I.
Prologue: Turquoise awakenings
'How salty.'- was her first thought as she tried to assess the situation. - 'Only one finger at a time. Only one - two - ..breathe.'
Something powdery crunched between her teeth. Slowly one finger lifted, then another, until she could move all of them.
It was a hard fight, but she refused to lay around helpless, and willed herself into finding out how her body works again. One toe, then another. It was nothing like she remembered. Something was very off, and she didn't know yet what that something actually was. The first problem she faced was that that was about as much as she could achieve. Her whole body felt like it was pulled apart and assembled in the wrong order. Making the limbs twitch, that she saw from the corner of her eyes was the most she could do. 'This is pathetic.' She groaned inwardly and pressed her temple down onto the wet ground to stop her head from spinning. 'Tch. Just what the feck is going on?' She thought, her mind already changed into a raging overdrive. 'Just a little more, WORK dangit'!' She yelled inside, as the arms that she felt attached to finally folded up on her sides. With a quick decision she pulled them under her torso, less her momentum gave out. It had made her quite queasy, as if she would have run until she was on the verge of passing out.
Everything was messed up, everything was disconnected, out of rhythm. Her mind was floating, even though everything else felt like lead. It was all telling her to give in. Yet she couldn't sleep - she shouldn't, wouldn't sleep. With that she let out a hoarse cry and pushed herself up, which although in itself was a progress - it was a very sad attempt at a crouch. She was dry heaving even by the effort of simply sitting up. Of course the smell of rotting seaweed hadn't helped her in that regard either, as she coughed up the remaining seawater from her lungs. Slowly her circulation resettled- and although quite disoriented, her scattered wits slowly came about.
...Then came the scream of frustration.
A string of curses - she never even remembered to have learned - left her lips in a hiss as she tried to wipe her eyes clean, only to get it full of sand instead. She felt soiled from head to toe and was flabbergasted as to why in seven hells she had clean clothes on over the mess. Upon closer inspection she found the substance she was covered in... simply disgusting. It looked like puked up jelly, had a sickeningly sweet smell and it was pink. 'Mother of all the holy-' It didn't really make ideal circumstances for moving either. Just imagine the comfort levels of having puked up pink jelly on your naked body. Then cover it with clothes.
Yeah, exactly.
Not to mention, this goo had the irritable properties of clinging to practically everything that was in near vicinity. Meaning mainly herself, sometimes in very uncomfortable places that she didn't really think she could reach. Then mix all of this together with sand and salty water. Talk about small nightmares.
After stumbling around, getting herself even dirtier, she fell into the shallow water and promptly started washing off as much of the offending substance as possible, clothes be damned. Walking seemed to be a nasty chore as of yet, and she didn't want to risk any more trouble than she was already in - so she started wandering, but always keeping close to the shoreline.
Not too far off, her attention caught something twinkling steadily and decided to take a closer look. Upon arrival she found little seawater puddles, filled with the most incredulous creatures. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't identify them with anything she had seen before. Maybe the closest thing she could've described them was with 'glowing jelly-beans'. They swam around lazily, revering in the sunshine that glazed upon the surface of the water, making them change colours with every ripple she made with her careful steps. As her eyes lost focus after staring at the little blobs of colour, she quickly blurred out her own reflection. One blink was enough for her to either stare at it feeling haunted, or never to look at it again. Her choice was obviously the latter.
The sun slowly moved halfway up already, yet she still refused to move as if in a daze - not fully comprehending anything she saw. Period.
Finally, after the heat started to get unbearable, she moved her hands through her long hair absently, trying to untangle it, then took a fleeting look at the skin on her hands. 'This is simply madness. Bloody madness I tell you.' She said aloud to nobody in particular, before she gathered herself up, looking for shade.
'What now..?' She muttered as she caught the movement of her new attire from the corner of her eyes. As she stood up slowly, the silk of her short, bright furisoda rippled and flown hypnotically on her arms - even though it was totally soaked, and the wind was practically still. Though the will to inspect her clothes had been the farthest from her mind before, now she was starting to get intrigued.
'Curiouser and curiouser.' She thought with a grimace, and started to wave her arms around. Then even spun around for good measure.
'Just dandy. Someone turned me into an oversized butterfly. What a strange way to handle the dead.' She flailed around aimlessly, trying to prove some kind of unknown point to… seemingly herself, as there still was no other living soul in the area. 'This isn't exactly how I imagined heaven to be.' She mumbled, trying to somehow get the sleeves to cooperate with her, instead of flying off in every direction.
