AAAAnd here we are folks, final chapter of part 1 and.. GASP! Its a whole chapter from an OC POV? Thats right!

Originally, it wanted Rain to have another, longer POV. But i felt that, being the deuteragonist, Sol deserved to have at least 1 chapter in part one (she has more on part 2 and 3).

So i wrote this on the second draft (this is, like, the third one), and i like it! I hope you guys like it too!

And to the GUEST that left those messages, you need to have an account to give favorite or follow. But you dont need to make one just for that! Your comments are very appreciated ;).


Soledad felt as if she was walking on thin air. Figuratively, of course. Or was it? It was getting hard to know where up and down was; she'd drank too much too fast.

One quick look confirmed her that, yes, there was a stainless steel floor under her feet. There was also a pile of dirty dishes waiting for her in the sink. And a cute boy in a pink letterman picking leftover papers off the ground outside the 'food truck'. And Soledad had a full look from the window!

"You like that plate that much?"

It took Soledad a moment to register the voice. "Sorrywha?"

"I asked if you like that plate that much," grumbled Rain, "you know, since you've been washing it the last five minutes."

Rain had a rag in one hand, a sprayer full of chlorine in the other, and was currently occupied murdering germs and cleaning all stains from the kitchen counters. For someone so unkempt when it came to general appearances, Rain was as clean as a military surgeon. Even her apron—with which she'd been cooking the whole day— didn't have as much as a stain on it.

It was the same at the hostel. Soledad still had nightmares from the first time she saw the patch-up Rain had done to the electrical installation of the place; the whole thing was one hairdryer away from burning up. However, everything else was so clean you could eat off the floor. Soledad had joked about it:

"At least when the building burns to the ground, the firefighters will say 'gee, that's the cleanest pile of ash me eyes have ever seen!'" She'd said. And then she never joked like that again.

She'd concluded Rain was the living embodiment of 'dress for the job you want, not the job you have'.

"I'm on it," said Soledad and scrubbed the grease of the plate, after which she put it in the 'clean but wet' pile to her left.

Her mind wasn't on it, though. Her eyes kept darting up to Steven; he was done picking trash and was now standing and chatting with Peeps. Or more like, 'balancing from one foot to the other like a metronome' and chatting with Peeps. Oh yeah, that boy was wasted. What Soledad to watch the stars with him again…

"Soledad, snap out of it!" shouted Rain. Soledad's back straightened like a soldier. That brought back memories from home. "You can watch cute boys in your free time," added Rain, in a sultry voice.

"I know, I know." Soledad went back to the dishes, only occasionally peeping at the boy in pink.

Rain, having finished with the counters, came to Soledad's side. She unleashed a rain of disinfectant over the dirty stove.

"Man, you have it real bad this time, uh?" said Rain casually.

"Yeah, what is it for you?" Soledad snapped. Silence. Damn it, not again.

Easy girl. You are no longer at home, and Rain is not your enemy, she told herself.

"Iguessso," she said to Rain, calmer.

Rain hummed. "He is nice," she commented, delicate as a flower, "but don't get your hopes to high. You barely know him. And he has a girlfriend."

Soledad furiously scrubbed the sponge over the plate until it was white clean, and then she threw it over the clean pile.

"That doesn't mean anything," Soledad said calmly.

She hated when Rain went into her 'adoptive big sister' mood, but she had a point. When Soledad first met him, she hasn't known what to make out of Steven. She didn't ask for help. She didn't want help —although, looking back to it, she probably needed it. Then out of the sudden this short, pink snowman of a boy materialized in front of her; Soledad even did a double take because she saw… well it doesn't matter what she thought she saw.

The thing is, when Steven came towards her, Soledad expected to live a moment like in the movies. The boy comes forward to the jerk and goes 'Hey, why don't you leave the girl alone, dipshit?' or some other cool quote that only the mind of a Hollywood writer could come with; then he mops the floor with the bad guy and his goons, takes the girl in his arms and carries her to the horizon.

None of that happened. Instead, Steven came to her with a trick. A trick that worked! They had skedaddled out of there with barely a noise. She'd never seen someone defuse a situation so smoothly —no violence, yelling, or fighting.

On the car trip (if you can call that tuna can a 'car'), Soledad made her mind about three things. One, Steven was a good boy. Two, he was different than other boys —in a way she couldn't put her finger on. And three, she wanted to get some lip to lip action with him.

As for the girlfriend back home… Well, 'She' is probably nice and all, but 'She' is still some girl from some small town; Steven was a man on a trip to discover the world, discover himself —heal old wounds, if possible. And sure, Soledad wasn't a walking circus —and she was even less of a psychologist— but she wasn't a wet noodle. She'd a lot to offer to a man like Steven. Now she just had to figure out the kind of man he was… Maybe…

A snicker came out of her, and it quickly evolved into mad laughter.

