White Shadows

Chapter 7 - Reapers

***ALEX***

It's been a long time since I last went mini-golfing. The last time, I think, was when Mom took Gabe and me to Tahoe when we were eleven, and we went to the Heavenly version of this exact same mini-golf course. Peering at the course itself from the dining room of the pizzeria-slash-arcade, it looks pretty much exactly as I remember it from my days as a tween.

There used to be a pretty popular place called Karts 'n Golf in Spellman, and Gabe and I were usually to be found there any given summer day back then too. But then, when we were in seventh grade at Jameson Junior High, they closed the place down, demolished it, and turned it into expanded parking for a strip mall that, without its primary draw, had lost pretty much all significance. Needless to say, Gabe and I fell out of our mini-golf habit, and haven't played it since.

Maybe that's why, instead of getting a putter (in the biggest size they've got, which would probably still force me to hunch over), I'm just hanging around where the food is. Well, not only that, but I'd be a tall, awkward-looking teenager mini-golfing all by his lonesome. Maybe I'd get an idea of how Dean Winchester felt after he had to be the thirty-something dude hanging around at Plucky Pennywhistle's. I'm not so youthful-looking anymore. I'm six feet tall, my cheekbones are showing now that my baby fat's all but vanished, and my shoulders have finally started filling out to better support my wings. (All of which are actually pretty good, especially the last one, but at the same time I'm nowhere near ready to grow up, I don't think.)

I wish I didn't have to be alone right now. I think I've had more than enough of being alone for a while. Considering I've spent several days barely able to get out of bed, this isn't much of an improvement. I'm not going to be a very good spy here, not with all my thoughts focusing on Gabe and Fionna. I'm not going to be in the Second 'Verse forever, so I'm really hoping to get as much time with them as possible before I have to return home. Even though people and events from the Second 'Verse have a way of intruding in my life with scary regularity, I have to treat this little trip as if it'll be my last time seeing those I love until I die myself. For my sanity, among other intangible things I really can't afford to lose at this point.

"Have you ever been in the lion's den?"

Startled, I look around, only barely remembering what I'm supposed to say in response. "N-No," I stutter out, "but I hear it's supposed to be lovely this time of year."

"Close enough." I finally get a good look at the speaker as he sits across from me - he's an Asian guy wearing a backwards ball cap and a hoodie. With the wispy mustache he's got going on, he even looks like Glenn from The Walking Dead. "Dominic Park," he says, holding out his hand so I can shake it. "I go by my last name, though."

"Good to know," I say. "And by now I'm guessing you know my name, right?"

"Yeah," Park says. "Alex Snow." He looks down at the pizza on my plate.

"You can have it if you want," I say, pushing the plate his way. "At your own risk, though. It's not as good as the pizza Russell serves in my 'verse."

"Nothing's as good as the pizza Russell serves in Prime," Park says, lifting the slice and taking a bite. "'Cept Joey's Pizza in San Castiel. That stuff is marvelous. I actually was a delivery boy for them about ten years ago, but then the recession came along and they had to fire me to save money." He mulls it over for a while as he continues to eat. "They're still in business, though, which is great news."

"Cool." I look out the window again and see, grabbing their putters, your typical nuclear family - mom, dad, two boys, roughly age seven and nine, I'm guessing. The sight of these strangers breaks my heart for two reasons. One, had it not been for the far-fetched, ludicrous chain of events that led to Gabe and I being born the way we were, this could very easily have been our family. And two, I really don't want to think about why there's a family of four, including two little kids, living in the afterlife. My heart's so chilled, it's probably growing icicles right now.