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Another Chance

Chapter 2

Garret threw up his arms to protect himself, unaware that the situation had changed entirely. He hid under his wet arms for several seconds. Nothing came and nothing would come.

Slowly, he peaked out between his fingers and instead of seeing the dark object overhead or even the blue, slightly cloudy sky, he saw a white ceiling. There wasn't the sound of the ocean either, there wasn't any ocean at all. He was standing on his own two legs on solid ground and there was no longer any water.

Garret found himself in what looked like the airport in L.A which he had been at only previously that day, except that it was white and barren. He stood at gate G24, the gate that was printed on his ticket. Seat 37A, boarding time: 8:57 AM. The clock over the gate read 2:47, PM he presumed. That was when the plane crashed.

"W... What?" Garret turned around to see the rest of the airport, it was all the same, down to the last detail, except it couldn't be.

"Don't think about it too much." A voice called out and for the first time, Garret saw that he wasn't alone. In one of the chairs, sat a cougar that had a single earbud in his ear which was connected to a scratched up mp3 player. He looked familiar.

"I'm familiar because I'm you." He chuckled and pressed a button on the mp3 player to stop the song, a slow jazz. He pulled the earbud out and stowed it away in the pocket of his pants which were the same type as Garrets', size 32 X 32 Levi's with a small hole in the knee.

"Me?" Garret pointed to himself and instantly felt like he looked like a retard doing that and brought his paw down. "Me?" He repeated.

The other Garret rolled his eyes. "Retard." He then said and laughed when Garret took a step back at what seemed like mind reading. "Yes, I'm you. Sort of." He plucked at his clothes. "Same fashion tastes." Then at his head. "Same thoughts. Most of the time at least."

"I'm so confused." Garret didn't follow any of it. He was supposed to be floating in the middle of the ocean, lost. While his current situation was many times better and he was grateful for being able to stand up, he still wasn't sure about it.

"To be expected. So expected that there was almost a 100% guarantee you were going to say that." The other Garret crossed one leg over the other and wiggled a bit as he got comfortable in his seat. It looked so odd to see himself do that, he looked as if he was trying to press an ass-groove into the seat. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable and I'll explain everything."

"Don't you mean, I'll explain it to me?" Garret said as he walked over next to himself as sat down, crossing a leg and wiggling to get into a good comfortable position.

The other Garret looked at him with a bit of quizzical look as he saw the same seating ritual. "I suppose so. Just don't think about it too much, we'll get confused before long."

"Okay, gotcha." Garret said even though he was trying to work out the logic of talking to himself and indeed, he did quickly become confused about it.

"You're dead." The other Garret said it plainly as if he was giving some boring report at the office.

"I had my suspicions." Garret looked around at the airport. It was white, too white and everything seemed perfectly tranquil. Plus, since he knew for a fact that he had just been in a plane crash moments before was hinting that something drastic had happened.

"I guess it is a bit obvious. Most of the time you figured that out."

"Most of the time?"

"I'll get to that." The other Garret cleared his throat just like he normally would right before he planned on talking for a good amount of time.

"I'm you." Garret said again slowly. "But, not just you, all of you."

"That makes no sense." Garret raised an eyebrow as both of them threw back an arm over the back of the chair at the same time. They paused for a moment and gave each other a quick glance before breaking in a short laugh.

"I'm you in every way possible, across all universes. If there was a you who went to grad school and then died on the flight, then I'm him. If there was a you that simply drowned before getting out of the plane, then I'm him as well. I'm all of the yous who have died" He let that sink in.

Garret chewed on the his inside of his cheek which he did when he was piecing things together. It did make some sense to him. "Aren't there an infinite amount of universes."

The other Garret nodded. "There are an infinite amount of dead yous and live Garrets who made that flight just fine, though I have no knowledge about the live yous, just the dead ones."

"Then why am I here? Why aren't I you... me... I?" Garret let out a sigh. He managed to only get himself confused.

"Stop thinking about it too much. Not that many of you can handle that kind of thinking." The other Garret huffed, annoyed that he had to keep repeating himself. He never expected that the he would annoy himself so quickly.

"I can't help it." Garret shrugged and cringed at the feeling of his clothes crinkling from the drying salt that was settling on his clothes and fur. "How did I die?" He finally asked. It had only just popped into his mind.

"The plane's jet engine, the one that was torn off, landed on you."

"Oh."

"You died instantly at least." The other Garret patted him on the shoulder. "More than a few others died more horrifically."

"I can imagine."

