Living Reflection

I look absently out the window as the bus trundles along down the road, completely tuned out from the world. Music coming through the headphones over my ears, I can't help but bop my head along to the beat of the song. What? It's catchy...

I am brought back to reality so abruptly that I literally jump a little in my seat. Up till now, the scenery outside has all been the same. Blue sky with white, fluffy clouds dotting it's endless expanse here and there, tall, leafy trees every now and again, paths beside the road on which we travel and bright green grass. Lots of bright green grass.

I feel my eyes go wide as I spot the figure. At first, my eyes simply graze over them, like they've been doing with everything else, and then, I look back. That figure looked familiar... I swear I've seen them somewhere before....

I let out a sigh of relief as the bus stops to let someone on and press my face as close as it will go to the window, squinting hard in order to try and get a clearer view of this person. Whoever they are. All I can make out from this distance is that they are of an average height, and they have dark brown hair, a similar shade to my own, if not the same shade.

I shake my head, realising it was them the bus was stopping for. My eyes are glued to them as they move to step on and I wait with baited breath for them to come closer and give me a better look at them. I shudder at how creepy my own thoughts sound and avert my eyes back to the window.

But, as the sound of footsteps come closer as the new passengers make their way down the aisle to find seats, I can't help but look back. I breathe a sigh of relief as I spot the seemingly familiar person, who has not yet passed me. Again, my eyes are glued, but I try as hard as I can to be unobtrusive, casually switching my gaze from them to the view beyond the bus window, making sure to spend more time looking out the window then at them.

I look over again just in time to see they've slept into the empty seat right across the aisle from me. I look them up and down before averting my gaze once more, closing my eyes to focus on the image in my mind.  There's a reason this person looks familiar, I realise as I open my eyes and look at them again. I shudder as their gaze meets mine and it suddenly all makes sense. I am looking back at me.

It's like looking into a mirror, except I'm not. I'm right there. In front of me. It can't be right, I think and blink, but I'm still there, looking exactly as I do right at that moment. My mouth falls open as I stare back at myself.
"Come," says the other me as the bus stops again. Intrigued, I would have gotten up and followed them, but I don't have much of a say in the matter as I grab my wrist and drag me up the aisle after me.

I am more or less led blind and am instructed to sit down again before I am allowed to open my eyes. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the intense darkness surrounding me, but once they do, I look around, taking in my surrounding before my eyes come to rest on the other me, standing a few feet away with arms crossed over their chest, looking back at me. They step forward into the only piece of light in the room, coming, I suppose, from a random hole in the roof overhead. I feel myself stiffen as I see what the other me holds in his hands. A gun. Pointed squarely at me. On sheer instinct, I swiftly raise my hands in surrender. "Please!" I say, my voice sounding foreign as it hits my ears. "Don't shoot!"

I let out an involuntary sigh as the other me lowers his gun slightly and begins to circle me, in stunned motionless silence in my chair. "What do you want from me?" I hear myself ask in a whisper. "with me?"
The other me pauses directly in front of me, looks up slightly in order to meet my eyes, or, more accurately, look at my eyes from under his hood, and grunts. "I am working on orders." He says in a gruff voice.
"Orders?" I somehow manage to echo his words. "Orders from whom?"
"I cannot say," he says, averting his gaze away from me. "Though you may relax. The gun was merely a tool to ensure your compliance." As he speaks, the other me slowly loosens his grip on the gun, and I wince as it falls to the ground with a clatter. "You cannot die, for one day, you are to become me."

I simply stare back at the other me, now standing a few feet away, holding my gaze from the safety of the shadows, and blink.
"This brings me to the reason behind our acquaintance," he says and I struggle to resist laughing at his choice of words. "Though it was inevitable." I remain silent, waiting for him to continue, confident there is more. "Now is when your training begins." In a few, swift movements, he is behind me, coaxing me to stand up, and frightened by the possibility of the gun's return, I do.
"Training for what?" I ask as I straighten up.
"That," says the other me, "is for me to know, and you to find out."