and general foolishness.

A couple days after the boats left, Owain had been offered a job as a trainee doctor. His only qualifications being his schooling in Sobetween and his being one of the few young adults left in Sobetween. What had been a bleak job market was suddenly much better because so many people had been plucked from their jobs for the war. If things carried on the way it did, Owain was sure it would obliterate them, as he looked through to the kitchen at his mum staring at that screen and just waiting, he knew he could never say those thoughts out loud.

He went into the kitchen, resting a hand on his mum’s shoulder. Her white hair was down in a tangled mess.

“Hey mum, heading off to work now,” He said, he got no response other than her leaning her head against his hand, “Try and get some rest, won’t you?” A grunt that might have been an okay was all he heard, “I love you, mum.” He said, shouldering his bag, and walking out, he froze as he actually heard her voice.

“I love you too,” Owain looked back, and she was looking back at him, a tired smile on her face, “I’ll try and rest, I promise.” Owain didn’t mean to, but he raised an eyebrow questioningly. In response, she put down the laptop computer and made a show of turning her phone off. “I promise,” Owain smiled at her, and left the apartment building.

It was a long shift, it hadn’t even been a week and Owain was still trying to grab a hold of the ropes, never mind learn them. The people teaching him were people who’d done this their whole lives, people who had trained for this and were used to training people who had at least studied to do this, people who weren’t Owain. Owain hadn’t particularly wanted to be a fisherman, but at least he knew what to do for that. This was not fishing.

It was like dealing with the whole town for the whole day every day. He had more strange conversations these past few days than he’d had in the past few years, something he definitely had not thought possible. He’d used that to his advantage though. He was trying to work out what had actually happened last week, before he’d found out what his dad has done, when he got lost. He suggested the area, asked about dirt paths, and been given several rants on conspiracies about the nature of Sobetween, like how it never appeared on paper maps, but did on technological ones. Anyone who read their history books should know that that was down to the Gaor Colin of Harran. Otherwise, he’d been given nothing. Those he had been comfortable enough around to confess the whole thing to all but called him crazy or said he was imagining things.

Eventually, he was done, and instead of heading to the Blue house, he headed to Ruth’s. He hadn’t changed out of his new uniform; he was too tired to do so. He had taken the hat off though. The way it strained to contain all his hair made him look ridiculous to his eyes, and he was genuinely considering cutting it before he officially got the job. He stood at the door of Ruth’s house and knocked.

There was no answer.

He rang the doorbell after a few moments, and he heard something like a crash from the inside. He stood back from the door. It was strange, he’d never actually been inside their house before. The handle budged a little bit, and he heard muffled speech in a foreign language from the inside. It was definitely Ruth answering the door. There was a rattling of keys, and the door opened.

Ruth had definitely not been expecting visitors. She was in an oodie, fluffy and patterned like a couch from the 1950s, with the bottoms of oversized jeans peeking through by her feet. Her hair, from what he could see under the hood, was unbrushed and haphazardly shoved into something that could be called a ponytail if he squinted the right way. She didn’t look surprised to see him. To be honest, there was very little emotion on her face at all.

“You woke me up,” She said.

“Sorry,” Ruth opened the door up further, stepping to the side to let him in.

“Long day?” She asked. The lack of emotion in her face was matched by the lack in her voice. Was she always like this when she woke up?

“Yeah, people can be a lot,”

“Come in, sit down,” The door led straight into one room living and dining room. He looked through to the comfortable chaos that appeared to be the Ash house. It was only for a few minutes, he still hesitated.

“Mum and Dad are away for the week, at some conference in Kory, it’ll be nice to have some company.” Ruth said. Owain decided he would come in. As he did, she shut the door behind him. She pushed her hood down and was obviously trying to sort herself out. She succeeded to some level. “Water?” She asked.

“Yes please,” He looked around the room as Ruth disappeared into the kitchen. One of the sofa’s had a pile of stuff beside it. Knitting, books, a couple empty mugs and one still half full of hot chocolate. A computer bag and a satchel leant against the side, and he knew that satchel. He guessed that that was where Ruth would usually sit. He turned around as Ruth walked back in. She’d discarded the oodie for a hoodie and looked a little bit more awake. She passed him a glass of water.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, straight to the point as always. She sat down, cross legged, where Owain had guessed her spot was, picking up her half-full mug and taking a sip. Owain took another look around before sitting on the other sofa across from Ruth. They didn’t match, clearly second-hand sofa’s they’d scraped together since they’d arrived.

