K: I just think that there's no supernatural element in The OC fandom. I mean, there are so many legends about the sea and the Pacific Ocean's right there. Anything could come ashore.
B: Like Godzilla?
K: No, dumbass. Not like that.
Not like that at all.
He first saw her the day rain came to Newport Beach. The day Lindsay left.
At least, that's the first time he ever remembers seeing her. She seemed so familiar, but he knew he'd never seen her around town or in school. Somehow he was sure of that.
Marissa had left maybe half an hour earlier with a smile and a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He can't remember if he smiled back at her. Her and Alex. Wow.
Lightning snapped maybe ten feet from him, the corresponding thunder almost immediate. The storm was close.
Just air molecules expanding, he thought. The fact that he was actually halfway good at physics almost made him smile, but physics made him think of Lindsay.
Movement down on the beach below had him squinting into the darkness, knowing it was probably nothing but looking anyway. A second flash of lightning (God, the storm was practically on top of them) showed him a figure on the beach.
A figure walking into the raging ocean.
As an interesting twist to his white-knight complex, Ryan had been blessed with the ability to act without any thought whatsoever. So he was three-quarters of the way down the steps to the beach before his brain had processed exactly what he'd seen.
He hit the beach running and stumbled through the sand and the rain and the surf towards the spot where he thought he'd seen the figure…
…And there she was.
A dark haired girl in a torn white dress standing out in the water, looking back at him. Her expression a toss up between surprise and a sort of gentle sorrow.
No, Ryan squinted through the storm across the short distance, she was standing on the water.
Lightning flashed again while he tried to make sense of that.
The girl turned then, walked over the waves into the storm, and was lost to his sight.
Ryan simply stood there, rooted in shock and confusion as the waves crashed around him, and then trudged back up the beach, still reeling.
He lay in bed that night listening to the storm pound the coastline and a tune like a ghostly music box ran through his dreams.
AN: I've got no fucking clue where any of this came from.