_Two people stand in a void, an empty plain of bright light, a sensory deprivation chamber of swirling shapes and sounds just out the realm of comprehension. Both are identical yet different. One is younger, more lively and larger in size. The other is older, his face aged by time, his body more lean and muscular._

__

_The Younger speaks, his voice higher and without the heavier southern twang of the older._

“Your looking well.”

“I did this for you, after all.”

“Seems to me like you did it for everyone besides yourself, what happened to being comfortable in our skin?”

“Comfort and being able to get up out of bed in the morning not hating how I looked were two different things.”

_The younger one would sigh, becoming agitated, his shoulders heaving as the base of his neck became red. That was his problem, always angry at the world over things it didn’t cause._

__

“You get a little yoked and suddenly your some philosopher? Hop off your high horse, your no better then me.”

“I **am** better. I’m the one who adapted, I’m the one who made it out.”

“And for what? To get away from some name calling and some boo boos?”

“Boo boos?! We got jumped in a parking lot, damnit! Its not about being self-conscious, its about survival.”

“Your such a pansy. «Survival»? You sound like an edgy dork.”

“See, this is your problem. You never stopped and read the writing on the wall. What happened were the consequences of your actions.”

“S-shut up!” _He yells, teeth knashed and his face turned red._

_The sound echos through the expanse of nothingness, refracting off invisible walls._

“You know I’m right. All you ever did was whined, complained, and moped like a fat frog on a log.”

_The silence was thick enough for the pin drop to cut through it, it only being interrupted by the arrival steps of the third. He was slightly older then both, a young man at this point. He had retained and refined the muscularity gained by the second, yet he seemed more cheery and bright eyed. He spoke with a deep voice, a little raspy but full of confidence._

“Howdy, boys. How’re we’all doin’?”

“Not good, he won’t be reasonable.”

“He’s trying to be all high and mighty, like always.”

“Well, the way I see it: your both in the wrong. We’ve grown, but in the end we’re all the same. We all started like this, it’s our job to not be like this when we finish.”

_The Older One sits there, his face a little dumbfounded. He hadn’t expected it to get turned around back on him. _

“I didn’t think about that.”

“You don’t think about anything.” The Oldest says jokingly, pulling him in and giving him a noogie.

“Now come on, we gotta get back to work.”

_The Expanse dissipates, the silence being replaced by the buzzing of the morning alarm being quickly shut off with a groan. _

__

__

“God, that was a weird dream.” _He says, yawning and wiping his eyes as he lazily types away into the notes on his phone labeled “Dream Journal”, rolling out of bed to start his day, a little bit wiser and a little bit older._