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Your mother always said the green ball was your favorite. She found it at the dollar store. It was cheap and probably made out of radioactive uncertified non-BPA free materials.
But you didn’t care about any of that. The green ball was comforting. Familiar. It made you think of something that as a baby you couldn’t even begin to fathom.
When you looked at that ball, all you felt was love.
It didn’t stop at the ball. Your mother quickly learned that your favorite color was green. Followed closely by orange.
Green Lego blocks. Green army men figurines. Green Ninja Turtles.
Anything green was fair game.
All day, you played with your green toys, and you fell asleep beside your green ball. And at night you dreamed of more green things. The brightest green eyes you could imagine.
When you grew up enough to start school, it began.
The first time it happened, you were riding through a trail in the woods, staring up at the leaves as they swayed back and forth in the sunlight. You loved riding through the forest on your bike, being surrounded by the green leaves and all the green plants.
And then you heard it. Laughter.
You turned to the side and saw a boy with dark hair and the brightest green eyes you could imagine. He was laughing and holding his hand out to you, inviting you deeper into the forest.
You tried to follow him, but you lost him. A little confused, you made your way back home and tried to think of why someone would do that.
In the end, you couldn’t come up with a reason. You couldn’t the next time either. Or the next.
You started seeing the boy everywhere, always smiling. Always holding out his hand to you, as if inviting you to come with him. But whenever you tried to follow him, he would always vanish.
Somehow you knew you couldn’t tell anyone about him. This boy was your secret, and yours alone. And though it was perplexing and by any other terms annoying, you were never annoyed. You only wanted to figure him out.
You tried talking to him, but he never answered. The only sound you ever heard him make was laughter.
“What’s your name?!” you demanded of him several times. But every time, he only gave you the same smile before disappearing away. It only made you more determined.
As you grew older, the boy did too.
As you grew taller, so did he.
And sometime around the awkward age of 13, you stopped seeing him around town and you started having the dreams.
The same boy featured in them, but there was one fundamental difference between when you saw him in the dreams and when you saw him in real life.
In the dreams, the boy would talk.
He had an adorable accent and always said things in a way that made your heart flip and flop. He talked to you as if you two were old friends, which you guess you were. By that point, you had already seen him for the better part of 7 years.
You and he would go on grand “adventures” together. Some of them were to the pizza shop down the street. Some of them involved several plane flights and days spent roughing it on unfamiliar terrain. It was on one of these adventures, inside your shared tent, nestled beneath a copse of trees in the starry moonlight, that you looked at those green eyes and knew something had changed.
He reached for your hand, and as they finally came together, you woke up panting.
His name was Jake.
One thing led to another. Though you had stopped seeing him in real life, you saw Jake every night in your dreams. As if each night were the continuation of a movie, Jake grew with you.
You kissed Jake.
You fell in love with Jake.
And you could never tell anyone else about Jake. Nobody would quite understand.
You started high school two years early, and you excelled in everything so much that you began attending college before you even graduated.
By the time you reached 16, you had graduated high school and finished most of your college career. You were easily the brightest mind in your graduating class.
And yet, you still couldn’t figure out Jake.
Shortly after your 16th birthday it happened.
You stopped having the dreams.
Jake was suddenly gone from your life.
For the first time ever, you felt completely alone. You came to realize that none of the friends you had in real life held a candle to Jake, a fictitious boy that you only saw in your dreams.
Your heart was broken.
Days went by. The depression was so deep you rarely left your room. You stopped going to college. You lost weight and grew so skinny that your parents began forcing you to eat, like when you were a kid. You did it for them, but for yourself, life had lost all of its purpose.
Your hands, that once built incredible robots, only wanted to hold a small green ball. The same one from your childhood. But it didn’t comfort you anymore like it did then. Nothing could.
And then, as quickly as they vanished, the dreams begin again.
At first, you’re so happy just to see Jake again that you don’t care. You don’t care that you’re only watching him go about his life. That you’re not a part of it anymore.
Weeks pass by like this before he finally notices you again. He’s clearly overcome with happiness too, but he doesn’t touch you anymore.
That’s fine. He’s back. You’re together again, and that’s all that matters.
You start to get your real life back together again. You finish college. You pick up projects. You start working independently for some of the most prestigious companies and industries. You wrap yourself up in your work so nobody will question why you sleep so much.
You never knew how much you would miss Jake until he was gone, and now that he’s back again, you can’t get enough of him.
Jake talks to you, laughs with you, and travels places with you again.
But he doesn’t touch you. And you can’t touch him, no matter how hard you try. Something in your dreams won’t allow it.
It happens slowly, but Jake grows sad. Distant.
Your dreams get shorter and shorter, no matter how long you sleep.
Each time, you’re traveling with Jake down a forested pathway. You’re going somewhere. Somewhere important, but you don’t know where.
