"Yo!" A man from across the street hollered, "Where'd you get those shorts?"
"Shorts?" I cocked my head back in confusion before looking down, "Holy smokes, I didn't even notice these!"
"...So I take it you don't know where you got 'em from." He crossed the street before extending his hand, "Nice to meet you, I'm..."
"Don't worry about names. I can't remember my own either." I chuckled, "Hey, wait..."
Much like the shorts, I was too preoccupied with the gilded spine that I totally skipped out on the rest of my body's changes. Now that we're shaking hands, I finally noticed them—Initials on the back of each of our palms. Do they have some sort of significance...?
"...Uhm..." He looked around awkwardly, "Y-You can let go now."
"Hm? Oh!" I hastily pulled my arm away, "Sorry! I was just admiring your forearms. The golden slashes look awesome."
Well, awesome sounds kind of wrong in this scenario, since he might've gotten them from self-cutting in his past life or something. Right, given what little I know so far about this place, it seems every permanent wound we had as humans was fixed with gold replacements. This must be what that Divine Voice mentioned when he said he'll "remove any and all imperfections within us".
"And if you think those are cool, wait 'til you see this!" He smugly showcased something surprisingly cute.
"...Pfft!" I burst out laughing, "A golden pinkie!? What the hell kind of promise did you make!?"
"Hahaha, I know, right!" He laughed with me, "...Hey, hold on a second? What's this letter on the back of my hand?"
Guess he finally noticed it too. I do wonder, maybe it's the location of our house so we wouldn't get lost? The God mentioned that, didn't he? That each of us get a single house each. Maybe if we set up a table over New Heaven, with both the columns and row getting assigned a letter each, we could get like a coordinate system? Is that what they are? Hmm, but no—It'd make way more sense then to use numbers...
"Oooh, I get it." He figured something out, "They're elements! See, yours is M.G., so that must be Magnesium!"
"Hm?" I raised an Eyebrow, "Nah, you're tripping."
"How come?" He defiantly folded his arms.
"If that's the case, genius, then what the hell kind of element is Lg?" I rolled my Eyes.
"...Legium." He replied with a serious face.
"Leg-!? Ugh, dude, come on." I turned around.
"O-Okay, okay! I didn't think anyone here would even know what the periodic table even was, so I kinda just winged it!" He admitted, "Look, it might be like... Gallium mixed with Lithium, I don't know!"
"What are you even babbling on about!?" I yelled before recollecting myself, "...Alright then, let's just go with that, GaLi."
"Wait, you want us to call each other by these letters?" He scowled, "I'll be damned if I ever call a girl Magnesium."
"Then shorten it to Maggie or something."
"Nah, don't like it." He kept thinking, "What about Megazoid?"
"Where'd that come from?" I raised both Eyebrows in astonishment.
"It just came to mind." He shrugged, "All jokes aside though... Magnes."
"Like Agnes, but with an M." I smirked, "Real creative."
"Hey, it's better than Maggie."
Thus, we somehow gave each other names. Strange, he's a completely random person who just happened to be my neighbor in this new world, yet I don't at all feel insecure about talking to him. It's like we've known each other our entire lifetime. Well, technically speaking, we did, since our lifetime is only a couple of minutes by now.
"Then-"
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!" A meteorite fell right beside us.
Holy hell! Am I still alive!? Oh, oh good, I am... Wait, I'm unscathed too. This is quite the miracle... Wait again! That's no meteor, it's a person!
"Are you alright, sir!?" GaLi and I ran up to check on him.
The guy, a man with a similarly White body to ours, except with golden mechanical wings branching out from behind his back, had taken a good hard look at the both of us before getting up with a ton of grunting added in. Rude, we were just trying to make sure you were alright.
"You..." He snapped his fingers in front of me, "What's your name?"
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"O-Oh, I don't really..."
"Yeah no shit, none of us don't really have names!" He got fussy, "What's the name you chose to go by, dammit."
"...I'm not telling you!" I shooed him off, "Weirdo, what the hell are you gonna do with that information?"
"I see. Well, you'll be happy to hear I've already figured out what I needed to know just from your stupidly ignorant answer." He sighed, "It didn't work."
"Huh?" GaLi wondered, "What didn't work?"
"She-" He stopped himself mid sentence, "Never mind, Vastoria told me not to get her involved."
"Who's Vastoria?" I furrowed my brows, "Wait, are you sure you don't have the wrong person?"
"Yes, I'm sure." He made fun of my voice, "Well then, you two carry on chatting like the random nobodies you are. I'll be getting out of your hair."
Just like that, he spread his wings before flapping them once, causing us to get blown away by the sheer force of his wingspan. The man soared through the sky just as quickly as he fell from it, and in but a couple more seconds, he was gone.
"Weirdo." I dusted myself off after getting back up, "GaLi, you good?"
"That guy...!" He hastily jumped back up on his feet before sprinting away, "We need to follow him, now!"
"Eh!? Why'd you wanna follow that douchebag?" I yelled back.
"Wings, fool!" He turned back with a confident grin, "If an asshat like him can have them, then why can't we!?"
