Author's Notes: As you may have noticed, this is a rewrite of the previous story. The old one was heading towards somewhere very dark, but since I'm not familiar with genre's that have to do with controversial subjects such as mental health issues, drugs, and rape, I decided to rewrite the story into something else I'm more able to bring up without trouble. I couldn't continue writing a story with that many issues, especially regarding to something so sensitive to most people that I fear I might end up making light out of it. I never want to make light of situations like that. I hope you guys who liked the original will forgive me later for that change of tune. So instead, please read this version of the story I want to tell you guys.
As you may have noticed, this is a SI/OC story set in the Dragon Balls universe because, well, why the heck not? Any other story I read in the DBZ site with an OC character is either some Time Patrol OC from the Xenoverse games with the same plots, a story where another hidden Saiyan is revealed to be a princess/sibling/long lost lover of whichever canon character, or some chick who happens to be stuck with Goku/Vegeta because of a messed up Instant Transmission thing (I count three stories that are eerily similar that I wonder if there is plagiarism going between those fics, also posted up somewhere in AO3 might I add). Too tired to search any further, I decided to make a story of my own. I hope you guys will like this!
Disclaimer: The Dragon Ball series and its characters belongs to Toriyama-sensei, the only thing I do own are my Original Character(s)!
Warning: There will be strong language, adult situations, and plenty of violence! You've been warned!
The entire process was cold, professional, and business-like.
Instead of sitting inside a court room, it felt like being the new intern in some big wig company that was sitting in a meeting room full of well-dressed men and women who were discussing trading assets that would be beneficial based on the statistics and positive feedback from the customers, and doing away with the trash that didn't sell well in the stock market.
Another case file number for them to simply read, review, and then file away in the cobwebs of their ancient cabinets they probably kept someplace in a dark and moldy basement.
And all while this was happening, I did nothing but watch my vision blur with hot tears, feel my heart race like I had been running since forever, and hear the cacophony of voices blur into one sentence.
Nobody cared about me.
Not my mother who gave me up without a fight to take care of herself, not my aunt who was too busy enjoying her delusions and hallucinations with each syringe inserted in her arms, not my uncle who wanted nothing to do with the people he refused to acknowledge as his family—
And certainly not him either.
His deep voice, his crooked smile, his scarred hands, and his genuine expressions that promised to do their best for me, the person who needed him the most, all fell deaf before me when I watched him walk away for the last time. With a satchel across his back and the fading scent of his cologne in the air, he didn't look back. Even when I screamed, not even when I cried, not even when I begged on my knees, he still left me alone.
In the end, even he didn't care about me.
Nobody cared.
The truth was this: I was an unwanted child, and I had to live with this awful truth for the rest of my life.
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Somebody left the window open.
But I didn't mind.
It wasn't that annoying sensation you normally feel when the sunlight was directly hitting your face that you either turn away from it or close the drapes over the window, more like it was the warmth of the new day settling in. The cool breeze that blew inside the crowded room was also welcoming because the incoming summertime was going to result in a lot of complaints from feeling all too hot.
I was lucky I had the whole room to myself for a little while longer. Everyone was already downstairs either chattering, watching television drama, or just out on the streets. Oddly enough, I didn't hear the usual rushing footsteps that went through the hallway outside the room, so I counted this lazy day as a win. The house was totally quiet, blissfully silent enough for me to sleep to my heart's content.
The trees from outside sounded restless as a gust blew by, disturbing the stillness. There wasn't a lot of trees around here, so it was kind of strange to hear them as if they were right next to the open window. I scrunched when some strands of hair blew in my face, but I was feeling too lethargic to force my hand to comb it back behind my ear. I was too tired from doing my chores yesterday evening, my ears almost ringing at the memory of squabbling and screaming little children I had to look after while the staff was busy preparing a meal for them. It didn't help that I had to stay up a little past midnight to finish my homework, ignoring the grumbling from my other roommates who complained about my lamplight preventing them from sleeping.