Coming to the conclusion that this indeed was certainly not heaven, she started to analyse her surroundings more carefully, after finding it futile to make her apparel function after her will.
'The sun is still high up.' She asessed as she looked upwards, shielding her eyes with her tiny hands and spotted some seagulls. 'I should look around for some sign of life, as long as it's light. Finding some kind of shelter would be nice as well... But the first priority is drinkable water.' She counted down her duties as the scenery, and its so far mostly invisible inhabitants paid no mind to her more than before.
Her thoughts circled around the issue of survival and now, that she was a bit more steady on her own feet, she set out in the opposite direction turning her back to the shore. Mind full of food, rest, and paranoia- still trying not to think too deep, only strictly on survival, as she was just a simple girl lost in… some unknown place, in an unknown situation with unknown- just too many unknowns to let it sink in just yet. Her feet felt steadily like lead again, yet she kept on walking tirelessly until she spotted a road in the distance.
'It doesn't seem too old, and it's well kept. That could mean it leads to somewhere populated.' Came to her mind and she drastically sped up her steps, hoping for any kind of traffic that could lead her to the knowledge of where exactly she was. It was a seriously wrong move. The road wasn't far away now, but neither were the swarm of buzzing creatures that mostly reminded her of various bugs meshed together. Except these were twice the size of her head, plus they didn't seem very friendly. Not when all of them came at you at once - with an aggressive, harsh buzz.
'Well, so much for taking it slow.' She winced at the new degree of strain on her legs as she broke into a dash - momentarily everything else forgotten - and dived head first into the under bush on the edge of the nearby forest. She hid and waited, until most of the creatures left the general area. - 'I guess now is one of those times when..' But the thought was frozen and discarded instantly as she carefully took a better look at the monsters. Realisation slowly hit her - spreading from her brain to her limbs, thrumming within her rapid heartbeat, pulsing in her ear, making her fingertips ache with the beat of it.
'The shape, the colours, the markings, the movements, even the characteristics...there is no doubt.' Her hands pulled so hard on the patch of grass she held onto that she tore it out. 'These are undoubtedly a swarm of Bite Bugs.' She took a long, panic-filled look to her left, where the road stretched further into the scenery. 'Then how far could it be, and just how far can I get today?'
Crawling still seemed like a better option than running, and turning into the dinner of a few dozen oversized, mutated, moon-monster-insect…somethings - although neither result would have been really pretty, considering the state of her appearance - she didn't believe she could actually get even more dirty than this, and yes..maybe she had enough twigs and leaves stuck on her person, yet getting out of this alive was more of a priority. '...I need a battle plan. And fast. Sometime before I turn into a botanical garden on legs or attract these things further with this smell.' She thought as she pulled some random branches out of her hair.
After countless hours of sneaking around varied with full speed sprinting, she finally made out the outlines of a small town in the distance. The huge entrance gate that seemed to be glowing with a blinding white light was getting closer rapidly. But that might just have been her imagination and gratefulness…or the light sunstroke she managed to get throughout the day.
'Finally... Seems like I made it in one piece.' Her lungs protested and she wheezed as she came closer to the huge "Welcome to Balamb" shield above the town entrance. Her legs almost gave out before she stumbled right under the arch, where she stopped abruptly, so she could take a few seconds to gaze at the gate. She took a few measured steps backwards to admire the marksmanship of the stones that made up the sturdy looking structure. The striking off-white marble practically glowed in the late afternoon rays, giving the warm and inviting feeling she always associated with seaside towns. With a soft smile she quickly slinked back under the arch, pressed up to the wall and slowly slid to the other edge to peek into the town.
Being slightly paranoid and edgy after the encounters she had during her last hours, she chose to be more cautious rather than not. Her eyes scanned the area for anything suspicious before she entered, and found nothing that could be labelled as fishy - even though she couldn't part with that nervous and itchy feeling of being watched. Which was all mainly due to the obvious fact that it shouldn't be possible for her to be where she was, doing what she was doing, let alone be breathing for a fact; yet she was still there - so she calmly took the remaining steps inside.
Standing on the other side of the archway, she took one last look behind and felt her heart stop for a few beats as she saw something huge move towards her. It was definitely a few times larger than a Bite Bug. Without thinking she desperately raced towards the centre of town - until she couldn't feel that heated pair of blood red eyes on her back - and slumped down on a bench totally spent.
