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  “You prick.”

  “Now that’s a lovely sentiment to wake up to after my first proper sleep in four years.” When Sean didn’t answer, Drew continued airily: “this isn’t going to get you anywhere, you know. It’s really pathetic.”

  “You’re calling me pathetic?” Sean sneered. “After I’ve just had to sit here for the past hour listening to you whimper like a puppy in your sleep?” Drew froze suddenly, face carefully concealed from view. Sean grinned, glad to have elicited a response. “What was the nightmare about, anyway? Or are you really just that weak?”

  “You’d be better off not knowing,” Drew muttered, finally turning back around to face him. His face was set into a stony mask. Sean was momentarily taken aback, but refused to show his surprise.

  “Why not?”

  But Drew never answered him. Before he knew it the cocky smirk was firmly back in place and he was gathering clothes up from the dresser. “Anyway I’ve got stuff to do today, that doesn’t include standing around entertaining you, so I’m going to go take a shower,” he announced.

  “S-shower?” Sean was slightly mortified by this thought, all previous suspicions quickly forgotten. “You’re going to shower, like, naked?”

  “Of course not, I always shower in my boxers,” Drew replied sarcastically.

  “But-”

  “We’re both guys here, you know. I’ll assume so anyway. So what’s the problem?”

  You’re going to take my dignity and trample all over it, that’s the problem, Sean wanted to say. It was both humiliating and degrading, but then again so was having everyone think he didn’t wash. He’d have to push the embarrassment aside. “Fine,” he muttered in defeat. “Just don’t you dare do anything else.”

  “Well,” Drew winked suggestively. “If you’re so worried about it, you could always come and observe.”

  Sean didn’t try to hide his disgust. “Perverted bastard,” he mumbled, just loud enough for Drew to hear, as he turned around to face the window. He heard another amused laugh behind him, and then the bathroom door clicked shut.

  Sean let his shoulders slump when the sound of rushing water soon reached his ears. He couldn’t get physically tired anymore, but he could feel mentally tired. Like he did right now. It was really the same tiredness that had been weighing him down for days, like an anchor, to this horrible reality. Did it have to be Drew, of all people? Did it really have to be someone so unbelievably aggravating and insufferable?

  He hadn’t noticed, but it was slowly beginning to lighten a bit outside. The streetlamps still cast orange glows on the pavements, and the window reflected the rest of the room back at him. He tried in vain to catch his reflection in the glass. He should have known though, things that weren’t solid didn’t have reflections. Things that didn’t exist didn’t have reflections either. Sean was feeling that urge again to try and shatter the glass, to feel his hand connect with it and send silvery cobwebbed cracks through the window. He didn’t bother trying, knowing it was a waste of time and he’d have plenty more of these episodes before long anyway, but it was strange how he missed the most unlikely things about being alive.

  His thoughts drifted, almost inevitably, to Drew again. Once he got past the initial anger, he couldn’t help but feel confused. Surely there was more to the boy than what he saw on the surface, didn’t the nightmare prove that? There had to be, he tried to convince himself. He couldn’t just be the idiotic, cocky jerk he appeared to be. There had to be another reason for what he did, some higher motive that would make everything worth it. He was curious about the nightmare, maybe even a little sympathetic, but he wouldn’t acknowledge that second emotion. He shouldn’t care. He didn’t. Why would he? He couldn’t have nightmares anymore. They went by the name reality instead now.

  The water finally shut off. He hadn’t noticed, but twenty minutes had already passed. He’d have to get used to entertaining himself with mental arguments like this from now on. And learn patience as well. He would have way too much time to himself but he couldn’t complain, not when before he’d always wanted to be alone. The door opened and Drew walked out towelling his hair in a set of fresh clothes.

  “Nice shower,” he said.

  “You were in there long enough.”

  “Were you lonely without me?” When Sean continued staring out of the window, Drew sighed. “It’s not that bad, you know,” he said.