Today was just going to be me and my bed, getting hours of sleep and not giving a shit that this was going to mess up my sleeping hours. I needed sleep and pretend I was somewhere nice and comfortable.
I needed to pretend I was in a bedroom of my own. I needed to pretend I wasn't some extra mouth someone had to feed and put a roof over their head because society said so. I needed to pretend that I was a child who was welcome to dream her days away in the comforts of a welcoming home where somebody actually wanted me around.
Vaguely, I felt fingers comb through my hair.
A small content sigh escaped my tired lips, my body relaxing under the pleasant ministrations provided to me. Even though it wasn't real, I imagined this was the kind of thing people like me dreamt about: being loved and comforted. I was a year away of becoming an adult, a year away of graduating from high school, and a year away of being kicked out of my foster home, but I never felt too old to want to hear someone hum a lullaby I could fall asleep to.
In a moment of weakness and longing, a picture manifested within my mind. It was something I thought of, even after so many years beyond the nightmares and fear, even after the resentment that curled its way around my heart, I still held onto it with ferociousness.
At last, I succumbed into the embrace of darkness.
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wishing
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It felt warm.
'Ugh,' I groaned under the quilt of the bed. 'Somebody closed the freaking window and now it's too hot.'
I inhaled sharply through my nose, slowly blinking awake to stare at the ceiling of the room. I didn't want to get up, I didn't want to force my tired body to move, I didn't want to do anything but spend the rest of the day in bed—wait! I blinked, eyes trying to adjust to the shadows dancing on the ceiling... which was not the one covered in watermarks and mold. My eyes slowly trailed away from the blue-colored roof and landed on the source of light that made the shadows dance.
A small fire pit actively left within the confines of what looked to appear as some ancient-looking stove I had seen in documentaries that poor or old countries use. Exploring the rest of the room that appeared to be in desperate need of renovation (there was cracks in the walls and roof like it was on the verge of collapsing in on itself), I was left speechless. There was Eastern-style ornaments littered around the small room, dusty shelves and drawers, a small table in the middle of the room, and circular-shaped windows covered in wooden bars that finally allowed me to see what was outside: darkness. It was in that moment that everything finally sank in.
This was not my room. This was not my room! THIS WAS NOT MY ROOM!
I shot up from the bed, not waiting for anything because holy fucking shit I was somewhere not in the foster house and oh my God I was probably kidnapped by a bunch of crazy people who took joy in killing little girls.
Something squirmed beneath the quilt, sending my horror to new heights because someone was in the bed with me! A high-pitched scream escaped from my mouth, no longer containing the terror I felt as I pushed the body and quilt off my lap and immediately scrambled out of the bed, yanking my leg out of the tangled sheets to make for the doorway. I force it open easily enough and was immediately by the darkness of outside.
Barely adjusting my eyes, what greeted my first was the dangling crescent moon that hung low from above, billions of stars littered across the night sky like a splash of milky paint. Never before I had I seen so many stars in my life, but such was the life of a girl who lived within the confines of a crowded city where the closest you got was twinkling streetlamps from the distance of my neighborhood.
"Where the hell am I?" I cried, looking around for any signs of the neighborhood. "Is this Kansas?"
"Whatja do that for?!" a voice demanded from behind me. "That hurt a lot!"
Screaming, I whipped around to face my kidnapper.
Only to cut my scream short and stare.
The thing that caught my eye the most was the hair. The hair was so wild that it stood up in impossible, gravity-defying directions without the help of strong gel. But that wasn't the strangest thing yet because I recognized the hairstyle.
Standing at the doorway of the Eastern-style shack was a familiar-looking boy dressed in dark purple clothes who was currently pointing a red pole in my direction. Behind his stunted figure was a brown appendage that was waving wildly like it was a live snake... like some sort of tail.