"Oh, what is it now?" said Rain, looking skeptical. The stove was as white as a hospital room and she was resting her back against the counter and playing with her phone (a pinball App, judging by the music).

"Nothing. It's dumb."

"Hmp, alright."

They were in silence for a moment, before Soledad said this:

"Imeanitsstupidanditspseudoscienceandidon'tbelievethatshitbut have you ever had prophetic dreams?"

There was an (almost) imperceptible movement on Rain's face. "Why? Have you?" she asked.

"No! Nooo, nope, nonono… Well…" Soledad added after a few seconds. "I did have a super weird dream last night."

"You can tell me and do the dishes. Multitask, girl," Rain pointed at the sink.

Soledad didn't retort. She grabbed the largest, greasiest pan, squeezed the bottle of liquid soap on it and began scrubbing it with the sponge. At the same time, she talked:

"OK, so I didn't know it was a dream at first —cause that's what happens in dreams, usually. I was in some kind of lame party. Or at least the people were lame, you know, faceless folks walking around, which is weird cause you can't invent faces in dreams; you brain just stick the faces of people you know into some random body-"

"I would like to leave before sunrise, Dr. Freud," grumbled Rain. Her phone played the LOSER music and she tsked at it.

"Right, right. So, faceless mocks, dumb party, and ugly music, and me… and there was this dude," Soledad stopped a second. Just for drama. "I don't remember his face, but that's the thing: he had one. Everyone else was shadows but him. And then I woke up."

"Short dream. Finish the dishes," Rain gave her back to her, giving the conversation for over.

"No, no, you don't get it," Soledad dropped the pan onto the sink, splashing water everywhere. Even in Rain's clean apron. "I woke up from the dream, but I was still sleep!"

Even as she was squeezing the water from the apron, Rain gave Soledad a look. "A dream within a dream?"

"Bingo!" Soledad picked the pan and put it over the now dangerously tall dishes pile. "When I woke up, I was alone in a dark… room of sort. I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, it was super claus… cla… fucking cramped. Then I felt a touch, like a wet hand on my face, and whoosh!" She dipped both hands in the dirty water. Rain took a step back just in time to evade the waterworks. "It felt like I was taking a warm shower in the morning. The mysterious man was also there, but I couldn't see him. Then I woke up."

"But not really," reasoned Rain as she grabbed the mop and cleaned the water from the floor.

"Exactly! Now it was me, the mysterious man, and other two or three people, idontknow, and we were in a forest I guess? The Mysterious Man was looking at me but —and this is the really weird part— I was seeing stuff through his eyes. Like I was me, but him at the same time, and when he was looking at me I looked… Unique. Beautiful," Soledad's voice dropped to a whisper.

She was at loss of words —a strange feeling for her. The sink's water was full of oil stains and soap, but it was clean enough to show her reflection. Her teal highlights. Her amber eyes. The not-so-slight curvature of her nose. Her reflection stared at her and it didn't look half-bad. The thing is… she'd known she was a woman for a good while. She was living as one now, which was great. She didn't look much like her mom, another bonus. She was smart and a handywoman. She was working on her anger issues and was doing some sweet progress. She'd to work on her people skills, but who doesn't? Soledad could name a bunch of good things about herself —and a whole bunch of ugly things.

But beautiful wasn't in either list.

She grabbed another plate, the last one. Anything to not look at Rain. This was a good thing; because if she had, Soledad would have seen her face painted with shock.

"Imeantherewasalsoagiantthere but that's not important," said Soledad, suddenly very hot in a not-drunk way. "The party thing is the important one. Because through that entire weird dream I felt that dude, the Mysterious Man was… I don't know, an important person. Like a movie star or the president or something."

She laughed dryly. "But obvy that was just a dream because, duh… Do you imagine Steven as the president?"

She pointed a wet hand at the boy; he was balancing himself successfully over a wooden plank on top of a rock. He then felt into his butt and stood up, all wobbly legs and awkward laughs. And yet, Soledad couldn't stop looking at him.

"Yeah, not at all," said Rain dubiously. She turned her phone off and dropped it inside his pockets. "But like you said, it was just a dream. Now finish that plate and get out, I have to mop."

No need to say it twice, thought Soledad. She rushed the last plate and put it on top of the pile, which wobbled left and right but stood still at the end.

She left the kitchen and rejoined the boys. They were in the middle of some conversation that was making Steven laugh.

"Sol! Finally," said Peeps and extended an arm around her in that particular way he did when he wanted to annoy her. "I was telling Steven about how you got your highlights."

Both boys grinned at her. Alright, first business of tomorrow was to kill Peeps (or at least heavily elect… shock him).

"It's a dumb story," said Soledad, deep red.

