Only disclaimer: I don't own much more than my ideas.

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The Alter Ego Theory

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He arrived at the bus stop meticulously dry under his navy blue umbrella. Only his shoes were wet, and his socks inside them, but he didn't really mind. His thoughts were elsewhere, far, far away, maybe trying to catch up to him from the dirt road he'd just been running on.

The thing is that, despite it all, it was so unlikely he'd be there. Popular belief would dictate that a man with two MBAs and his knack for sniffing out skyrocketing return on investments would be driving a sleek car, probably gunmetal grey, listening to some snobbish type of high-class trance and watching the road lights go by like frantic fireflies. Yet there he was, so late, so far from home. So many paradoxes, all converging in his designer clothes and the dark bags under his eyes.

The sticker on the bus stop's metal frame with the schedule said there was still half an hour left until the next bus turned up. Despite that, he didn't take a seat, just waited, just looked at the relentlessly falling rain. On a spur of awareness, he hazily calculated he wouldn't be back home before midnight.

The bus stop was almost empty, but the rain, the cold, and the darkness made it feel almost crowded. A skinny girl with a hoodie sat to his right, an old yet vigorous man, stood to his left. Distracted as he was, he did not pay much attention to either, but being a man with a strong sense of practicality he did note, that the girl was soaking wet, and the old man was immaculately dry, although neither carried an umbrella. She had a white bag, he wore a WWII-like trenchcoat; and he labeled them in his head by force of habit, mechanically, as if they were individuals to transact business with- the careless girl, the KGB officer. He'd buy stock from neither, he thought, which brought a frail, distant smile to his lips.

Minutes passed in rural silence, and a chorus of frogs made up for the lack of interaction between the three strangers, that could have very well been the last inhabitants of the world in that moment. Three people who, most likely, had been gathered in that place due to the most dissimilar (yet surely equally bizarre) reasons.

The city was, after all, further away than anyone would wish it to be so late on a working day.

When the bus arrived, he courteously let the girl and the old man go in first. The driver was a young, bald man, with an intelligent shine in his eyes, and an assortment of facial tattoos that made him look like a convict or a tiki god, and strangely in place with the slightly-offness of the night.

Gently, the engine was started and the bus set in motion.

He failed to be pleased with himself for always coming back. From the formal clothes to the wooden hilt of his umbrella, he didn't belong in the peaceful world of ancient continuance that the temple preserved; he, with his class and wealth and renown, felt almost stupid for trying to offer a prayer to some whatever gods he'd never much cared about, much more when he knew it was both hypocritical and the right thing to do. Yet, there he was.

Again.

The logical side of his brain was still trying to decode how it worked, the feeling of void when his brother left for university to another city, the involuntary remembrance of the good and bad times past, the pang in his chest when he waved at him in the airport for the last time, the first time he left, and the single thought spared to his parents during the solitary car drive back home.

That had been five years ago. And, roughly about that time, driven by something akin to nostalgia (and definitely not regret), was when he had found out where their parents were buried. He remembered the kindness of the priest despite his edginess. His feeling at a loss for words when he saw the gravestone.

The following year, his brother had come with him to visit, marking an anniversary and a routine of sorts.

They'd taken the bus there, like two any other ordinary kids going to see their parents' burial site. It was strangely relieving, to be just the two of them on a bus that was always almost empty. They didn't need to drive in privacy, where sentiments flowed with more ease and tears would make them awkward, if they maybe wouldn't withstand it. It could be done without. It was for the better.

Term tests this year had kept his brother from coming, but he, he had come, nonetheless.

And there he was, and as always, the ride would be long and quiet. There had only been two other men already on the bus, grim and almost asleep, when he and the other two waiting with him at the bus stop got in; and there was something strange about the whole scene, as if the atmosphere was dense or as if he were having a déjà vu; and even the bus driver looked slightly solemn through the rearview mirror.

He went through the trouble of reasoning with himself that he was probably too tired, overworked, and most likely more affected by the visit to his parents' graves than he consciously acknowledged.

He watched the landscape go by slowly, the scarce lights of the countryside flickering warmly beyond the continual line of street lights along the empty road. It felt like being in a trance, almost, though the air was pretty cold and the floor of the bus was patterned with muddy footprints.

A sudden shake tore him out of his slumberous thoughts, just in time for him to see the full unfolding of what followed, in what felt like a series of inevitable, slow-motion film clips. The bus had evidently caught the wrong angle of a cranny on the road and lost stability, which sent it on a slippery slide towards the grassy side of the road. The wheels lost grip due to the rain, and however hard the driver stepped on the brakes, the bus still ended up crashing against a tree with a considerably thick trunk, with a loud, unpleasant thud.

The bus had not been going at too great a speed, though, and for a while, all what could be heard was the rain and the engine, struggling to keep the vehicle going on beyond the tree, towards the rice fields. But it eventually gave up, and after emitting a high-pitched sizzling noise, it fell silent.

Afterwards, all that remained was the sound of the rain, gently drumming on the metal roof of the bus.

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Alter ego: A doctrine used by the courts to ignore the corporate status of a group of stockholders, officers, and directors of a corporation in reference to their limited liability so that they may be held personally liable for their actions when they have acted fraudulently or unjustly or when to refuse to do so would deprive an innocent victim of redress for an injury caused by them.

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Author's note: Well, it's been a while since I wrote anything. This has been going around in my mind and thought I'd write it so that it stops coming up at unexpected moments when I'm trying to concentrate :)

Comments are greatly appeciated! And stay alert, I might update this rather fast these days ;)