  “Which part? The part where I’m technically dead, or the part where you’re the only company I have?”

  “I’m just saying, I know what it’s like.”

  “No, you don’t,” Sean shot back angrily. “You ended up like this naturally, but I was never supposed to die. You took this from me, murderer.”

  The other winced slightly at the harsh word. “I’m not a murderer.”

  “Then give me my body back.”

  “No.”

  “Why are you even trying to…sympathise with me? You’re the one who did this in the first place.”

  Drew shrugged. “Well, if I have to put up with you for a few years, I just figure that it would be better if we were on friendly terms.”

  Sean scoffed in derision. “In your dreams.”

  “So does this mean we can’t be bffs?”

  “What?”

  “Best friends forever. Is there anything you do know?”

  Sean had never felt so frustrated. He felt like stamping childishly, slamming a door, punching his fist into a wall, screaming, something. Something to show that he was still human. “I’m sick of this,” he spat. “I’m leaving.”

  “There’s nowhere to leave to,” Drew said airily.

  “Well, anywhere’s better than being around you. I’m going to leave and work out how to get my body back alone.”

  “You can’t. You lose strength the further away you are from me. It’ll make you fade out quicker.”

  “Well what else can I do?” Sean ground out.

  “Stick around here for a while,” Drew suggested. “Just wait and see.”

  “See what?”

  “Well, you have to do the waiting part first.” Sean sighed again in irritation. “It’s not that bad,” Drew repeated. “Just learn some patience.”

  “I hate you.”

  Drew sighed. “I didn’t think you’d mind this much, to be honest,” he admitted, as if to somehow justify his actions.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sean glared.

  “You were never really happy with your life,” Drew said it as a fact: plain and blunt. “I spent months observing you, Sean. You can’t lie to me. I know you weren’t happy.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be happy?” Sean tried to deny weakly, but secretly knew there was no point in it. “There was nothing wrong with my life, before you showed up.”

  “Who are you trying to convince of that?”

  “I’m not trying to convince anyone, it’s true.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Sean suddenly hated how accusing those eyes were. “You were bored with life, Sean. You didn’t even want it. You felt alone, misunderstood, angry because no one bothered trying to understand you. I’m right, aren’t I?” Sean’s scowl confirmed it and Drew smiled darkly at his victory, pressing on. “I can tell just by looking at you that it’s true. So why, tell me, do you care so much now that you’re literally invisible instead of just being figuratively invisible?”

  “I didn’t want to die.”

  “But you didn’t really want to live, either. I probably wouldn’t have been able to separate your soul from your body if you’re will to live had been strong enough,” Drew said. “What were you thinking about that day you were hit by the car, then? I was watching you. You looked…like you’d given up.”

  Sean hated how true it was, but more than that he hated how this stranger could suddenly read him like a children’s picture book. How this stranger could suddenly read him better than the people he had known his whole life. For a moment it was a tense stalemate. “You still had no right t
o do that while I was defenceless,” he said finally.

  “Stop acting like you’re the only person in the world,” Drew hissed. “Death is just as unfair as life, and lots of people die before they’re supposed to. My life was taken away unfairly as well. You took yours for granted, and I wanted it back more than anything.” He stopped suddenly, as if he’d said too much, and for a second it seemed as if emotion that had long been buried behind layers of wit and cockiness surfaced. Just a trick of the light, Sean tried in vain to explain it away. The moment passed quickly though and Drew turned away, limping the length of the room and plucking the door open. “I’ve wasted too much time here. I need to go before Hayden gets back,” he said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Shopping. I need to get a supply of blue contact lenses, if I’m going to impersonate you.” He paused, hesitating in the doorway. “Are you going to come or what?”

  Sean debated his options. Strangely the previous near-murderous fury he had felt was diminishing, and he could think clearly again. What Drew had said didn’t justify his actions, but it was true on some level. He was an ungrateful spoilt brat now that he thought about it, undeserving of the life he’d had. “Okay,” he agreed wearily. “I’ll come.”