"Is it-is it true that you wanted to pick 'blonde' but you were s-so drunk you chose 'teal'?" said Steven, interrupted by his hiccups of laughter.

"NO. I wanted this super cool teal color," Soledad grumbled and broke free of Peeps' hold.

That was actually a half truth. She'd wanted blonde highlights, but in her moment of hazy drunkenness she'd a vision of her mother and how she used to wear blonde highlights. Soledad became rabid and changed the color for one her mother would never pick —the weird neon blue she was sporting now.

The first few days she'd hated herself for her recklessness; how much control her mother still had over her, even without being present. Bu she has grown to like it. Teal really suited her.

"Aha. What about the tattoo?" Peeps inquired.

Soledad covered her face with her hands. OK, she'd no good excuse for that.

"So it's true?" asked Steven. "You really were getting a tattoo but you got scared at the last second?"

"Imnochicken!" Soledad shouted. "Thetattooiwantedwastolarge, so I told the artist to make something simpler."

"Which was…?" Peeps leaned closer to her. Steven did the same.

Soledad sighed. "It's a star."

Peeps erupted into laughter, but Steven offered her a weak smile. He almost patted her back, but his hand stopped midway.

"Aww, I'm sure it looks cute," he said. "Besides, tattoos are cool. I wish I could get one someday. So even if you have a small one, you are still cooler than me." He got closer and added. "Besides, stars are great. Take it from me," he pointed at his own star shirt.

Soledad replied a thank you and crossed her arms. Too much attention, both positive and negative, together. Steven's smile was so soft you could sleep on it. Under the Christmas lights, his eyes glistened.

Soledad smiled wickedly at the boy and said: "Well, maybe I could show it to you next time."

Steven agreed effusively to this, completely unaware of where exactly in Soledad's body was the tattoo.

Sorry Miss Childhood Sweetheart, thought Soledad for a woman she had never meet. But this boy is mine.

The conversation quickly diverted to other, less intimate areas. Not long after, Rain came out of the 'truck', now apron free and showing her arms to the world.

Those eyes… they'd always given Soledad the itches. Rain joined the rest of the group and informed them the 'truck' was with lock and key, so it was time to leave.

They packed quickly enough. Peeps had unplugged the most important extensions, shutting down the pinball machines and half of the lights. Everything was so quiet now and it was bittersweet. Soledad loved the soft humming of electricity, the glowing of artificial lights. Sure, it was nice to turn everything down once in a while, but not here. There was something in these woods that didn't do it for her. Too much silence.

Steven had done a good job too, collecting all the garbage; two bags full of trash and bottles hanged from each of his hands. Soledad pointed at the 'homemade trashcan' Rain had made —which consisted of a big wooden box with a lid.

"That's a trashcan?" asked Steven.

"Loosely speaking," said Soledad. She was partially sure Rain hasn't actually made it; she sometimes found some fool to do the work for her. Like cooking in her 'food truck' or fixing her generator.

Soledad's job was simply enough; turn off Ol' Berta, which was as easy as pressing a button and closing the fuel valve. Everything went dark and quiet. Soledad clapped her hands, as do everybody that did a good job, small as it was.

Since the darkness had taken over them, Soledad, Peeps and Rain turned on their phones' flashlights. Steven, by virtue of being in a group, imitated them. But his phone gave a sad whine and the flashlight turned off almost immediately.

"Oh no, nonono," Steven smashed his fingers against the phone's screen. "I must've for…forgo… I didn't charge this up at the motel. Oh man," he whined to the sky, as if blaming the stars for his dead battery.

Soledad sure as hell was thankful, as she took the opportunity to scot closer to Steven, with her fully charged phone, offering to share her flashlight with him. Steven thanked her and slid closer, but never close enough to touch her. It's alright. She'd time to work him up.

"Alright, off we go then. I just want to know…" Rain pointed her flashlight at Steven. "Steven, are you alright for driving?"

"Who me? I'm per-fec-tly fine! See…" Steven fished his keys and started to twirl them in his index.

He dropped them, and then picked them. And dropped them again. The third time, he just shoved them into his letterman's pocket.

"Oops," he said, head down, "that never works with public."

Peeps chuckled and muttered 'Classic Steven'. Soledad laughed too, but she was worried. Rain had the look of someone that was considering making two trips.

"Lookitsfine," Soledad added in a flash. "We'll go real slowly. We'll follow you, so you just gotta look behind you to see us following your butt."

After a few moments of consideration, Rain groaned. "Just stay close to us. But not too close," she said and pointed at her bike. "I don't want Steven ramming his tank into my Triumph. It's a classic, you know?"

"That just means it's as old as her," whispered Soledad, a bit too loud since Rain seemed to hear it and gave them a glare.