"Say something, monster!" the child angrily demanded, waving his pole. "You won't fool me again!"
There wasn't a lot to watch on television. Cable was crappy and the staff wouldn't waste bills on good channels, too busy trying to raise enough money to keep everyone fed and clothed, so everyone was either stuck with ancient VHS boxes, old DVD cases, or dusty books tucked high in the bookshelves. Most of the older kids either wandered out to find entertainment of their own or stayed behind to watch the younger kids fight amongst each other because, as mentioned earlier, entertainment was few and far in between. When no one seemed to be able to agree on something and their shouting was gaining the attention of the adults, one of the volunteers had come across the chaos and settled the entire thing by introducing the younger kids some DVD collections of her own. Everyone, mostly the teenagers, gave dubious looks at the DVD, rolling their eyes at the cartoonish figure on the box cover. With no choice other than to die of boredom, anyone who stayed to watch settled down. And that was how majority of the kids in the foster house, myself included, came to know the story about a boy with a monkey tail who went on multiple adventures to find seven magical wish-granting spheres known as the Dragon Balls.
I crumpled to the floor.
"This isn't happening," I mumbled to myself, face-palming myself. "I'm dreaming. This is all a dream. I'm going to wake up to Suzie's stupid alarm clock, get dressed, go to school to prepare for the Final Exams."
"What's a Final Exams?"
"Oh my God!" I shrieked, startled by his voice and sudden appearance being way too close in my personal bubble. "Can you not?!"
"Not what?" the midget asked, head cocked to one side.
"Go away!" I yelled instead, turning away from him. "Leave me alone! You're not real!"
Once again, I let out a noise when I felt something pull me from behind. I whirled around, frustrated and angry and about to give the brat a piece of my mind for refusing to leave me be, but my voice died when something caught my eye. The source of my disturbance was the kid, surely enough, but that wasn't what my attention was on... rather, it was what he had in his hands.
It was a tail—and not the one belonging to the boy.
The thing appeared to be serpentine with its green scales climbing along its slim length, the tip covered by a red flame-shaped bush. I followed the trail of the long appendage, heart picking up like a drum steadily increasing rhythm. Whatever I was expecting, I was not expecting to stop where the tail disappeared from somewhere behind me.
A shrill cry escape my lips as I shot up to my feet and ran, accidentally yanking the little boy from his spot and giving a surprised cry of his own.
"THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!"
That was not a tail! And that thing sure as hell was not freaking attached to me!
All my running around the area near the shack came to a halt when something roared from the distance. It was the kind of noise that was big and powerful enough that it left your bones trembling until the rest of your body caught up with it.
"What was that...?!" I hissed, looking around as if that would help me see.
"That must be the dinosaurs," the boy, who had been dragged around by latching onto the thing-that-was-not-my-tail, straightened himself once he figured I wasn't going to run around again. "Some of them like to eat at night."
"Eat? E-eat what...?"
Why was I even bothering to ask such a stupid question? Practically anybody you would come across would tell you that they had seen the Jurassic Park movie, felt the suspense and fear when watching those scary raptors stalk the characters throughout the movie, and nearly crapped their pants when the giant T-Rex made an epic entrance.
"Meat of course!" the boy laughed cheerily.
I was not going to get myself eaten by some raptors or T-Rex, or whatever the hell was waiting in the darkness, instead I was going to do the smart thing: I was going to stay in one spot until daylight.
At least I would have a chance to survive if I could see what was trying to eat me! With that horrifying conclusion, I scrambled back towards the shack while the little boy calmly trailed after me.
Weird-ass dreams or not, I would rather deal with an annoying monkey-tailed brat than have nightmares about Jurassic Park monsters shredding me to bloody bits. Watching the kid close the doors behind him, I closed my eyes tightly while simultaneously wishing for all this to blow over and reveal itself to be nothing but a hallucination of sorts.
What was one night?
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Chapter 1 :
Enter the Dragon
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