  He glanced at the window one more time, desperately searching for his reflection. An empty room was mirrored back at him.

  The streets were barren. It was to be expected, considering the hour. The shops would only just be opening. It was Monday, so most people were already at work or school. It was an eerie feeling though, walking (maybe ‘gliding’ would be a more appropriate word) down a deserted street at nine in the morning, not even being able to hear his own footsteps. Sean cracked a smirk at that. What an odd pair they must make. If he were not invisible to the world, people would think they were identical twins. Or clones.

  The closest Opticians was a twenty minute walk away, in the town high street. Sean couldn’t understand why, but strangely he didn’t feel quite so furious anymore. Instead the anger had mostly dissipated into tiredness. This brand of tiredness felt more like emptiness though. Now that he thought about it, this kind of death was not very different from life. And that just depressed him. The journey was long and slow. It ended up taking nearly forty minutes and a lot of swearing on Drew’s part, to which Sean had only cracked an amused smirk now and again. His body (because it didn’t matter who was in control of it, it was still his body) was still damaged and walking was apparently painful.

  “Serves you right,” Sean muttered bitterly after yet another over-exaggerated pained groan.

  “I’d like to see you put up with this, smartass.”

  “At least I’m not a wimp with no pain threshold whatsoever.”

  “Gimme a break!” Drew whined. “It’s been a while since I’ve felt physical pain.”

  Sean’s taunting seemed to have worked, though, because after that Drew kept quiet and only grimaced instead. By the time they reached the Opticians, Sean could see that the other boy was exhausted and positively relieved they’d arrived. He scoffed inwardly and rolled his eyes. What a drama queen.

  “Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Sean asked as Drew began to check through the various aisles.

  “Yes, of course, don’t patronise me,” he replied. It turned out that he didn’t, though, much to Sean’s annoyance. In the end he only managed to find the correct lenses with the help of a pretty shop assistant who he tried to hit on afterwards. Sean used the opportunity to make as many hollow threats as he possibly could.

  In the end Drew bought three pairs of reusable lenses, with money he’d stolen from Sean’s wallet. “This should keep me going for at least a few weeks,” he explained as they exited the shop, out into the bleak streets. The sun was rising slowly, casting a dull shade of blue into the previously monotonous slate sky. There were a few more people out now, but on the whole the streets were still pretty empty. It was peaceful, in a way.

  “Whatever.” Sean turned away from the backdrop of shops.

  The walk back was relatively quiet and neither boy felt like talking, each lost in his own thoughts, and consciously aware of the few pedestrians around. The pavement, riddled with stepped-in chewing gum and the occasional smashed bottle, wound past little terraced houses, all with the same grimy windows and front doors with peeling paint. There were cars in some of the driveways, and cars parked illegally on the double yellow lines, lined up as if they were just waiting for someone to come along and put a £40 fine in their windows. It was pretty stupid, Sean thought. A few slips of paper in a car window, or even a big yellow clamp on its wheel, would not deter people from parking on the yellow lines. Everywhere you went in the world, people would be parking on those damned yellow lines. He could just imagine it now: a French policeman with a big moustache putting a ticket for who-knew-how-many Euros in some painter’s fancy Peugeot.

  “It’s sad, don’t you think?” Sean murmured, barely noticing that he had voiced his thoughts out loud.

  “What is?”

  “That people don’t make much of an effort, these days.” He wasn’t sure why he was saying this, to someone he barely knew and absolutely loathed no less, but that plain exhaustion he felt refused to leave him. It was bordering on dizziness in fact.

  “You’re one to talk, Sean,” Drew muttered, face scrunched up in concentration as he limped. “You seem to have no motivation in life – or death – at all.”

  “I know,” he agreed, and sighed desolately. “I know that. I’m just saying, stuff looks different when you’re not actually part of it. I never really noticed how rundown those houses looked before, or that people always park on the yellow lines.”