Soledad and Steven scattered like roaches; first they rushed to each side of the Dondai; the wrong side, with Soledad one foot in before she noticed there was a wheel in front of the seat. Then they made a turn around the car and entered the vehicle through their correct sides.

Both young adults breathed out. Steven reclined into his seat.

"Man, what a night," he said, his gaze going up, as if he was trying to see the stars from inside the car.

This guy's really into astronomy. That's kinda cute.

"Yeah… sorryaboutthat," said Soledad.

"Why are you apolo… why are you sorry?"

"My friends," she answered. Steven looked as confused as before. "They are soo weird."

"I am weird. I'm, like, the weirdest person you'll ever find," he said with a loud chuckle. "But I'd the best time today. I mean it. I haven't had this much fun in a group of people since I-don't-know-when." He looked at his hands, with a strangely confused look. "And it was thanks to you."

A light flashed Soledad and closed her eyes on instinct. A few seconds later, she opened them again.

Steven was looking at her, slightly concerned for her sudden reaction. He was normal —or as normal as Steven could be. Nothing strange had happened.

"Oh, well… you're welcome," she said, loss of words. Second time of the night. "And thanks again, for the rescuing."

"You're welcome, my lady" Steven said with a wink. He was full of confidence now, and Soledad didn't know what to do about that. "Sorry for being weird and trying to escape."

"It's cool. I'm weird too."

"It's true. And someone once told me that's a good thing to be," he rushed to add.

A flashing light startled them. Rain and Peeps were on board of Rain's bike; both of them wearing helmets —both of them with eyes on each side. Rain made a hand motion for them to follow, and she began to drive the only road outside the clearing. Steven turned the Dondai on and went behind them.

The air was calm and silent, which was welcome after all the noise from the night. But Soledad's mind was still working overtime. Her mind was always working, always thinking.

"Say Steven," she began, and waited a few moments to get her thoughts straight. "Are you going home now? Because it's just," she looked at her yellow and pink watch, "2:30 AM. The night is young and I was wondering… if you… would like to… uh… stayforcoffeeatthehostel?"

The words ringed inside the car for a moment. "Coffee?" Steven asked.

"Yeahorteaorsomething. I mean, that's something people do when they go to other people houses. They drink coffee," she said stupidly. Then she'd an idea. "Also, it's a long way from Death River to your motel, and a cup of coffee might brighten you up."

"Uh, I am as bright as I can be, thank you," Steven said, not taking it seriously at all.

"OK, yeah I get it," she said, looking away. "Maybe you need to, I don't know, rope some cattle or something; I don't know what cowboys do these days."

Steven chuckled. His laugh was strong as a lion, but soft as a kitten.

"Coffee sounds great, actually," he gave Soledad a sideway glance. "And you can tell me more about Pac-man."

"Awesome," she said, calm as a river, and when he wasn't looking she flapped her arms uncontrollably for five seconds. Then she went quiet.

It wasn't long before the route gave way to the road. The car swayed back and forth over the irregular concrete. The wind roared softly from Steven's half-open window. It'd turned to be a chilly night, but they were both wearing their coats, so it felt nice. The light from Rain's bike was a good guide in the dark road.

And in the silence, Soledad looked at the boy, this awesome boy that jumped into her life. She watched him and waited.

It'd happened again, a few minutes ago. The same thing that happened during the party and Soledad was starting to think there was something stranger with this boy than just hidden trauma.

Because at the party, and not long ago too, when she'd looked at Steven… Well, Soledad could've sworn he was glowing pink.

No, that's not possible. There is no such thing as glowing people, she thought, with the same intensity she used when thinking there were no such thing as prophetic dreams. She was just tired.

She rolled down the car window. The chill wind was cutting her face. She closed he eyes and breathing in the night scent. A soft, electric tune she'd never listened to before could be heard, and she felt like it was getting into her soul. It felt right.

It didn't occur to her that it was not the stereo's music she was hearing. It was off.

The Dondai drove silently into the night, their passengers' auras beating in synchrony. From the top of a tree, a crow saw the two vehicles pass by.

It took off and flew after them.


TA DAH! Confused yet? I hope so lol.

Seriously tho, thats kinda the idea of this fic (And its a bit of how my writing style works): i like to create questions for the people that read the story, so they break their heads trying to figure out the answers. AND OF COURSE there WILL BE answers. There is nothing i hate more than stories that raises questions but dont answer them.

Anyway, with this ends part 1, and sadly, i must say it might take me longer to publish from now on. Work is hard, writing is hard, and life? Even harder than those too. BUT i'll try to be constant and update at least once or twice a month, so dont worry. I wont let you guys down.

Well, that will be all. SEE YOU GUYS IN THE NEXT PART! (Which i will continue in this same fic, no reason to start another just for that).

DONT FORGET TO FOLLOW AND COMMENT!

SEE YA!