I’m going to go back to the way I used to write this journal. In other words, it’s been a while, so I’ll start with where I left off. June 17th or 18th? Close enough.

Michael was sleeping and I was just… Ana. Since one of my brains was literally unconscious, I didn’t have any superhuman memorization or creative thinking capabilities. No psychic mojo either. I was just a girl, wearing a slightly baggy white t-shirt and black boxers. Since I wasn’t really expecting company or anything, my shirt and underwear were both inside out. Which I know is kinda weird, but I figured: “What the hell?” No point pretending to be ‘normal’ on the creepy clone misfit island of Death Gateway, right?

The storm had just passed and the temperature was a nice cool 70-ish F, so I was a little surprised when I saw the person standing in front of my door. They were wearing black ‘combat’ boots, a heavy black trench coat, black skinny jeans that made their legs look incredibly thin and a hood. Their entire face was covered by a combination of large dark sunglasses, a black scarf and well, they even had gloves on their hands.

They were holding a cat-sized tan plastic pet carrier, obviously meant for a certain birdie that immediately started crying: “Mama~! Mama~! Delilah~! Delilah~!” As soon as they peeked out of the box and saw the giant motherfucker in front of me.

She just stood there silently for a whole minute after I opened the metal door, which was actually shorter than her height with those boots on. I couldn’t help snickering, with an unintentional smirk. Compared with her enormous figure, Ana was really god damn small. Even after all that exercise, I didn’t focus on bulk, so much as compact and flexible muscles. Similar to a gymnast, rather than a bodybuilder.

Eventually I cleared my throat and said, “Umm… Hi. Sorry about the mess. Didn’t really know when you’d show up and well, don’t really have anywhere to put all this stuff anyway.”

She cautiously entered the room and looked around stiffly, before speaking in a surprisingly high-pitched and feminine voice: “Sorry for bothering you.” The bird in the big torn up cardboard box was already right next to the door, so she just bent over and ushered the little brat into the carrier, before closing the metal gate.

After saying “Thank you.” She immediately turned around and left. The stench of rotten fish outside was pretty overbearing, so I could understand her wanting to leave as soon as possible.

However, when she was a few meters away, I casually shouted: “Feel free to message me later if you wanna talk sometime!”

Eve paused for a moment, then turned back and asked: “Would you like to come over to my place to talk now?”

I obviously hesitated, because who wouldn’t? Maybe if it was my original body, I would say “Sure, why not?” But Ana is different. She’s more ‘valuable’ in a lot of ways. Which is super weird when you think about it.

“Sorry, don’t worry about it. We just met, so… I’ll send you a message when I get home. We should get to know each other first.” She was almost gone before I realized it, but well, I used to go out and do crazy shit with my friends all the time as a teenager. It’s just been a while

Eventually, I said: “Hold on, I need to grab my shit first! And I ain’t trudging through the jungle alone, so wait a second, okay?”

“Sure.” After her curt reply, she walked back over to my door and just stood there without entering the house again. I was honestly starting to wonder if she was some kinda vampire or something.

Either way, I wasn’t gonna head over there practically naked and unarmed. I also didn’t want to barge into a stranger’s house covered in guns and ammo either though. I found a pair of clean blue-jeans, that weren’t too baggy or tight, then grabbed a belt, holster, my original .357 revolver and a few full quick-loaders. I turned my holey white shirt inside out, though I still kinda looked ridiculous. I mean for fuck’s sake, there was a decent sized hole near my left shoulder. Fortunately I wasn’t wearing the one with the giant rip on the right nipple area.

I wanted to just wear some flip-flops, because shoes are gross, but then I remembered it was a fucking jungle and I might need to run for my life at some point. So I settled for my new brown boots, and some white ankle-socks. There was a weird exhilaration running through my veins, even though I was literally just ‘going nextdoor’.

I’m not sure what I expected to be honest. I barely knew anything about Eve, so any weird sexual fantasies were just in my imagination. Was she even attractive? Not gonna lie though, really tall and really short women were two of my most ‘realistic’ fetishes. So when she immediately fulfilled one of those criteria, I started thinking with my dick or well, pussy. If she was a dude, I wouldn’t have been interested at all. Does that make me gay or straight though? Vaginally inclined?

When Eve saw me come back downstairs, she started giggling. In turn, Delilah imitated her laughter. When I reached the door, she asked: “Are you afraid of me?”

I looked down at the revolver and replied, “Not unless you’re bulletproof. Seriously though, I don’t know you, and I really don’t know anything about this island, so I’m not gonna leave my house without protection… Pft, hah~!”

She didn’t laugh. Just shrugged and turned around, walking towards the eastern treeline. There was a beach normally, but it was pretty much underwater. I couldn’t help but mutter, “Maybe I should’ve brought something to cover my head. I’ll be really pissed if I’m covered in super-ticks by the time we get to your house.”