  Drew finally tore his focus away from his feet to give him a shrewd stare. “Are you being serious?”

  “Of course.”

  “You do know that people have been doing that for centuries, right?”

  Sean just shook his head sadly again. “I’m never going to get a chance to take my driving test, am I? Or get a blue mini, or park on the yellow lines and get fined.”

  “You never know,” Drew said, feigning sympathy. “Maybe you’ll get reincarnated as a taxi driver. Then you can park on as many yellow lines as you want.”

  “Hilarious. Maybe you’ll get reincarnated as a comedian, then you can crack as many bad puns as you want.”

  Drew chuckled. “I’d like to get reincarnated as an animal, preferably.”

  “Why?” Sean asked, genuinely interested.

  “Figure it’d be easier, you know. There’d be a lot less to worry about.”

  “I thought you didn’t even believe in reincarnation.”

  “I don’t. I’m just saying, if it was real, that’s what I would want.”

  Another ten minutes passed relatively serenely. They trekked through a few more neighbourhoods, all with their own bus stops that proudly displayed overcoats of graffiti and accessorised with chewing gum buttons. It was worrying that it took dying for him to finally notice the state of the neighbourhood. He sighed. After a while he grew bored, so he took to murmuring the colours of the cars as they passed to distract himself. They seemed duller, though. The reds weren’t quite as vibrant, the yellows not quite as illuminating and the blues not quite as vivid.

  A little later they came across a jogger. The jogger was a woman, well into her forties, with a tiny bun of bark-coloured hair and large thighs that stretched the sweatpants she was wearing like flour sacks. She was breathing heavily, face pink from exertion. Sean had to jump quickly out of the way to avoid her running right through him. They came across a man who looked to be in his 60s and a young girl a few minutes later, as well. It was funny how people seemed to come in little clumps and groups; they were like schools of fish, or herds of wild cows sticking together to escape predators. Safety in numbers, that’s how the saying went.

  Sean noticed that there was something strange about the old man and the little girl whose hand he was holding, something that mad
e them different. They were pale, ghostly white, and their eyes were dull and sunken. The little girl looked up from the pavement and he could see a look of absolute amazement in her eyes when she caught sight of them. She pulled on the man’s sleeve and he saw them as well, that same expression of shock settling into the aged frown lines of his face.

  “You understand, don’t you?” he heard Drew mutter beside him. Both parties had stopped and were simply staring at each other.

  “I think so,” Sean replied quietly. “Those two – they’re imprints, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  And then, before Drew had a chance to say any more, the old man began to advance threateningly towards them, the young girl tagging along but keeping safely behind him. “Sean Lane?” he questioned, and Sean guessed it was directed at both of them. How the hell did this creepy old man know his name? He caught sight of the man’s stunned eyes, a sad pale blue, and a strange sensation settled in his chest. He didn’t want to call it déjà vu.

  “Calm down, Brian, I told you it would work.” To his relief, the man turned his attention to Drew who gave a little wave, casual smirk in place. The man’s expression morphed into one of awe.

  Then the little girl peeked behind her grandfather’s legs, sapphire eyes large and haunting, and timidly stuttered: “D-drew?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he gave an assuring smile, addressing both of them. “I managed to transplant myself into Sean’s-” he jabbed a finger towards him at this point, “body. We’ve switched places.”

  The man, who Drew had addressed as Brian, turned to peer at Sean with what seemed a scientific fascination, as though he were simply the product of an experiment gone wrong. It made him feel uncomfortable, and he shuffled slightly and averted his eyes.

  “So,” he started. “You’re Sean, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to the other boy. “Drew?”

  “That’s right.”

  Sean saw a collage of emotions flash through those hollow eyes. The first was an almost child-like wonder and for a second there was life in the man’s face. And then something else, unidentifiable, took its place and the brightness dissipated as fast as it had come. The young girl, maybe five or six, was gripping the man’s trousers tightly as her eyes – large and round and innocent – flitted between them in awe.