Joey tumbled backwards landing on his butt in the dry Texas grass. The boy above him chuckled, his coarse hair framed his face like a wild ball of jet black cotton candy, with some pieces condensed into thicker strands that hung against his neck like soft pieces of rope. He smiled down at the redhead with a look of confusion.
Joey frantically pulled himself up onto his feet, this time taking care to stand at least a foot away from the wall. He could feel the sweat dripping down his forehead and neck, seeping into the cotton on his shirt. Why does summer have to be so hot?
"Remember me?"
The boy's calm, gravelly voice was slightly muffled through the soft buzz of the mist. But still, it somehow managed to seep its way so far into Joey's ears that his brain short circuited, leaving him voiceless. He'd never actually spoken to anyone outside of his part of the Dome. Sure, he'd played with them before, but there seemed to be a big difference between children racing back and forth throwing leaves at each other at the age of five and near teenagers sharing fully literate sentences face to face.
"I-um, you could say that." he gripped the back of his neck, hoping to God this random boy didn't comment on his social ineptitude.
"You seemed to be looking for me," the boy began to fiddle with a nearby twig, his honey auburn eyes dancing back and forth as he watched it twirl in between his nimble fingers.
"No?" Joey's defensive nature leaked unintentionally, he cursed himself under his breath.
"Well whatever you wanna call it, you're always looking out here, scanning the woods." the boy seemed to lose his excited tension after he said this, his demeanor still conveyed a sense of curiosity and energy but instead of nearly vibrating with excitement his nose an inch from the barrier, he had now shifted himself back against the trunk of the tree his legs dangling off either side of the branch he was sitting on, his faded blue button down nearly reaching the knees of his tattered patch covered trousers.
He looked almost exactly the same as he had nine years ago, eyes of the darkest cobalt blue, various cuts and thin white scars scattered across his deep umber skin, and of course his obnoxious contagiously spritely laugh. The last time Joey had played with the other children through the barrier had been when he was nine, by then his father had caught onto the suspiciously long "walks in the woods", and Joey's fun had ended quite swiftly. But now things were different, lately Joey had begun to lose his respect for his father, he still revered the man much more than any other however he no longer saw him as an exception to the rules of moral logic.
Joey crossed his arms, his smooth apricot hair swaying above his shoulders, "I- well, I suppose you know as well as anyone it gets lonely in the dome," he paused for a moment to wipe a stream of sweat from his freckled skin, his pearly iron irises darting about with a sense of conflicted timorosity.
"My oldest siblin is seventeen, but all she wants to do read about complicated magic stuff or cause mischief and act like a seven year old with my youngest brother." his words slurred together a bit in his nervousness. It reminded the stranger more of the white sharecroppers that his family used to work alongside than it did someone who lived in such a mansion as this strange ginger. He lacked the sense of brash conceit, his demeanor much too gentle, his attitude much too humble for him to live with himself inside the Dome much longer. At least not with fellow halflings facing fatal adversities in his own backyard. It was only a matter of breaking his thoughts from his fathers, of confidence in his own beliefs, if you will.
The stranger shook himself from his thoughts. He nodded, one slender arm now propped on his knee. He flicked the twig into the air in Joey's direction. Joey flinched slightly. He let out a small squeak as the twig broke through the Dome, like a stone plunging through water. The veil rippled slightly, bubbling up, swelling around the twig as it passed through in slow motion. He watched, wide eyed, as the twig fell straight onto his lap. The singular leaf which had been connected to it floated down slowly into his now outstretched hand.
The tawny boy giggled brightly. "My name's Abrem," he sat up away from the trunk, his once black eyes now glimmering with sapphire hues. Once again Abrem was squating on the edge of the branch mere inches from Joey's shocked expression. Joey gawked at his new friend for a moment, his pale green gray eyes wide with confusion.
"J-Joey, Well my name's Joseph but I go by Joey," he gave a nervous laugh, once again placing his hand on the back of his neck.
"Well I wasn't aware we had reached nickname basis this quickly." Abrem snickered
"Well no I didn't exactly mean that." Joey's eyebrows furrowed, his mind racing for some form of excuse he could use to make him seem less desperate for friendship.
Abrem hopped down from the tree with a thud. His deep chestnut toes caused a small cloud of dirt to explode at his feet. He was now eye level with Joey, if anything he was perhaps a bit shorter.
"You can call me Abe if ya like." he gave lopsided snarled, grin putting the grotesquely large gap in between his two front teeth on display in a way that was to Joey somehow curiously charming.
Joey smirked back., Nearly thirty seconds had passed before the oblivious adolescent noticed Abe's patient expectant hand hanging illegally on Joey's side of the Dome. The purpley blue mist of the barrier encompassed his elbow, his bicep and everything else was on the other side, leaving his forearm and fingers less than a centimeter from his new acquaintance.
Joey stared downwards, oddly enough he did not shriek, he did not run, and he did not pass out or throw up. He simply stared at it, slowly comprehending the fact that this was happening. He knew no one could pass through the wall without being cursed or killed (his father left most things purposely vague). But it had never occurred to him that it was possible to have a singular limb or a hand --a very small portion of the individual's body-- on the opposite side of the wall.
Abe finally lost patience with Joey, he pulled his hand back into the proper side of the mist making a bubbly noise as it closed over the hole where his arm had come through.
"I know you're sheltered but you'd think everybody would know how to shake hands."
Joey opened his mouth to speak. However his words were delayed, he narrowed his eyes at Abe's hands now on his own side of the Dome again. Finally he was able to force his statement through shaky lips.
"H-how did you do that?" Joey's demeanor turned on a dime. He liked talking to Abe but he wasn't so sure how comfortable he was with someone he didn't know being on his side of the Dome. Much less someone from a people group his father seemed to hate so much. Then again, his father hated everything. Abe chuckled, oblivious of Joey's social cues.
"Well I tried to go through when I was little, gramma stopped me before I could get a whole arm in, I haven't been cursed since then so I figured one limb or so don't hurt." he paused for a moment a slight wash of pain casting over his warm umber face.
"But we can't go all the way through though, my lil brother did once he got yellow fever and passed right after."
Joey relaxed his face slightly.
"I'm sorry."
"Wasn't your fault."
"But still…"
Abe shrugged. He twisted one of his feet in the soft mountain soil before looking back up at Joey.
"I want you to come see me every so often, there's somethin' I need to ask you eventually." he paused for a moment whilst Joey raised an eyebrow.
"At the border I mean, you don't have to get so close if ya don't want and I won't try to shake your hand or give you leafs." he stammered slightly, a vague air of disappointment in his voice.
"Why can't you just tell me now?"
"Why should I?"
Joey crossed his arms, his demeanor seemed to have grown more comfortable since they had begun this interaction. However, he still retained his humility. Even if said humility was clouded by a blanket of pissyness. Abrem cleared his throat.
"I've noticed your Pa makes you do a lot of chores."
Joey raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know that?"
"Well I see ya out here a lot, I see him inside doin' nothin." the light of the setting sun behind him cast a warm golden hue over his soft dark features as the pines behind his slender figure swayed with what Joey could have sworn was the same rhythm as his breath, with this he turned on his heel and bolted into the woods the periwinkle mist distorting him. Into nothing but a ghostly shadow.