What if you would...

A house in the country is almost always good thing. There is always less of that terrible, almost suffocating, urban smog, so living here isn't bad also. It is the middle of a hot summer — at this time the leaves of the trees are especially green, and the days are especially hot. Although the metropolis is located right at the foot of high mountains, near the edge of the city there are quite high and beautiful hills, from which very good views of the outskirts of the city open, even though the hills were empty more often, just like today. Just on one of these hills, Mel, walking home after work, suddenly notices his disheveled brown hair already so related to her and heads in his direction. He is closely watching Mel, who is walking towards him in a black and white plaid shirt, a wide-brimmed hat and black summer jeans, straightening unruly strands of fiery red lush hair with her hand. "Is the working day at the workshop over?" — Mel grins and walks up to Virgil. He sits cross-legged in the tall grass that reaches right up to his nose, and slowly turns a dejected look at Mel. "Yes, there was a large-scale work." — his voice sounds tired and Mel sits down next to him in the tall grass and wraps her arms around her knees, looking down at the ground. It is from this hill that a beautiful view of the flaming sunset opens. Such feelings cannot be confused with any other feelings. The setting sun is still visible on the horizon, and many people are still walking along the streets and cars are slowly driving. The shiny glass of tall houses reflect the rays of the setting bright Sun. Mel looks at the sunset and out of the corner of his eye clings to the Sun setting behind the mountains. Even her peripheral vision allows her to see the brightness of this huge star. Mel smoothly looks up at Virgil sitting next to him and notices his glassy lifeless gaze, directed somewhere into the distance, into the sunset. "Is everything okay?" Mel asks cautiously and leans over to Virgil, letting down his long red hair. Virgil slowly turns to her and Mel finds himself looking not only into her ocean-blue eyes, but also directly into her soul, which makes her involuntarily shudder. Virgil nods slowly and lowers his head. "I've been thinking about something." he begins and Mel leans forward, turning his head to the left sitting Virgil. He sits slouched, and repeatedly throws a tender glance at Mel. She just hugs her knees tighter, and her look directly tells Virgil for her, they say: "Go on, I'm waiting," so Virgil, after a short pause, continues: "How would your and my life have turned out under different circumstances." Mel raises an eyebrow questioningly, not understanding what he is driving at. She hadn't thought much before about how her life would have turned out if everything had been different. And what exactly is different? That's exactly what Mel didn't understand, so she asks the obvious question: "What's "other circumstances"?" Virgil bites his lip and looks up at the orange sky, as if not noticing Mel's gaze on his eyes. "What if you'd never came the Lab?" Virgil asks in a treacherously trembling voice, and Mel involuntarily squeezes her fingers to absolute whiteness, and her gaze becomes clouded at once. What would have happened if she had never appeared in the Lab? What if she didn't want to make a significant contribution to science? It is such a thought that only now bothered to visit Mel's already overloaded mind. "I would have stayed in that dark dump forever and would have passed out in a few days." Virgil continues to reason. This version made Mel's body shudder, and her fists clenched even harder. This prospect does not suit Mel, so her brain turns off for a moment and allows herself to imagine a possible outcome, succumbing to derealization. No, it didn't get any easier. Rather, on the contrary — the awareness of an alternative situation makes Mel's limbs tremble, causing her heart to beat faster. Yes, as a result, this did not happen, but Mel, who believes in alternative Universes, still felt scared and sad. "Don't think about it." - Mel waves it off, and rather forces himself to do it than Virgil, who continues to express his thoughts, as if not paying any attention to Mel's words: "But what's worse is if you left the Lab then, and I would have stayed." — there are such notes of horror and sadness in his voice, as if Virgil had just experienced such scenarios in reality. Mel begins to breathe nervously, and his hands, gathered in a lock, fall dead to the cool ground. "W-why is it worse?" — only now does Mel realize how stupid that question sounded. "I would miss you. And so it would have been for decades, then centuries. And then I would realize that you..." — there is horror in his eyes when Virgil smoothly turns his head to Mel and looks at her again with that heartbreaking look. Mel looks pityingly into Virgil's eyes, and his knees slide to the left, lying directly on Virgil's knee. "Don't think about it." — Mel repeats and tries to follow what was said herself, in an attempt to discard bad thoughts. Virgil just sighs and, as if on purpose, begins to put pressure on Mel's sore spot: "You believe in alternate Universes, don't you?"