And every time, Jake is sad. Jake is so very very sad.
So much time passes that it’s infuriating. Your 18th birthday comes and goes. You wake up and fall back asleep several times in a night, but it doesn’t change anything. All you do is walk down this path now, with a morose Jake by your side.
Finally, you can’t take it anymore. You shout and yell at Jake. Why the fuck is he so sad?! Why doesn’t he touch you anymore?! Doesn’t he love you anymore?!
And finally, finally, you reach the end of the trail.
Your eyes widen as you see what lies at the end, in a small clearing. The same one where you both met the first time.
“Do you understand now?” Jake asks. “Do you see why we can’t ever be together?”
You do. You finally fucking do, and the truth is terrible.
It’s a gravestone.
It’s your gravestone.
And suddenly, the past comes rushing back to you.
You remember it all now. All of this happened. Everything you’ve dreamed all these years was real.
You met Jake. You loved him. And when the freak meteor fell from the sky, you saved his life in exchange for yours.
You died for Jake.
But it didn’t end there.
You came back for Jake. For months, you haunted him as a ghost so you could be together, and for a while, you were both happy.
But it wasn’t enough. You couldn’t touch Jake. You couldn’t truly be with him.
Jake fell into a deep depression. He wouldn’t stop visiting your grave. He wouldn’t stop crying. Even though you insisted it wasn’t his fault, he blamed himself for what happened to you.
So finally, you both made a promise to each other.
Jake would go on and live his life. He would seek out help to get over your death, and then he would move along with everything he had always said he wanted to do.
You promised to move on too. Out of this realm, that is, and then you would do everything in your power to come back to him.
And you did.
You’re Dirk Strider. You weren’t born to that name in this life, but you know for a fact that’s who you are. It’s your name on that gravestone. You died and you came back for Jake English.
And now that your memories have come back to you too, you remember where you both lived. You remember where they buried you. Somehow, you know that’s where you’ll find Jake.
You only hope you’re not too late.
You run back to your apartment and quickly pack the lightest of bags before you jump in your car and drive. You drive for seventeen hours straight, but you can’t bear to be away from him any longer.
When you pull up to the woods, it’s early morning. Jake always was an early riser.
You park your car and head down the familiar trail that you’ve never walked before in this life.
As you pass by the trees, watching the leaves sway in the sunlight, you almost want to laugh. All of your life was bringing you to this point. You’re sure of it.
All of it is culminating in the next few moments, and you can’t wait.
You start to jog down the path, and before you know it, you’re running.
The trees fly by you, and all you see is green. Familiar green everywhere. You can’t run fast enough.
And finally, you reach the end of the trail.
You hold your breath as you scan the clearing.
For few seconds, time stands perfectly still.
And then your heart is filled with what you can only describe as the brightest hope, because kneeling on the far end of the clearing is a familiar looking figure. As you walk up to him, he turns, and you only see one thing.
Bright green eyes. The happiest emerald green eyes you have ever seen. For a second, they’re confused, but then, his eyes widen in surprise. “Dirk?” he asks in disbelief.
You throw him a lopsided grin. “Told you I’d come back for you.”
Jake catapults himself at you and knocks you over into the grass. There are tears in his eyes as he hugs you tightly. His hair is still perfectly black, though there are faint lines at the corners of his eyes from the wears of time. Jake is a little older than you last remember him, but you aren’t too surprised.
After all, he did wait a long time for you.
“I knew you’d come back,” he sniffles. “I knew it. But what took you so long? I nearly went mad waiting!”
“Thought you were gonna move on?” you ask. “What happened to that?”
“I did! In a matter of speaking,” Jake murmurs. “I have a career, but I could never forget about you, Dirk. I never stopped loving you.”
“I—never did either,” you murmur, realizing that it’s true. Ever since you were a baby, you loved him through the only thing you could comprehend at the time: the color green.
“I’m so happy you’re back,” he says, smiling at you and finally looking you up and down, taking you all in. He chuckles and lightly touches your heavily styled hair and sunglasses. “You look a little different, but you’re definitely you!”
“I was kinda reborn? You look a little different yourself,” you point out.
“It’s been 18 years!” he exclaims. Jake only hesitates a moment before he leans in and kisses you. When your lips meet, it’s just like you remembered in your dreams. It’s perfect. He leans back and eyes you fondly. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” you murmur, falling into another kiss.
Somehow you know that your whole life was leading up to this. To Jake. Everything from your visions as a child to even your love of the color green. Jake has always been what you’ve truly wanted. Now that you’re finally together again, your spirit feels at peace.
As you look into his bright green eyes, you can’t help smiling brightly. “Wanna continue our adventure?”
Jake’s smile is radiant as he says, “I’d like nothing better.”
Together, you walk hand-in-hand down the forested path, ensconced in the vivid green leaves.