6

“Yup, that's me! How are you feeling?” Her hands were still in the same position as they were on the other side.

I began to sit up and felt the back of my head where I had taken the hit. I didn’t feel any pain or wounds, but the sensation of dried blood was there. Running my hands through my hair and toward the top of my head, checking to see if the rest was okay. Instead I happened upon something else. When I first touched it, I assumed it was some kind of cut because it was so sensitive, but I began to realize it had more of a shape to it. Patting the area I gained a better picture that it was something sticking out of my head. Wait… there's two of them? I crawled over to the edge of the water and finally understood the strange sensation.

“... I have.. Fox ears now? Wait, wait, wait. Why do I have these now?” As my anxiety heightened, I noticed that I had gained another part of myself as a large bushy tail flicked and hit me in the face. “WAS THAT A TAIL?! I HAVE EARS AND A TAIL NOW?!” I looked over to Aoi, my face frozen with a look of confusion. She just gave me a wink and a thumbs up. I guess gaining some of her power also included the ears and the tail too. Well if I can do some of the stuff that she can, I can probably make them disappear if I want. That’ll be a question for later.

As I kept playing with my ears in the reflection, I noticed something else. There was now a blue streak in my hair. Wait, Aoi didn’t have anything like that from what I saw. I turned back to her and noticed that she also now had a strange color streak in her hair.

“Uhh Aoi? I can understand the ears and tail thing, but I dont get why some of our hair is now dyed.” I said in a joking manner, still confused as to why it occurred.

“Oh that's because our souls are now bound. It's something that shows through even if we change our appearance. Think of it as a mark that's permanently etched onto you” She explained, as she was twirling the blue strands of her hair.

“Interesting…” I stood up as the rain began to subside. We had drifted a little ways down the river, but the bridge was still in sight. Aoi stood up as well and walked over towards me.

“So, what do you want to do now?” She leaned forward with her hands behind her back as she waited for my response.

“Well… I guess with a second lease on life I want to actually pursue what I want to do. You’re more than welcome to join me if you’d like.”

“I would be happy to! Plus it’ll be a nice change of pace to have someone else around with me.” Aoi said as she moved toward a nearby road.

“So where to?”

As she said those words, I had realized that my world of gray had started to rapidly shift back into a spectrum of vibrant colors. We had an infinite number of possibilities in front of us. And we were the only ones that needed to choose. I will break the cycle that has plagued my life and move forward, living as I see fit from now on.