I groaned with a throbbing white light searing in front of my closed eyelids.
"What is this" I said looking around squinting trying to blink and adjust my eyes. All my years in the void had me completely un equipped.
"Agh" I said as my eyes cuaght site of what I thought maybe be the blinding sun. At least that is what my brain filled the gaps with. It had been so long many of my memories became hazier.
There was a boy standing over me with a worried expression, trying to block me from the light. I snapped up looking around alert.
I was between some buildings that looked nothing like the German buildings I was used to. "Where am I, what did you do!" I asked alarmed.
"Calm down and listen to me" the voice said.
"listen to you why? What did you do to me? I don't even know you" I felt so alarmed.
He reached out putting his hand on my heart as if to calm me down, for some reason my body felt a bit weird. I felt a warm hot sensation on my wrist and back of my palm.
My palm? I looked down at my human body in shock. My eyes now locking on a blazing white circular symbol on the back of my hand, and a black trailing smokey pattern that wove around my wrist towards rhe white dot.
"Let go of me" I said panicked now. I didn't know what to make of the feelings I had burning up internally.
"Oh sorry" he said retracting his hand from my heart, now the marks on my new found body fading out of visibility.
"I was just in the void, how am I here" I asked.
"There is much to learn and be explained. For now we should get out of this alley okay?" He said to me.
"No, first, who are you" I pressed.
He looked at me hesitant contemplating his reply carefully.
"I am Yang" he said biting his lip in nerves and hesitation.
"Yang? Like the symbols? Isn't Yang sun energy, aka masculine? Why do you look feminine?" I asked scowled at him.
"Hey hey, no making comments on my appearance like that. You're Yin and you look nothing like a girl either" Yang said pointing at me.
I stared at him almost open mouth. He offered me his hand to pull me up. His small frame struggling to hoist my bigger stature. I tried to scramble up but found myself almost falling over.
"Been too long?" He asked me with a bright smile. I stared at him almost in awe, he didn't look familiar at all to me, and yet I still felt he was.
As we walked, albeit quite sloppily. I found myself looking around. Everything looked different. "Where are we" I asked him again.
"Hmm, I am actually not certain. I haven't spent much more time out than you. I think it's sometime around 2024 though" he mused.
"You think?! I have no idea what the future is like, I seldom even left Germany, are we even in Germany? You said you don't get out much which implies you have"
He ignored my last question instead looking around "Hey miss" he asked a local "I am a tourist, I believe I'm a bit lost, where is this?" He asked as if not worried at all.
The lady responded in a spanish voice, definitely not german. I looked a bit confused trying to remember any Spanish I knew.
Yang looked unfazed, responding instantly before turning to me saying "we're in España, Spain"
I scanned him up and down. This boy looked a bit mixed to me right now, more so Asian than Spanish.
As if understanding my very confusion "I am part Thai Chinese in this life anyway. In my last, I remember I wanted to escape Germany so badly I studied my fathers politics when Thailand was still called Siam and involved with Europe. We crossed over to England and Paris often. Maybe this life decided the irony was to make me this way"
I stared at him not sure what to say and worried something I would say would come off racist. I was born in a racist time and a country so diversity was often punished quite extremely by the time I became old enough to register it.
It wasn't as if these were opinions of my own, just an upbringing thats hard to shake. I had not yet known how such people were treated in current day. My worries were of the past flashing in my head.
I usually had operated on 'don't ask don't tell' the very same when it came down to my male preferences.
I found myself gulping, feeling attracted to him, but due to that past feeling it was all manners of wrong. I did not want to loop myself into any impulsive scandals.
I couldn't even explain this feeling well. I barely remembered my past in detail, however staring at this boy in front of me. I thought he was all kinds of realms of pretty.
He just smiled at me as if trying to let me take this in before turning and skipping down the streets. "Where are we going" I asked him.
"You sure are very inquisitive now aren't you?" He replied.
"Yes well who wouldn't be if they lived in a void for decades and suddenly ended up in a foreign country with a foreign boy they never met before!" I exclaimed.
"Who says we never met before, besides, I spent those decades with you by your void, you know me" he said shrugging his shoulders as if stating a super simple fact.
"Just follow" he said before I could reply or even formulate a response.
I had no clue what else to do so I did. He walked with purpose as if knowing where to go, though I questioned how he could when he needed to ask where we are.