"No... you couldn't" The other Garret shivered, he was remembering how he had died to a wide range of ways that ranged from truly gory to just bizarre and plain out wrong. With an infinite amount of universes, Garret had died in nearly every way possible, even a few ways that were impossible.

The two Garret's sat in silence. One remembered how he died, the other trying to think of ways that he could die.

"We've gone off topic." The other Garret finally said since he was getting sick of all of the dying. "This place." He waved around the airport. "This is Limbo. You come here upon death."

"So, what?" Garret though that it was rather unimpressive. An airport? Couldn't have been somewhere else?

"It could have been somewhere else, but it's an airport for you. Stop complaining." The other Garret cleared his throat once more. "While you've been told that Limbo is a place of recollection. It's actually more like a place to decide what to do next. You can go back into the world and try to survive again, or you can go through that door." The other Garret pointed at the door of his gate which led down the plane that sat of the tarmac.

"What's in the plane?" Garret asked as he looked at the Boeing 747 which had no logos or markings on it, it was just painted white like the rest of the place.

"No idea." The other Garret shrugged. "I only know as much as you do until you die. What you do after death is unknown to me beyond that door."

"Do I choose it often?"

"With infinite universes, just as many of you go through that door as those who don't. None come back though."

It peaked Garret's interest. The air of secrecy pulled at him. It also scared him. Something as simple as a door and as ominous as a dark and unknown passage pulled his heart both ways.

"If I don't go through?"

"If you decided to go back. You get to try and survive in the live world again. You'll be in the middle of the ocean and will have to find a way to survive."

"Is that even possible?" Garrets didn't believe it was. There was nothing in that ocean except water and falling jet engines.

"There are some who have survived that crash." The other Garret nodded. "I can't tell you more beyond that."

"Let me guess. There are rules against you tempting fate?"

"Clever girl." The other Garret gave him a slap on the back. "Something like that."

"I guess I should give my life another go before truly kicking the bucket." Garret stood up and looked around. He didn't know where to go if he wanted to give it another try.

"Just walk out of the front doors of the airport. Simple as that."

Garret nodded and then walked out. He wondered if he would be back or if he would get lucky and just get rescued right away. He took a short walk through the barren airport to the front doors. The outside world beyond his limbo airport seemed peaceful. He could hear birds outside which would have normally been scared off by planes and traffic. He took a deep breath and walked out into the light that grew brighter and brighter until he couldn't see.

The feeling of water started to rise from the floor and the dull, plain smell of the airport was replaced with the smell of the sea. The sound of birds was replaced with that of waves. Soon, Garret had to start treading water again as he was lifted off of the ground.

After some time and all signs of the airport were gone, the light faded. Garret blinked the last vestiges of light away and he looked around. There was wreckage, including a jet engine which was close by. He figured that this time, he came up out of the water in a location where the engine missed him. There was also the life vests which Garret immediately grabbed and inflated, remembering the cheesy safety demonstration that he had to watch at the beginning of his flight.

The orange, puffy vest helped Garret enough that he didn't need to kick his feet anymore. He used that saved energy to collect some of the floating luggage. He didn't know what was in them, probably just useless clothes, but there was always the possibility that one had something that would be pivotal in his survival.

He tied a conga line of multicolored cases together using a bit of wire he found on plane wreckage and dragged them over to a large white piece of plane that refused to sink. It was large enough for him to clamber onto and tie off the luggage.

"I guess this is a start." Garret sighed. He didn't really have any idea of what to do now. He had watched Badger vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel a few times, but he stopped after the bird poop island enema. That was just too much. He could live with the pee drinking, but shoving bird crap water up his ass nearly made him puke.

Garret was out of the water and mostly dry which was good. He just needed to know where he should go. He had a makeshift paddle, which was just one of the flip-down tray tables from the back of a chair that he had.

Waving his arms out to the side for balance, Garret stood up on his little raft to get a better vantage point. Maybe there was something out near the horizon that he would be able to see and then get to. A bit of dry land would be a great boost to morale. He would be able to open up the cases without fear of the contents spilling out and he would be able to get out of the damn sun which was beating down on his head.

He peered out across the wide expanse of the ocean and saw nothing. Maybe the current would carry him towards something.

As Garret moved to sit back down, he slipped on an especially slick section of metal. With a cry, he came crashing down where his head fell on an exposed bolt.

"Back so soon?" An amused voice called out as Garret opened his eyes to see that he was on the ground, face down at the airport again. The floor smelled of carpet cleaner.

"Shut up."