'I've had enough dammit! Just…sleep.' Left her lips in a small murmur as she stretched out, and let her legs dangle over the armrest. She was about to drift into a state of numb stupor, when something started tickling her leg. Then her wrist and her knees. Still, what really jolted her to awareness were a pair of paws on her gut, with the weight of a dog added to it. Only two words: Not. FUN.
Her figure moved about town like a typical example of a bad joke: twigs and leaves sticking out of her hair and clothes from very awkward and strange places- in equally awkward and strange angles - with at least seven dogs and even more cats hot on her heels, chasing her down wherever she went.
What really creeped her out though, were the overly chatty senior citizens - who pointedly ignored her obvious dishevelled looks, and started novella recitals of their lives, spectacularly ignoring her plea for directions - which happened somewhere along the not so comfortable run, when the local stray animals thought she was a walking piece of candy.
So when the chain of strange events didn't end there she wasn't even surprised, for the application to a job open at the gift-shop went as smoothly as it can for a gooey, messy-haired, thin, dishevelled looking 17 year old girl.
Meaning half an hour later she was standing outside the shop with a signed paper in hand. With feelings of disturbance spinning in her head I might add, as she was expecting rather a few hits with a broom or high pitched screams, than... pretty much anything else than this.
'Well, that was just...woah.' She stared at the document again, maybe waiting for it to suddenly combust. That would pretty much be the only logical thing happening to her that day. 'The world has gone officially mad. Not like I want to protest but still...' She took a backwards glance and eyed the woman inside, who was arranging various goods on the shelves. 'Well at least now I have some income to go by. I just need to find a place to crash, preferably before my shift starts.' So she made her way to the fastest option possible that came to her, the hotel - because after all that happened so far, just why the heck not?
As she was nearing the big oak doors with each step she murmured 'need to get to Eshtar' and 'need to find Dr. Odine'- the small heels of her sandals clicking softly to the ground - and with that general unkempt look that screamed either homeless, loony homeless, or the ever so classic loony-homeless-serial killer, that even mutters to herself - the townspeople with even the slightest common sense thought she was a nutcase, and didn't bother to get involved with her.
That suited her very much indeed.
She pushed the heavy doors inside, and was welcomed with a warm smile from the owner. Without hesitation she walked up to the man. 'What can I help you with dear?' He asked. 'I'd like to inquire if there are any rent-inculding boarder jobs available in the hotel.' - the girl said.
The man considered for a few minutes, took a good look at her, then thought some more with little 'hmms' here and there. She simply stood there in a way that would say 'unaffected' if any bystander would be observing the scene. As it really was so. 'If it all went to hell anyway, then it might as well go all the way.' Yet her mind had betrayed her seemingly extreme luck and already portrayed her passed out on a bench somewhere.
'Can you sing lass? Because we have a bar on the upper level and our singer moved to Dealing a few months ago wishing for more fame than a lowly bar-performer.' He scowled a bit, but brightened instantly and motioned to the second staircase on his right. 'We'll do an audition and if the band accepts and you also accept, then you can take his old room. It's in the west wing, on the third floor.' He guided her upwards and she silently trudged beside him.
'It has a wonderful seaside view.' The man added with a smile that showed the crinkles in the corner of his eyes. 'Shifts would start from 9 pm until midnight every other day, and you would have to take part in the band rehearsals. Performances will always be held on the weekends.' He paused, waiting for an answer from the taciturn girl. Said girl stared ahead, as if she didn't comprehend what he said so far, so he prompted. 'Will this arrangement be suitable for you?' It felt as if her chin had practically unhinged as she tried to find her voice. Or at least fix the short circuit that shut down the remaining active parts of her brain.
'Of course only if you...uh,' He inspected her, and made circular movements with his hand before his face. '-..you know...kept yourself slightly more tidy perhaps?' His weak attempt at lightening her mood ended in a nervous chuckle, while he shuffled his weight from one leg to the other. She stopped on the stairs somewhere along the way, and stood there giving a stellar performance imitating a fish, in a non-too-elegant way. Not that fishes can gape elegantly, but yeah.
