A/N: I guess it's not very smart that I'm putting this up while I have another story to deal with.
annnnd with school coming up
but honestly, I'm pretty excited for this story ~ :D

It won't be updated as often as 'No Sunlight' ,
this will be more of my . . . writer's block story. Cx
plus, I've wanted to write a girl on island fic for awhile now.

I swear I didn't mean to make so, but the title is again,
a Death Cab for Cutie song.
why?
because it seemed fitting.
read the lyrics and see for yourself ~

Not sure if this fic is any good anyways, so I'd like to hear what you all think about this :D

This fic happens during the time Japanese-Americans were beginning to be forced into concentration camps because of the Pearl Harbor bombing.
It sort of deals with racism, but it's not meant to offend anyone.

Song for every chapter : Talking Bird - Death Cab for Cutie


Talking Bird: Chapter One

See Your Way Out

"Keiko, you have to listen to me."

Oh, she was listening.

"Hide in the bottom of the ship, no one will find you. That's where they store all of the cargo. And wait, wait until you hear anything about landing. And that night, steal a lifeboat, and paddle."

She lost her paddle.

"Paddle until you find land."

What kind of land?

"Any land is good land. Anything to get you away from here."

Anything to get away from the concentration camps.

"Oh, shit. They're coming."

Never look back.

"What are you waiting for? You're going to be captured!"

But she had gotten captured instead.

"Run! Hurry! The ship's going to go soon!"

Keiko sat at the edge of the lifeboat, kneels pulled up to her chest, arms slung around them. Her sister's voice replayed over and over in her mind. She couldn't stop hearing her. She couldn't stop looking back. She couldn't stop running.

"I'll be fine. Just run!"

She couldn't stop caring.

Waves pushed against the inflatable piece of plastic, making the salt water press onto fresh wounds Keiko had gotten for moving about in the ship's cargo. It stung, but Keiko was certainly used to it by now. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of her knee's wound, a bright, vibrate red liquid, oozing out of her skin like a river. At least the salt water was preventing from getting infected.

She let the waves guide her to some kind of land.

Keiko didn't have a choice, she had lost her paddle.

Never in her fourteen years of living had she ever thought she would do something like this. It wasn't everyday a small, not so promising, Japanese girl tried to escape from America. Especially only being armed with pure will power and a very little knowledge of the English language, she would have never known that she could actually do this.

Keiko tugged at her stiffened clothing, though she was wearing boy's clothing, it was completely obvious that she was in fact, a girl. She had curves, but nothing noticeable. She was sickeningly thin, pale, with yellow tinted skin, thinning black hair that reached to her middle back, and a pair of strikingly dark brown eyes.

She was worn out, exhausted and tired of being out in the sun all day.

Her eyes began to weigh themselves down.

And eventually, they closed, pulling her into another moment of slumber.


Despite feeling like she was being moved around during her sleep, she tried to retain her 'peaceful' slumber. She was tossing and tumbling, not exactly knowing where the lifeboat was taking her. But suddenly, she felt land, soft, grainy land. The ocean kissed her body, drowning the lower half every time the tides came to the shore. She guess that her body was laying on the beach, and as much as she wanted to get up she couldn't. Her body refused to get up.

But then suddenly, she was wide awake, at the sound of foot steps coming closer to her.

Keiko rolled over, turning her back to the direction the foot steps were coming from. She closed her eyes again, thinking that if she didn't see them, they wouldn't see her.

"Hey! What's that?"

She guess she thought wrong.

Keiko was not American born, and she understood very little of the English language. Her family had immigrated to America in the mid 1930's, and despite the greater possibilities in America, they still had trouble finding work. They had moved during the middle of the Great Depression, and they probably didn't even know what they were getting into.

Though she knew words like 'Hello' and phrases like 'How was your day?' and 'Thank you', Keiko never fully grasp English.

"It's a person!" She heard a boy exclaim. "Hurry up!"

They were speaking English, they were speaking complete rubbish. Keiko laid there, playing dead so whoever was coming over here would think nothing of her. She held her breath, but she felt her heart pumping over of her ribs. If it didn't stop soon enough, whoever it was that was coming towards her, they were sure to hear it, maybe even see her heart pumping out of her chest. She closed her eyes, focusing on laying still and lifeless. She felt the footstep getting closer.

"What the - ?"

"A girl," A pale boy with pale hair knelt next to her, her back turned to him. "You think she's been here for awhile?" He looked with to the other two boys with him.

"Maybe she's dead." Snickered a redheaded boy, slightly kicking the corspe-like body with his foot. "Hey! Wake up!"

Keiko wanted to so badly scream, but it didn't hurt. The fear did. What were they saying? What did they want? She was thinking of the worse. They sounded like white men, they talked like white men. Did they want to put her into a concentration camp? She held in her yells and scream, wanting to so badly run away but knew she couldn't do a thing.

At this moment, she felt like she failed her older sister.

"Stop it," The pale boy said to the redhead, shooing him away dismissively. He touched her back, making the Japanese girl jump suddenly.

The three boys were taken back, starring at each other to confirm what just happened.

"Wake up!" The redhead said again, kneeling down next to the pale boy and shaking the thin girl. "Are you alive? Are you dead? C'mon and wake up already!"

What were they saying?

Keiko tried her best, she really did.

Her eyes shot open, and she first initial thought was to run. Run where? She hadn't thought of that yet. Keiko didn't time anything, she pushed part of her body up, enough to get on her feet. And she ran, running to God knows where.

"What-?" The pale boy called, "Wait! Wait!"

"Ah, damn." The redhead cursed. "What just happened?"

The smallest of the three boys finally spoke up, looking up at the two of them, "Should we go after her?"

The pale boy nodded to the smallest boy, and began running after Keiko, who was out of sight now.

The two followed behind him.