Disclaimer: I know nothing
Summary: Numbuh 261 discovers something about herself. And possibility an answer to the biggest question she has ever had.
WARNING: Water scenes and loss of a parent.
"Different"
All kids, well most, love the beach. Playing in the water and sand. But for some kids it's a different. Aisha would sit on the beach forever staying off into the ocean. The water tickling her toes. The beach sometimes made her sad or sometimes she'd feel uncontrollably happy. Other kids didn't understand. She didn't tell her friends about it, she didn't want to be the weird one of Sector P. Despite the fact Sector P was pegged the weird faction of the Kids Next Door. They were known for unique operatives. And sometimes people took their diversity as weakness.
Aisha used to love the beach. She used to come to the beach every weekend with her parents before she joined the Kids Next Door. They'd go out on a sailboat her dad made in their basement. She learned to swim in the middle of the ocean. Of course, her parents were helping her. Her mother taught her how to tie knots, to fish and how to swim. Sometimes her mom would let her skip school on her birthday and go to the beach instead. They'd spend hours playing in the water or building sandcastles. Every time she came to the beach she was reminded of her mom.
One day they had gone out on the sailboat. The wind had picked up suddenly. It was supposed to be a calm day but the weather people got it wrong. It got really dark. Aisha remembered being scared. Her mother was calmly heading towards the docks, but Aisha could see she was nervous too. The memory of what happened was bury. She could remember icy cold water crashing high over the sailboat, she doesn't understand how the water could be cold when it was the summer but the memory was so distant maybe it was something she had gotten wrong in her memory. She remembered flaying around in the water and climbing on top of a rock. She clung to the rock for dear life. A family saw her on the rock and called 911, the water rescue team got her off the rock. They looked for three days for her mother, but never found her. Everyone just assumed she died because pieces of the boat floated onto the beach the day after, but no had ever found her.
It wasn't the water that scared Aisha, but that something bad would happen if she went into the water. She missed playing in the water. She had loved it so much, she still did. She looked out onto the water seeing the rock she had once clung onto. She could feel a cold breeze across her skin, as if the sea was warning her.
"Numbuh 261, come on the water's really warm!" called Numbuh 2.
"No thanks, Numbuh 2," sighed Aisha.
"Come on, Numbuh 261, I'm in here," said Numbuh 1.
"I rather not," said Aisha.
"Your no fun," said Numbuh 4.
"Give the gurl a break. If don't want she don't have to," said Numbuh 5.
Aisha gave Abby a grateful smile. She was glad to have Numbuh 5 as a friend when she hung out with Sector V. The other operatives in Sector V didn't understand her like Numbuh 5 did. They had been friends since they could remember.
"Numbuh 261, do you want to build a sandcastle with me?" asked Numbuh 3.
"Not really," said Aisha.
"Okay," said Numbuh 3 humming to herself as she made a sandcastle.
Aisha watched the other kids playing in the water. She wanted to play in the water too. She couldn't shake the feeling of something bad would happen if she did. She gave her war face as she forced herself to go into the water. She was tired of being too afraid to do something she loved.
She could feel the water all around her. She felt the rocks under her feet. She could feel the gentle sway of the waves. She floated on her back in the water. She didn't need no silly floating device. She could swim in the middle of the ocean without one she could swim on the shore without one. She pushed the water in a butterfly movement. No one noticed that she wasn't moving the water with her arms and legs, the water was moving her. Unlike her friends she could stand on her tippy toes on the deeper part of the shore.
"No far she can touch the bottom," whined Numbuh 4 in his floating tube.
"Tough luck, I'm just taller," said Aisha sticking out her tongue.
"Numbuh 5 agree," said Abby.
Unlike Numbuh 2 Aisha didn't get sunburnt, or least in the same way. She wasn't nearly as dark as Abby but she wasn't fair-skinned either. She didn't really know what she was, but she never asked her dad either. Her dad was darker than her but light than Abby's dad. But her mom had been fair though. She didn't really understand skin tone. She just knew she was different, and she didn't meant it.
Sector V and Numbuh 261 sat on the beach eating hot dogs. Numbuh 261 kept watching the waves gently roll across the shore. Her eyes drifted across the rock. She wished the waves would just make that rock disappear. She didn't want to remember that rock anymore. She lost instrest in the rock and went back to her hotdog.
The waves began to crash over the rock. There was only a tiny effect on the waves on the shore, they were slightly bigger. But the waves farther out were quite large. The strange thing was it was only at the rock. Numbuh 261 just looked over there for a second and felt something rise in her throat at the sight of the strange waves. The waves suddenly stopped.
That night as Aisha play in the bathtub. Unlike most kids she loved bath time. It was like the beach without all sand. And it was like a pool without that weird smell. She played with a small submarine that she had since she could remember. She had just gotten on her pajamas when she noticed that the water in the tub was still moving. She watched as the boat bobbed up and down. She stuck her hand in the water and the boat stopped moving. She took it out and few minutes later when she was braiding her hair the boat started to move. This time she just watched the boat bopped and imagined the water making waves. When she went to get her boat out of the water and drain the tub she noticed that the water was doing what she was thinking of. She quickly grabbed her boat and pulled the plug. She tried to forget about the strange things. But her dreams were filled with thoughts of the ocean and tub. She knew that there was something different with her and water.
Authors Note:
Thanks for reading. The idea steamed from the whole fire-use thing with Father and Poppy. If people were able to use fire, couldn't they use water? Water is often seemed as the opposite of fire. Fire is passion, and water is balance. This is a topic I will do again, this was just a short fun thing I wanted to do.