“It’s my mum. You can cook right?”

“Yeah, can’t she?”

“Ivona and Dad leaving hit her hard, she’s,” He hesitated, but one look at Ruth’s eyes told him she understood, “She’s struggling, and I can’t always be around, with work and everything, and I was wondering if maybe -,”

“I can pop around for mealtimes when you’re working? Sure,”

“You’re the best,” Owain blurted out, “With the day I just had I was certain you were going to say no,”

“What’s happened?”

“Just the usual, plus people are starting to think I’m crazy cause of that whole thing last week”

“The yelling at the boat, or the getting lost in the only place you’ve ever known?” Owain winced. When she put it like that, it made sense that people were starting to think he was a little kooky.

“The second, though that didn’t help.”

“Have you been back since?” Ruth asked, after finishing off her hot chocolate. Owain remembered the water in his hand and downed it all in on go. He’d needed that more than he thought he did.

“No, but -,”

“Well, let’s go then,” Ruth said, grabbing her satchel and standing up, “Find your mystery road”

“It doesn’t exist, Ruth, I would know it,” He said, but stood up too. Ruth was checking for something in her bag, then looked up and at the door, pointing, Owain looked over.

“Keys,” She explained, walking over and grabbing them, “If you stood there, it exists. Why don’t you think it exists?”

“Because it got bombed that night, the one Larry – passed,” Owain took a steadying breath, “It’s still rubble now,”

“Okay, well, let’s check it out anyway,” Ruth waited for Owain to walk up to her, and then opened the door. Her mouth fell open. “It was light a few seconds ago, right?” She asked.

Owain was too surprised to answer. He looked back into the room, and the window was letting in the afternoon light, but the door opened up onto the very same street, empty and dark.

He stepped outside and felt the slight chill of the night. Ruth would need her hoodie; she’d find this freezing.

“There are conspiracies about time travellers,” Ruth said in a hushed voice, she’d stepped out after him, closing and locking the door behind her, “Maybe they’re true?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Neither of us are Ga-users,” Owain said, walking further into the street, it looked familiar, not just because it was the same street he’d seen every day of his life, but something about the night around them felt lived in. He walked towards the street that had been bombed, “Maybe it’s a new weapon?”

“That’s more likely than time-travel?” Ruth asked, clearly sceptical.

“It’s clearly Gak versus the world, they literally serve Nior,”

They carried on bickering as they walk, they kept their voices down because time-travel or new weapon, getting noticed didn’t seem to be a good idea.

“Look,” He was saying as they neared the bombed site, “We turn this corner, and it’ll be ruins and no way anyone could walk on -,”

“Hello? Who’s there?” They heard, in a whisper shout. They could also hear the steps on the gravel. They stopped talking. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I think I’m a bit lost,” Owain looked at Ruth, eyes wide. She had the same expression on her face. She pointed at him, mouthing what seemed to be the word ‘you’. Owain nodded. That was his voice. “I didn’t know there were any dirt paths around here?” They could see him just around the corner, and it was Owain, his arm still in the bandages he didn’t need anymore. He didn’t have his customary jumper on, and was slowly, deliberately, padding towards them. He’d clearly seen them, Owain remembered seeing a shadow when he was lost. “Hello?” The breathing of the other-Owain was getting heavier, faster, “Ruth?” He called out. Both he and Ruth winced at the volume he’d called out in. “Ru-,” He was gone.

Owain and Ruth turned around the corner, and it wasn’t a bombed site anymore. It was like it had always been, a dirt path in an alleyway. They heard the beeping of the apartment door opening, and turned down the alleyway, flattening themselves against the walls and keeping as quiet as they possibly could.

“She must have escaped the building,” They heard Ruth saying. They stared at each other. They heard Owain’s voice, but not from his lips. Again.

“How? She’s a kitten, we’re several stories up,” The next voice sent a chill down Owain and Ruth’s backs.