'O-okay. Where's the camera? This CANNOT BE anything BUT a joke. Or maybe everyone is on some kind of drugs in this town? It must be made of pure awesome! Or pure insanity. Whichever.' She ranted in her mind and attempted to find some logic in their behaviour, but then let it be. The list of strange things has just won itself another entry. 'I... I was singing before I even spoke! …What the bloody hell is going on?' After she stood there voiceless, dumbstruck for a few or more moments, ready to bash her head somewhere, she collected her newly scattered wits somewhat, and almost choked on trying to say the first thing that came to her mind, all while nodding vigorously. 'Perfect.'
'Jolly good!' The owner said, clapping his hands together, his good mood returning. 'But before I prepare the paperwork and call up the band, let me know your precious name.' Asked the man.
'I'm.. Rain Heartnet, pleased to meet you.' She introduced herself without a hitch, using the rather uncreative name that she came up with - in the short period of 20 seconds, when she was signing the papers in the gift-shop. She had no idea why the first person she associated to was the shaggy, brown-haired sweeper - or more importantly, why she more or less took his name and ran away with it.
The race went against the fast flow of events, and she was desperately trying to keep up. Failing worse every time. The thought just stuck with her and refused to budge. 'It can't be helped now.' She sighed dejectedly as she blinked down on her lanky signature that stretched at the bottom of the contract, which was still clutched in her hands as she followed the older man further up the stairs.
Half an hour later she was trailing dumbly behind Elza the receptionist, who was guiding her to her new room. Her eyes darted around nervously as she feared that she couldn't actually blend in well with this crowd, but after bumping into a very strange looking man in the lobby, looking almost as shabby as her - with nobody paying him any mind, except two equally strange people - she felt a little bit of anxiety lift from her soul, even though they gazed after her with a funny expression on their faces.
Still, the feeling of being watched by something very different never fully left her.
'Darkness...darkness all around, and the strange mist of sand. It was for so long, that it seems that that is all I've known my whole life. Up and down...all around this darkness that is. And the unbearable cold...freezing me down 'till the bones. But the worst of all...was the silence. Not a sound anywhere...Sometimes I needed to scream in my mind to know I'm still there...'
The sun was setting and the room was swimming in a bright orange light. The breeze carried in the smell of the ocean.
She slowly left the room and headed for the roof. The warmth of the sunset and the smell was overbearing - still, she couldn't shake the memories off of herself. Starting to feel slightly sick at the wrongness of the serenity she was in, she dashed back to her room and hurriedly dragged the curtains closed. The light was hurting her inside.
'I remember as time went by I somehow lost all sense of it and space too. Almost couldn't place exactly where I end and the darkness begins. Then I fell asleep and dreamt.' She let her hands fall away from the curtains and stared soundlessly before herself. 'Of beautiful things. Never-ending meadows, with flowers, bird chirping, the smell of everything that's around, the laughter of my family, my friends...and him... I could do and have whatever I wanted as a dream. But only as a dream, and that wasn't even comparable with what I had.' She paced around the now dim room and took an abrupt stop before the mirror.
'...I had? Who am I anyway? It was so long, too long. I need to remember... Was it even real or just an illusion to begin with?' She edged closer to the smooth glass surface with small uncertain steps, hating what she saw more and more. '...Do I even exist..? Did I ever?...Am I the person I believe I am?...' The moment she stood face to face with her reflection and looked into those unfamiliar and at the same time very familiar eyes – she felt sick to her stomach. And the memories just kept coming back, throwing themselves at her like an endless flood.
'After I felt at least a millennia pass with these confusing thoughts in my mind swirling endlessly, I woke.' Her hands shook visibly and her knees started to give out, but she refused to slump down. 'I woke to the sight of the sea. To THE sea I've been visiting in my daydreams for so long, that I almost thought I had visited really.' She was determined not to let herself feel any more. Feelings led to disappointment. She couldn't have that. Not now, not ever.
'That was the day, the start of facing a new reality that I wanted as a child and backfired at me as I started to have a life, ..or maybe that was all just an illusion as well...?' How she longed to see the familiar faces and the places where she grew up. The void that their memories left behind ached more with each passing moment.
'But all I could do was watch that gorgeous, huge, white-blue facility fly by in the distance as gracefully as a butterfly - oh how I wished to scream at it, to scream to the high heavens as it landed - away in the distance - in its original place that was demolished to a crater by a bunch of missiles some time ago...But that's another story. One that I wish I could have stayed out of right now.' She couldn't stop it, those bitter tears, couldn't hold that weight on herself that now pushed her to the ground and degraded her to a weeping ball of hurt and uncertainty. But it's all right. This once.
Just this once.
