The song for this chapter is

BUY MYSELF - Linkin Park, Remix by Marilyn Manson, from the album Re-Animation

Can I help it if I can't work without a soundtrack?

Oh yeah, that's where all the strange misplaced quotes are from too. If I've got anything wrong, tell me.

What Do I Do?

Only three weeks living on the streets in and around Manchester has reduced the girl Natalie to bare essentials. Gathering information from dubious tabloid newspapers gives her a purpose in her wanderings, but still she hasn't found a job, a source of income, or any clues. That is part of the problem, of course, because she doesn't know what she is looking for.

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What do I do,

To ignore them behind me,

Do I follow my instincts blindly?

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Underneath a motorway bridge, a small pile of blankets and sleeping bags stirs. Someone has taken care with this little dry corner of the bridge's supports. There are rough chipboard "walls" over the sides that aren't made out of concrete. Beside the little shelter is a small, carefully hidden campfire, or rather the remains of the same. No belongings are visible from inside or outside the shelter, but by looking up and craning the neck it is possible to catch a glimpse of something, high above in the complicated support structure, which looks out of place. It is a small rucksack, carefully tied out of reach of any pickpockets or casual thieves. In fact, it is out of reach to everyone who doesn't have a very long ladder and an hour or two to spare.

Almost everyone.

Emerging from the almost cosy shell of boarding, carrying the bundle which forms her usual sleeping place, a thin figure scruffily clad in black; black jeans, black boots, black hoodie, slips back the hood which covers her face and looks about in the early morning half-light. It is, of course, the girl Natalie, but her time away from home has changed her. She's not just thinner, everything about her manner, her attitude has changed. Her face, muddied and grubby from the lack of certain amenities, has a curiously hunted look as she stares about.

After a while she seems to find what she is looking for. With a second careful glance around, she leaps up and begins to climb to retrieve her belongings. When she climbs she doesn't hang on with fingertips in crevices like rock climbers or mountaineers. Instead, she simply seems to crawl directly up the wall to where the sack is partly hidden.

She quickly snatches the sack and drops again to the floor, landing on her feet, not so much cat-like as frog-like as her knees bend with the impact and she supports herself on her hands.

With quick practised motions she folds the blankets and then, from the small pocket at the front, draws a small and battered looking book which she opens with an almost reverential air. Inside it a small piece of yellowing paper is scrutinised closely before being carefully refolded and replaced. It's a map, or rather, part of a map, part of a street map of a city, with a route carefully outlined in red.

She stands up. This is it, this is the day.

She pulls her hood back up to cover her face and hair, and puts a pair of dark sunglasses on to hide her unnatural golden eyes.

And sets off, rucksack on her back, thumb at the ready, for the main road and, hopefully, a lift.

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Do I hide my pride,

From these bad dreams

and give in to sad thoughts that are maddening?

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As she walks she thinks. How did I ever get into this state? But she knows the answer, however much she would like to pretend ignorance. Three and a half weeks ago, she had everything worked out.

Everything would be alright, or rather, it wouldn't, but it wouldn't matter. No-one would have to deal with anything.

She wouldn't have to deal with anything.

Of course, she'd lost count of the number of times she had made this decision before. Of course, it would be just like the other times. She wouldn't do anything about it. She never did. And, her parents reasoned, there was no reason to pay attention to it just because she was making a scene. She'd just run off, sleep outside in the den she'd made under the tree and wake up with a bad hangover. Just like usual.

But this time, it wasn't usual.

From her parents point of view it seemed to follow the same pattern as always; Natalie, in tears over something someone she knew had said or done, woke up the next day calm and contrite and with abad headache. However, there was a subtle yet significant difference which should have set alarm bells ringing for her mother and father.

She didn't wake up with a hangover in the morning. She was as sober, calm and collected as when she went to bed.

Later it would haunt her family, that they had grown so used to her regular threats that they hadn't taken her seriously the one time that she meant it. But at the time, everything was normal.

Natalie remained calm throughout the day. When asked about what happened the night before, she smiled lightly then changed the subject.

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-Because I cant hold on when I'm stretched so thin,

I make the right moves but I'm lost within,

I put on my daily facade but then,

I just end up getting hurt again.

By myself.

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She woke up the next morning, with a headache of course, in ST Mary's Infirmery, Manchester. She had required a complete blood transfusion as well as a ridiculous sounding number of stitches.

She snaps abruptly out of her reverie as a car pulls up beside her and the driver offers her a lift. She hoists her rucksack and her hood slips back a little, revealing seveal strands of noticably green hair, and the driver abruptly mutters some excuse before accelerating away from her. As she continues her stroll along the now typically wet and mudy grassy verge her fingers, eemingly of thir own accord, trace lines along her wrists, absently mindedly following the scars which marked her lifes biggest mistake.

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okay, short I know, but what do you expect, I'm on holiday in Scotlnd, forgoodness sake.Mad.

Anyway, normal (?) service wil be resumed shortly. Perhaps.

oh yeah, and in answer to my ONLY review so far (hint hint),

CosmicGirl22- Thank you very very much for reviewing. And yes, eventually it wil be sort of a Toad romance, evenually and ina way. It seems unfair that very few people actually write about the poor guy.

Oh yeah, just in case anyone is ven interested,there is a reason why everything so far has happened in and around Manchester.

1-I know enough about the area to make it convincing, and

2-well, here's a sort of scientific explaination. I figured that, seeing as how Britain as a whole and Lancashire and Yorkshire in particular and wet old and mudy most of the year around, and seeing as how the whole mutation thing is spposed to be due to evolution it would make sense for Britain to have a higher than usual concentration of amphibious mutants. More suitable to the environment, kind of thing.

Oh wel, see ya.

BellaShamharoth