“Strong kitten. I’ll check the park, you guys check the streets, alright?” It was Larry.  They watched, and the three of them came into sight, stopping right in front of Owain and Ruth, both praying they were invisible. Larry was stood in his skeleton onesie; it glowed slightly in the dark. Larry ran off with a grin Ruth hadn’t noticed before, throwing a wink at Owain, who glowered at him for a half second. Ruth, hiding in the alley turned and looked at Owain with a raised eyebrow. He skilfully did not look at her, though he was very glad it was too dark for her to see the hue of his face. Ruth wondered off, staring at the stars, and Owain followed.

The Ruth and Owain hiding in the alley way were still frozen. There was a noise behind them. A meowing of a sad little cat, beaten up and blending into the night around it. Owain knelt down immediately.

“Void, what are you doing here?” He asked, his voice going a little high pitched as it did when around animals, “Did my Dad take you out of the house?” That had been a bit of an argument when he’d found out how Void had gotten out. She’d been taken out by his Dad when he went to watch the footie. Not recognising the kitten, he’d assumed it would find its way home to its owners if he dropped it outside. Both their tempers had flared, but a few hours later they were fine, and Void was officially a part of the McCrawley family.

Owain looked up at Ruth, who was leaning against the wall, staring blankly in front of her. An apology was necessary.

“I guess you were right.” He said, stoking Void and standing up with the kitten in his arms, “Time travel, but how?”

Ruth shrugged.

“Beats me. What do we do now? Hide until we get back to where we left from? Bu the bombing, it’s not like we can hide in the bunker, I don’t remember seeing another me, and every book and show I’ve ever seen or read agree with one thing. Changing the past or seeing yourself are the worst things you can do,”

“That’s what you took from ‘The Adventures of Alyson Williams’?” Owain asked, referencing the popular Ahldenic time travel tv show ‘She changes the past all the time.”

“She was literally becoming a Guardian, Owain. Are you secretly a Guardian? I know I’m not?” Ruth asked, her own voice was getting high pitched now. He knew she wasn’t trying to be argumentative; he could see it in her eyes. She was scared. He was going to suggest they head back to Ruth’s house and see if it’ll return them to the right time if they go back in, but then he realised something.

“Larry.”

“Larry’s secretly a Guardian?”

“No, no, he’s still alive!” Owain faced Ruth, excited, “We can save him!”

“Did you not hear me before?” Ruth said, and a little bit of his brain agreed. Changing the past was agreed upon to be bad in every piece of fiction available. But that was just fiction, this was real!

“We can at least try,” He said, excitedly, passing Void to Ruth and searching his pockets for a pen and paper

“Try what?” Ruth and Owain froze, again. Void meowed, and they slowly turned to see Larry stood right behind them in his glowing skeleton onesie. They stared at Larry. Larry stared back, “Why are you guys dressed differently?” He asked, looking both of them up and down. His attention was drawn to Owain’s arm. “Dude, you can’t just take off your bandages. We only just saved your arm are you that interested in losing a limb?” He grabbed Owain’s shoulder and gently raised his arm, and frowned even further, “What?” He asked, seemingly to himself.

Owain and Ruth were trying to have a silent conversation over his head, meaning they didn’t notice him look up and watch their faces for a good few seconds, face confused but slightly amused.

“Guys, what’s going on? You’re in scrubs,” he pointed at Owain, “and you’re holding the kitten.” He pointed at Ruth, “Pretty sure you said you were scared of cats,”

“I am,” Ruth corrected him, “I’m just used to Void,”

“You’ve named it? You found and named that kitten in this amount of time,”

“We can explain,” Owain started to say, but then they heard two more voices, some distance away, calling for Void. Their own voices. They winced as Larry looked in the direction of the voices and then back at Owain and Ruth. He sighed.

“I should’ve known. I leave you two alone for a few minutes and more of you turn up? What did you do?” He asked, crossing his arms.

“Nothing, we just walked outside and we were here,” Owain said. Larry didn’t look impressed.

“That’s generally how walking works,”

“No, no, not like that. Ruth? Help?”

“It was the middle of the day, September fifteenth, I think?” She looked at Owain for confirmation. He nodded. With the amount of times he’d had to write the date today, he knew it well.