—the remark is accompanied by a heavy sigh, and Mel shivers, anticipating Virgil's future words. Mel closes his eyes and, shaking his head, sits on his knees, resting his hands on the ground. "Don't you think about that." "I would have used my own advice myself," Mel flashes in her head, before she manages to fall from her knees to the ground again, almost falling on her companion. "Sooner or later, this thought would have caught up with one of us anyway," Virgil grins mirthlessly and puts his elbow on his knee. "You're ahead of me in this," Mel remarks, and rubs her knees with her hands, straightening her shirt. The fallen hat lies submissively next to it in the grass, while Mel drills Virgil with his eyes, and he, in turn, saws the tall grass nearby with his eyes. "It's just hard to realize that such a situation could happen," Virgil mutters and looks at Mel from under his brows. "But it didn't happen." Mel announces solemnly, clasping his hands. — "At least in our universe." "Do you remember..." — Virgil begins, pretending that Mel did not hear, from which she only makes an incomprehensible face and hides an unruly strand behind her ear. - "When we escaped from the Lab, the same sunset was shining." Mel nods weakly, not quite understanding what this has to do with it at all, and throws his head back, surveying the sunset. She is almost sure that Virgil hardly listens to her, and her thoughts are going out loud, so the only thing that comes to her mind is not to answer. Silence, however, does not last long, because Mel's temperature seems to rise, and her head is bursting from the inside because of the pressure. "Why are you..." Mel stammers and turns to Virgil, who is trembling slightly, hugging his knees with his hands, resting his chin on them. "Why did you even think about it?" "These thoughts often torment me," Virgil responds, blinking frequently, as if his eyes are stinging from something sharp. As soon as Mel wants to get up from her knees, something stops her abruptly. Absently looking down, she sees Virgil's hand tightly squeezing her wrist. Mel glances into his amber-brown wide eyes and suddenly fixes her gaze on his cheek. Virgil turns his eyes to Mel, piercing her with his gaze, and does not even notice a tear slowly rolling down his cheek. Mel's eyes widen and she falls to the ground again, sitting down next to her. "Hey, what's wrong?" Mel asks affectionately, gently touching his companion's shoulder. He has not yet learned life, he still does not fully know how to hide strong emotions, and it is at such moments that Mel feels that Virgil wants her to just be there in a difficult moment. So that he would have someone to hug, so that he would have someone to talk to. Not much time has passed since their escape from the Laboratory, not many events have happened. Mel knows that she just has to get to know this seemingly simple guy who is obsessed with ornate things. Noticeably crazy, because such thoughts did not even visit Mel's sensitive mind. "Other Universes don't concern ours," Mel says carelessly, and an involuntary smile appears on his face. - "Well, probably. Let's be honest—nothing bad has happened." Mel doesn't understand where Virgil is looking. It seems to her that his gaze is fixed on nowhere, into the Void, and at such moments Mel becomes creepy, because Virgil begins to look just like a robot, not even equipped with AI. In fact, he just looks at every crushed blade of grass illuminated by the setting sun behind the mountains, going deep into the boundless Realm of Thinking. Mel leans forward a little to get a better look at Virgil's face, also illuminated by a bright yellow star that hangs lazily in the orange sky behind Mel. She follows Virgil's gaze sensitively, even though she understands that he, like no one else, does not like being watched. Mel tries to catch where his distracted gaze is directed, and almost catches it, after which he smoothly turns his gaze to the grass. "Maybe it doesn't concern us," Virgil suddenly says, and Mel abruptly realizes that her other hand is slowly getting closer to Virgil's hand. — "But I already said that sometimes all sorts of thoughts can visit me." "It will end." — Mel reassuringly reassures and closes her eyes for a second, and her soft hand finally rests on Virgil's hand lying on the heated ground, which makes him immediately wake up and look at his hand. Mel doesn't stop and puts the back of Virgil's hand on his own leg, and her palm lies on top, intertwining their fingers with each other. Virgil immediately has something coagulated, somewhere near the solar plexus, and his eyes focus on high mountains, where even the highest tops are green-green, without any hint of snow. The gaze, however, does not linger on the tops of the mountains for a long time, because Virgil's gaze strives to stop at his companion in life. And, as it turns out, not just the look. Mel, who did not expect anything sudden, does not even have time to pull herself together, as Virgil's hand slips out of her hand and, in a duet with the second hand, abruptly embraces Mel. Her hands still lie in front of her, but immediately rise to respond to an unexpected embrace, and wrap around Virgil's back. She says that this sentimentality will pass, but she does not fully understand why she says this. Not an avid melancholic, whom external emotions affect only occasionally, and sometimes a complete mess is going on inside, to judge what will pass there and what will not. God, Mel is the opposite of Virgil in many ways. They are like antonyms in different languages. They are completely different, despite the fact that at the same time they are very, very similar. "If you hadn't shown up at the Lab..."