My first story, and I've pulled an Adam (watch Torchwood), which means I've introduced my own character into the story to interact with the other characters.
My name is Joshua Rainfield. I live on the Siletz Indian Reservation in Oregon. I'm a mutant and proud.
All I could see was bubbles. Surrounding me in sheets of crystal amidst an emerald background, they scurried upwards, hurrying towards their date with the sapphire sky. From twenty feet underwater I watched them float up and disappear. When all was still, I closed my eyes, let the water flood into my lungs, and just let my mind drift…
Back to when I was two, it was my first time ever in the water. My mother was carefully holding me around my pudgy little waist as I splashed in this strange new world. The feeling was so unlike that of air, but so similar too. If I just stayed still, it was as if nothing was different. This was my world…
Back to when I was seven, my first grade class was visiting an aquarium. I was fascinated by the touch tanks, and when the teacher said we had to leave I was distraught. Mrs. Morla dragged me by my tiny little hand, while my other reached out powerlessly toward the tanks. I wanted to stay; I wanted to see the fishies. So I reached one hand out, and I cried…
Back to when I was thirteen, I was at a pool party for my friend Matty's birthday. We were all splashing around, playing Marco Polo. At that age, I was already the fastest swimmer on the swim team, and nobody could catch me in the water. Also, I hate to sound arrogant, but I was the most physically fit teen there, not muscular, but well defined enough to get the attention of the adolescent girls. While rough housing in the deep end, wrestling in the water, holding each other under, that kind of stuff, one of my friends wanted to stage a breath holding contest. As the star swimmer, I was expected to win, but none of them thought I could hold my breath for over 6 minutes…
Back to when I was sixteen, and my girlfriend was breaking up with me. She said I was too spontaneous, too random and unpredictable for her, that she needed a guy who would always be there for her. She had decided to break up with me at the beach (my favorite place in the world, now cast into a sadder light), and I took everything she said in silence. Mary had been my first and I had been hers (and I'm not talking about kissing here folks), and I couldn't believe she was doing this to me. She had always said she loved who I was on the inside and that she didn't just want me for my toned swimmer's build (alright, I'm being a bit arrogant here). I was mostly sad, but when she got up and left, the emotion started to evolve into something new. It was a December twilight, and nobody else was on the beach. I lifted my head back, shaking my long black hair out of my face, and I roared up into the cloudy heavens. She can't do this to me, that bitch, that bitch, I thought to myself. My face still searching the heavens for any sign of justice, I let a tear fall from my face, until, about an inch later, it plopped into the equally salty sea. Looking down, I realized I was floating neck deep in the sea. Startled, wondering how I got there, I looked around. To my left, a large bush rose out of the water, to my right a square of metal, reading "NO DOGS ALL WED" hovered forlornly. Twisting around, I could see the flood wave as it continued to surge desperately inland, back to Mary…
And now, seventeen, I reminisced about the past in a myrtle world, breathing the salty water in and out, somehow not dying, trying to calm down. It was my dad this time, he had been drunk. When my little sister Sarah had gotten home late, he started calling her a common whore, grounding her for the summer, etcetera. We all knew he'd take it back in the morning (if he remembered), but Amanda had had enough; she started arguing with our father, calling him a drunk bastard (which technically he was). Dad gets particularly furious over the b-word, so he started really yelling, loud enough to wake up my older sister, Amy, who was trying to get a nap before she had to work. She's a waitress, but she's really smart. When mom died, she dropped out of college to help our family. Now she works two jobs. On top of our dad's contracting, it keeps our family covered, but not perfect. Then when Amy walked downstairs after her loud awakening she started getting angry at me for not being able to control dad (she thinks I can somehow manipulate him into being a good upstanding citizen), and I storm out the door. I stalk down the dark street. As I go by each house, the sprinklers turn on for a brief second, before sputtering out in confusion. I spent that night on the beach, the same one where I had been dumped a year before, staring up at the stars, making up constellations as I let myself drift to sleep.
When I woke up, I still didn't want to return home, not to my apologetic father or my hormonal sisters. So I paced in the sand, wishing I had brought my surfboard. Eventually, I knew I had to calm down, so I did something I do every time I get really emotional. I drown myself.
The teal sphere around me came back into focus. I realize I had fallen asleep in the verdant depths. The knowledge that I was special, that I water was my lapdog, and that I was the only one who knew made me grin a little bit as I surfaced. My head broke the surface, water streaming off my shoulder length hair, as I spit out the liquid in my lungs. The first few gasps of air stung just as much as the first gulps of water do, but my body acclimated. Blinking water out of my eyes, I did a few backstrokes toward shore, until an unexpected shadow fell over me. Flipping over onto my front, I gazed up at a startling sight. Two men were standing before me, their designer shoes barely resting on the water. As my wake caught up with me and lapped over their laces, one said,
"Really Eric, could you not lift us a little higher? These aren't inexpensive shoes." The taller, older one on the right grinned, and made a tiny gesture. As it rose up, I saw that both were standing on one of the metal park benches that littered the shore. "Now then," the first one continued in his funny accent, "Some introductions are in order. My name is Charles Xavier. This is Erik Lehnsherr. And we are special too."