“I would say you’re having me on,” Larry said, and they heard both Owain and Ruth call out for Void again, “But that is impossible to fake, and you’re bad at lying,” He directed that last bit at Owain. Ruth was looking up at the sky, anxiously, up at the moon still shining down, it was over half, Ruth would know what that was called. He remembered her trying to convince him that the moon was made of cheese, because cheese is made of atoms and so is the moon. He wasn’t convinced that that was how science worked, but it was a fun thought. Owain was still staring at Larry.

“Owain, you good?” Larry asked. It occurred to him that he had just been staring in silence for a good few minutes, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Larry laughed at his own joke, with the skeleton onesie and everything. Owain couldn’t hold it back anymore, lurched forwards and hugged Larry.

“Owain!” Ruth hissed.

“Right,” Owain said, backing off, wiping at his eyes, “Sorry about that. We should go, don’t want to change anything,” He looked at Ruth, who nodded, “No, that’s a lie,” She sighed, but he could tell she understood. She wasn’t holding him back.

“You have seen a ghost, haven’t you?” Larry asked, carefully. Ruth closed her eyes as she saw a shadow pass the moon, and there was an explosion of red and white lighting up the sky, smoke and noise assaulting their senses. Again.

The bell started ringing. Owain found himself back to the first time this happened. They needed to get to the bunkers, and they needed to get there now. He looked around for Ruth and Larry, blinded by the flash.

“Ruth!” He called, “Larry!”

“We’re here,” Ruth replied louder than usual. Closing her eyes had saved her sight, but her ears were still ringing.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Larry asked, fear in his voice. He was trembling. “I’m going to die tonight,”

“Don’t say that-,”

“Yes” Ruth interrupted Owain. “You saved us.” Larry stared at them. “and Void,” Ruth continued. She always talked more when she got awkward, “but you weren’t fast enough to save yourself,” This was definitely awkward. But she still sounded so confident.

“What happened to not changing the past?” Owain asked, wide eyed, “You can’t just tell someone they’re going to die!”

“Alyson does it all the time,” Ruth hit back.

“You’re basing this off of the adventures of Alyson Williams?” Larry asked, there was another explosion, closer by, and a part of the alley wall collapsed. Owain grabbed Ruth and pulled her out of the way, clinging to her. The bricks crashed to the ground, it rocked them, and the dirt path below them was still shaking from the impact. Larry stared at the wall, then at the two of them. “Aw, you are cute,” He said.

“Excuse me?” Ruth asked, composedly. Owain wouldn’t have sounded that composed as he quickly let go of her.

“Give me Void,” Larry instructed, holding out his arms.

“Why?”

“Because you said I saved you two and Void. Can’t do that without Void. Now where are you two?”

“Larry, you can’t,” Owain protested, as Ruth handed him Void, he grabbed him by the shoulder, “You’ll die,”

Larry smiled at him, removing his hand from his shoulder.

“Maybe I’ll be fast enough this time,” He said. None of them believed him, “Now where are you guys now?” Owain blinked, holding back the tears as he pointed Larry in the right direction. “Right. Oh, you might need this,” Larry handed Owain a bracelet. It had a carrot charm on it, “Might help you guys get back. Honestly, I never used it anyway,”

Before either of them could ask Larry what on earth a carrot charm bracelet was useful for, he’d raced off. They could hear the whistle of another bomb falling, and then another, getting closer and closer.

“We have to go to the bunker,” Ruth said, grabbing Owain by the hand and pulling him towards the main street

“We’ll be too late! We were almost too late originally. Larry was and he left from here,” Owain protested, though he still kept up with her as they turned on to the main street, trailing far behind the crowd.

“Not for safety!” Ruth shouted over the noise, “We can shove Larry in with us!”

Understanding, Owain picked up his pace. The ground trembled behind them, that was the alleyway. They could see the other thems and Larry ahead, trying to get closer to the closing doors. There was a whistling descending, growing louder, falling towards them. Ruth was all but dragging Owain towards the three.

Larry looked up, and behind him. He shook his head at the Owain and Ruth running towards him and let go of the Ruth next to him. He shoved her and Owain into the bunker and turned around. The missile hit. The ground was breaking up, flames bursting outwards, Larry but a silhouette. Owain and Ruth were hit by a blast of hot air and then they were home.