Hm? Oh? Oh yeah! Yeah, GaLi's totally right! Once again, I was so preoccupied with the previous things that I totally forgot to ask him how he got those! Dammit, how long have I been asleep for? I feel like he's totally ahead of the game when compared to me! Well, winged bastard, you'll be happy to know I won't let you get away! I'm getting those wings, and if I have to rip them off you, then that's all the better!
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Running with all our might through the crowded streets, I noticed GaLi being pretty rough when pushing aside all the other residents of Heaven. I understand he wants people to move out of the way, but surely that's a bit excessive, no?
"Move, sorry, coming through..." He barely even raised his volume as he pushed anyone and everyone to the floor, "Excuse me, sorry, won't happen again, in a rush..."
"Hey, hold on, you purposefully stepped in front of that guy just to push him!" I caught him.
"What? No~" He slowed down just enough to let me take the lead, "But it is pretty fun, I'll admit. C'mon, you try it!"
Eh!? Of course not, what kind of a monster acts like that in Heaven of all places? I'm absolutely not gonna push anyone. Just gonna squeeze right on through. Ye-Ow! Hey, the least you could do is move to the side a bit, jackass! Geez, some peop-Oof! Woman, what the hell!? N-No, no matter how annoyingly blind these idiot bystanders are, I mustn't stoop so low as to-Yeow!
"Freakin' move, dammit!" I got tipped over enough to shove a lady off my path, "...Whoa, yeah, that is fun!"
"Right? And these idiots deserve it too, so you don't even feel bad about it later!" GaLi laughed, "Okay, my turn now!"
Thus, taking turns paving the way for each other, we found ourselves quite far from our starting position without even feeling like we covered a couple meters at best. This is quite the effective strategy at shortening down long travels. Ah, but now that the initial burst of fun has worn off, I do sort of feel bad for the innocent people I've pushed... Is what I would say if they didn't constantly keep bumping shoulders with me. Dammit, piss off!
"Ack!" One guy caught himself before falling on his face, only to officially become the first one to return the favor, "Who the hell're you pushing, lady!? Take this!"
"Magnes!?" GaLi stopped immediately so he could help me out, "The hell's your problem, man!?"
"My problem? She pushed me first!" The guy defended himself.
Ah, well, I guess that's true. Don't give shoves if you don't know how to take 'em. He's pretty obviously in the right here, no matter how you slice it, though. I guess I should just apologize to de-escalate the situation.
"GaLi, it's okay. Look, I'm sorr-"
"Bastard!" GaLi decked him in the face.
"I said stop, dammit!" I pulled him away, "Crap, sir, I am SO sorry about this, I...! Eh?"
"That... didn't hurt a bit." The guy, having not even flinched at GaLi's punch, seemed just as surprised, "Hey, hold still."
"Huh? Me-DOOF!" GaLi fell to the ground the moment he got struck in the stomach, though just like before, he got up immediately after, "Eh? That's...?"
"Wait, do angels not feel any pain?" The guy turned to me.
"Please don't test that theory on me as well." I backed off.
"Hm? O-Oh, no, I wasn't saying that!" He explained, "Actually, I just woke up a few minutes ago. I have no clue who I am, where I am, or even when I am, so I was just walking around this place trying to get some information from the people around me."
"And did you learn anything?" GaLi asked.
"Nope, they just chalked me up as suspicious for asking questions." He slumped forward, "Sigh, if you have anything at this point, I'd gladly take it..."
Hmm, well, he's at least the same as us in that regard. Golden hula hoops around his waist though, it makes him look girlier. That being said, we could offer him the knowledge of the letters on our hands or even the reason behind our gilded parts. It'd only be fair to compensate him somehow for the scare...
"Well, sorry to hear that, but we gotta go." GaLi was right about to take off, "Come on, Magnes, thr wings are waiting for us!"
"Wait, chill!" I pulled him back by the wrist, "They can wait, how about we help this person first?"
"What? Why?" He tugged forward in his own direction.
"Because it's the right thing to do." I then turned to the guy, "So, mister..."
"Sab." He raised both hands, "At least that's the name I gave myself based on these letters. It's my assumption that they're our initials from back before we died."
"...Ooooh." GaLi and I realized, "Yeah, that makes way more sense than what we thought."
"Yeah? And what's that?" Sab chuckled.
"Heh." I smugly pointed at GaLi, "Ask him, he's the genius chemist here."
"Chemist?" Sweet, naive Sab was still clueless, "Wait, so you remember your previous occupation!? Do tell me how you found out!"
"Mgh..." GaLi was beet Red from embarrassment, "Just end the chapter already, geez! I promise to explain it to him off-screen!"
"Chapter?" Sab kept pressuring him, "Off-screen? Gasp, wait, you play games!? Actually, I woke up in some sort of pillow fort with a GS5 in it that has tons of games pre-installed! If you want, we can go there and-"
"Author, pull the plug, goddammit!" GaLi looked at some random direction as if talking to an otherworldly entity, "Don't make the readers have to sit through this!"
It seems our dear friend GaLi here has the case of the loonies. The moment Sab started pressing him for answers, he started going crazy. Maybe GaLi's brain is golden too, you never know.