“Don’t worry about bugs on the outskirts. Never go into the depths of the island though. Unless… No, just never go there.” She led the way without turning her head back once. And surprisingly enough, there was actually a small trail leading from my hilltop to hers. The foliage was pretty overgrown, but I’m an expert at not touching things. Unfortunately the path was blocked by fallen trees every now and then, most of which were palm, banana or coconut. A lot of the elephant ear or other big leafy plants were torn apart too. It was a mess.

Eve eventually said, “We need to clear away most of these downed trees later. Everyone is responsible for their own territory, but we’re the only ones in this whole area right now. It’ll be a lot of work for only three people.”

I snickered, following closely behind her gigantic back: “Ain’t there like robots to clean stuff up for us?”

She scoffed, “Those delivery drones? Even if they could, I doubt that they would. The island is tropical and gets enough rain for this jungle to be considered a rainforest. But rainforests can burn too. I’ve seen it happen once as a kid. My house survived, but the black smoke filled the sky for weeks and I was trapped inside, alone, with no way of contacting the outside. Almost starved to death.”

“Wow, that sounds fucking horrifying.” I sighed, not really sure whether I should laugh or comfort the ‘kid’. Technically she was 19 and probably reached ‘adulthood’ way earlier than normal humans, but at the same time, I was still technically almost a decade older. Not saying I experienced ‘more’, since I had no idea what she went through in that time. I’ve never really been that great at ‘comforting’ people either way.

Eve let out a sigh when we finally made it to her ‘yard’. There was an actual fence around it, or at least there used to be, before the hurricane. The metal chain-link fence was fine in some areas, but at least half of it was ripped out of the ground and strewn all over the place. She told me, “Hurricanes aren’t rare, but the really strong ones only hit us once every few years. This is what’s left of my garden.”

I think her hill was higher, since the yard wasn’t covered in dead fish like mine. But it was swarmed with birds. Not just seagulls, but pigeons, parrots and parakeets, finches… She looked at them eating what was left of the ‘crops’ and said, “Most of these are my pets. So please don’t shoot them by accident, or on purpose.”

There’s no way I could remember all the different birds, so I just told her: “Unless they fly directly into the line of fire while I’m practicing in the yard or are unlucky enough to get hit by a ricochet, they should be fine. I’m not expecting to become some kinda hardcore hunter or anything. Just wanna be able to defend myself.”

She suddenly stopped and turned to me, “Just stay away from the mountains and valleys. No amount of guns or training will protect you from the ‘things’ in there.”

I wasn’t sure if she was trolling me or being serious, but I just shook my head and laughed: “I’ve been here three months and this is the longest I’ve been outside… Do you really think I’m crazy enough to go exploring that hellhole? I mean, the island is called Death Gate or some shit. You don’t name a place Gateway of Death unless there’s some seriously fucked up shit involved. Not to mention that we’re in the Bermuda Triangle.”

“It’s good that you’re open-minded and calm. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised, since you actually ‘chose’ to live here.” She sighed again, still maintaining an eerily serious demeanor. At least as far as I could tell, since her entire face was obscured and she revealed no obvious body-language.

Regardless, we quickly walked over the pieces of the gate and fence that were strewn about. Ignoring the clattering birds that chirped, screeched, quacked and fluttered around the yard. I expected her house to be similar to mine, but it was slightly different. The size was about the same on the outside, but the first floor had no windows. The top floor had a few, but they were all tinted almost black. It was a two-story building, square-ish and fairly large.

We walked around the muddy yard and reached her steel front door. It was facing the ocean as well. She reached out and turned the handle. Unlike me, she didn’t even seem to lock her fucking door. Then again, she was the veteran, while I was the newbie. So I didn’t bother mentioning her carelessness.

“Wow, this is umm, nice.” I tried not to be an asshole, but well, I was just impressed with the layout. Unlike my wide-open sunroom, she had a more ‘normal’ first floor. There was a plain living room, with a brown couch, a black recliner, brown hardwood floors, the walls and ceiling were all painted light-brown or dark-beige… There was no TV or anything though. Not even a bookshelf.

In the little entry-way area, there was a coat rack along the left wall and a shoe rack underneath it. She casually took off her muddy boots and placed them near it, then took out some gigantic slippers and wore them on her black sock-covered feet. After that, she turned to me and said: “I don’t get much company…”

I snickered and immediately took off my own boots, but put them on the other side of the little entry-way. I even took off my socks, which felt like they were cutting the circulation from my feet, even though they weren’t very tight at all. After that I hopped onto the relatively clean-looking living room floor and asked, “So what did you wanna talk about?”