This is it. This is the end.
2023, the year the apocalypse started. And here we stand, as nations, as friends and family...as lovers.
Outside the meeting room windows the chaos was erupting without pause, the noise and play of it all enough to be worse than a nightmare, than hell.
I watched the city around us burn through tears, behind me, good byes said to one another. I had done all my most of my good byes and even hugged and blessed those who I hated since the very beginning. This wasn't a time for hate.
Turning away from the chaos and wiping at my eyes I turned and there was my brother. Eyes red and filled with tears, his strong frame shaking. "Moskva..." He choked out and hugged me tightly, immediately I reacted and hugged back as tightly as possible. "It is okay...Moskva..to show fear. Death is an enemy, but he is to be feared, as he is very unpredictable.."
It sounded as though his words were mostly for himself, but I took them in and held onto them for what time we had left.
"Brother..I'm scared."
"...so am I, kitten. So am I."
It was close now. I could feel it. Our time was coming short indeed. With the last moments, with my last breath... "I love you-" His lips, and arms around me were the last thing I felt. Then nothing at all.
There was a bright light that disturbed the pitch black, it's source was a man. No..not a man. Something...tall. It had six wings and four eyes, not face. It's arms outstretched. There was a ring, a scream more accurate, shrill. A warm breeze wrapped around me and I was tugged downward, falling..falling...
The alarm on my phone was blaring in my ear, I cursed myself for falling asleep with it in my hand again as I turned off the noise with a growl.
That dream again, I had it a lot. My psychiatrist says it's noting but then again, she gets paid to say anything.
I showered and dressed in a dark violet dress shirt tucked into black straight jeans and my favourite high tops. Slipping on my black jacket and white scarf I head out into the cold.
I live alone, with no family to remember, only memory I seem to cling to is the one in my dreams but that was probably all bullshit. I didn't know any Ivan, or Gilbert, or anyone else in that dream. Never seen them before. But...I felt like I should have. You know that feeling when you remember something and you aren't sure if it was real or a dream, because you remember it so clearly but no one else does? That..that's kind of what was happening.
Whenever I think back to Ivan, that kiss, I feel fluttering in my chest and I almost crave something like that... Just childish dreams. Really! I was a grown man living alone with a job and university, I can be caught up in fantasies about people I don't know.
I caught the tube to the university, sat through a lecture, and took notes, like usual. As soon as the chance came into my grasp I booked it out the door to get a coffee, anything to wake me from the professors damn lecture about rocks.
"KOSCHEEVICH!" I jumped in my chair and looked to the front of the room where the old man glared at me behind his thick glasses. "Wipe the damn droll of yer chin and listen up. Another slip and you'll be failing the upcoming quiz." "Да, sir."
After class I took my bag and headed to the coffee shop not too far off from the university, plenty of people would be there and there would be a huge line already but I didn't quite mind. I waited in line and lost myself in my own thoughts until a voice brought be back to earth.
"Sir! I can help you-" it trailed off and I looked over to meet the unfamiliar voice behind the counter.
"K...Keith?" The accented voice filled my head and left it blank, I didn't even know what to say. Without even thinking it slipped.. "Ivan-"
Hopping over the counter the man from my dream hugged me tight to his chest I felt as though i would snap, but I hugged back just as tight, as though if I let him go he'd slip away forever.
"I found you...I found you, I can't believe it!"
-
Ivan and I spoke for hours, I forgot about my classes, and I ended up going back to his place for dinner, I'm sure my cats wouldn't mind my absence.
As we spoke it all came back to me. The nations, the apocalypse, the kiss, our history and everything. I asked him if he found the others, only few. Others were probably in their home lands, and travelling nowadays was a bitch. An expensive, bitch.
"So...you work at my favourite coffee shop, now?" I asked with a grin at the man I once loved, the man that was once my whole world. "Needed a job." He chuckled in reply, "University, hipster now?" "Needed an education. And I'm not hipster!"
After the delicious meal Ivan had prepared, I sat beside him on the white L-couch, making small talk before things fell silent.
"You..remember the last moments..don't you?"
Ivan was hesitant to reply, I assumed he was trying to remember, I didn't dare look at him at this moment, though.
"Да, I do."
"...I..I said something. A..and-" I was cut off my Ivan's soft, lips pressing against mine. Ivan's thumb and index finger holding my chin to look at him, pulling me closer into the kiss...or was that just me leaning in?
"I love you too." Ivan spoke against my lips and wrapped an arm around my waist and I had no objection at all, I was...I was overflowing with joy.
All this..remembering, it all made sense and I was a fool to forget. And now..I was back with him. My country, my love, Russia. Ivan Braginski.