She stands at the place where sand becomes water.
The ocean rushes over her feet, hisses a retreat, rushes, retreats, rushes, retreats...
She ran here, ran north, until she crossed into a country called "Canada" and found this place, where sand becomes water, and she stopped here as a thunderstorm rolled in. A forest crowned with rocks is at her back and the ocean is before her, churned by wind, faded by the dark clouds to gray-green, the color of old bottle glass. It rushes, retreats, rushes...
She feels the rain spattering on her face, cold, lashing her with a million tiny drops. Her hair is plastered to her head, her clothes soaked through, and she is freezing straight to her bones. Her boots are sinking further into the soft, sucking beach sand with each moment. But she stays.
She has no name, no family, no childhood, no past, no future. She has nothing but six metal claws. She is free but even that is tempered by pursuit. She is alone because no one will ever understand what she is, what she really is, what lies in her heart and burns in her mind.
Anger stirs within her and dies, stirs and dies, and the rain strikes her face in a relentless patter, and at her feet the ocean rushes, retreats, rushes, retreats, and turns sand into water. She is changing too and doesn't want it, and she does, and she doesn't...
She is free, yes, she is free and if the pain inside her chest only grows by the moment she will never be able to explain it. And if the water on her face is tears then nobody will ever know what they are for.
She is Weapon X23 but she is not. She is sand becoming water becoming sand becoming water... changing and not changing... rushing and retreating...
The world will never understand.
END