— a voice suddenly rang out from behind, somewhere near the back of her head, sharply pulls Mel out of the ocean of thoughts. "I'm afraid to think about the consequences." Mel is about to say something, but the words fly out of his head when Mel begins to choke. But she finds it very... pleasant. Of course, such an extraordinary death from strangulation with hugs is unlikely to ever come, but Mel knew for sure that... "If I die, it's only this way." The sun has almost completely disappeared behind the peaks of the mountains, it has become almost completely dark, and now only the dark blue sky flaunts over the heads of millions of people in the metropolis. "We just wouldn't know each other." — with an unusually manifested indifference, Mel answers sharply and hurries to open her eyes. She didn't want this phrase to sound SO indifferent and simple. It sounded better in her head. And it seems that Virgil also did not appreciate this tone, because almost immediately after what he said, he slowly pulls away from Mel, and his shocked gaze falls on Mel, making her feel that she is a serial killer and generally dares to lie to people in their faces and not blush, killing their loved ones behind their backs. Virgil doesn't have any relatives. No mom, no dad. He doesn't even remember them. For that there is one close person. Who is sitting in front of him right now and is already preparing excuses for his seemingly harmless statement. The tone changes a lot. "And imagine such a situation..." — Mel begins, barely holding back a silly grin, while Virgil is watching her closely. "And if you had discovered me after I died from chemicals in the capsule?" Almost immediately she regrets what he said, because Virgil, who previously held Mel's forearms, squeezes them even harder, obviously not on purpose, but tears accumulate in the corners of Mel's eyes, and her face uncontrollably writhes. Virgil seems to ignore it, and the next second Mel feels her face buried in his shoulder. *** "Em... Is this thing on? Hello... Hello?... Can you hear me?" Mel fell to the dirty cold and dusty floor, knocking her knees. She didn't understand what was going on, and desperately tried to wake up to the end and pull herself together. "Oh, right, you can't answer me." Who said there that after sleep the head becomes clearer? Mel was already ready to refute this theory, because after this dream, her head was mired in a fog of questions, and did not become clearer. "Ahem, ahem... I'm sorry, an astronaut, an Olympian, or a war hero... We have it here... There was a little problem with the test." Mel had already clenched her fists and, getting to her feet, actively turned her head, trying to find the owner of this voice. It was definitely not Cave Johnson, no. The owner of this voice was clearly younger than this selfish half-wit. "But-oh, we got you out without complications. Don't worry, everything is fine, nothing has changed..." But the dirty dusty floor, the stripped walls in the cell and the almost burned-out lamp with the fallen painting said the opposite. The voice didn't sound very confident, so Mel already suspected that something was wrong. If this person was trying to portray Cave Johnson, he must have known that Cave Johnson always speaks confidently and loudly, even if what he says is utter nonsense that has nothing to do with reality. And he certainly won't convince the subjects that everything is fine. "It's still 1952." Mel faltered. If she was sure that this man was blatantly lying to her, then the fact that she was in 1952 was also a lie. It is unlikely that in the 15 minutes or one hour promised by Cave, the entire Laboratory could turn into ruins. Mel understood what was going on from the very beginning. *** The memory of their first meeting or dialogue with Virgil makes Mel smile involuntarily. And although her face is still buried in his shoulder, Mel only turns her head to the left and covers Virgil's body with her hands, leaning the right side of her face against his shoulder. Her forehead accidentally touches Virgil's neck, and he shudders imperceptibly. "Better think about what a parodist you are." — it comes from below, and Virgil throws a surprised glance in the direction of the redhead, almost lying on his shoulder. She just grins maliciously and continues. - "Your parody of Cave Johnson deserves a nomination for the "worst parody of the century" award. Virgil just snorts in amazement and disappointment, realizing that Mel is, in fact, right. "Well, yes, you're right. Virgil agrees and puts his chin on the top of Mel's head. "And you got distracted." — Mel notices and almost regrets what he said, because Virgil can now remember again about those obsessive thoughts in his head. But contrary to expectations, Virgil just grins and lays his cheek on the top of Mel's head. It's as if pressure is rising in her head and she feels the rhythm of Virgil's heartbeat quicken, and instinctively presses herself. "If you had never appeared in the Laboratory..." Mel is already shrinking, preparing to pour out a portion of arguments on this emotional weirdo why he shouldn't think about such devilry as this, but Virgil only withstands a short pause and, gazing at the star-studded sky, adds: "Then we'd both be dead by now." Mel feels a lump rise in his throat, but holds back tears. No, not tears of sadness, tears of happiness. Just tears of happiness that in the end everything turned out better than what she and Virgil could ever only dream of. More than decades have passed since Mel fell asleep, she had no relatives. But she remembers. Remembers every moment. He remembers the sunset that was when he and Virgil left the Laboratory forever, remembers that torrential rain that turned into a strong thunderstorm with powerful gusts of wind, remembers the days and nights of the endless journey, hoping to find at least something like a village, or something like that. He remembers that first modest and hesitant kiss in the downpour, near those very high empty hills near the metropolis, a couple of months ago. She remembers every moment with him. She remembers how she couldn't speak, she remembers how her voice was returned to her. She remembers that rainy day when her insides turned inside out, and life was divided into "before" and "after" again. She remembers their first meeting, she remembers their acquaintance. She remembers everything. And it sounds like a lie, but that's true. And about a year had passed since she and Virgil had escaped from the Lab, but the memories where Virgil was present were still as colorful as a summer sunset.