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Arc I, The Heart of Cresselia
Chapter Six:
Sophie's Reawakening
With convulsing hands, Sophie tearfully unlocked the safe. She prayed that divine intervention would clear her memory, make her forget the combination, or strike her where she kneeled. But, as she had learned since her parent's accident, fate was never so kind. Otherwise, she would have never moved in with her aunt and uncle, and then she wouldn't be in this situation.
She took the bag of bills that Marney had placed there earlier. Until this moment, she had never been so careless. There had been dozens of methods she had used in order to sneak the money to her aunt without getting caught — but signing in the money, leaving it in the safe under another student's close watch, and then taking it without exercising any other precautions was pure recklessness.
Sophie would be caught this time.
She knew it when she picked up the ziploc bag. She knew it when she left the safe wide open. And she most certainly knew it when she walked out into the hallway, the keys to the school hanging from her hands. Keys given to one of the most trustworthy students: the president of five clubs, the predicted valedictorian for graduation, the star student with the scholarships.
When she got outside, she stood under a metal sheet by the door. She had come into the school dry, but she would arrive at home soaked. The rain, as Richard had said, fell down from the skies, unrelenting and cold. She could see the ocean from where she was. The white waves crashed along the seashore, overpowering the sound of the occasional car that drove past.
She could have stayed there forever in that blissed tranquility.
Opening her phone, she checked her messages:
GROUP: Ben! , Marneyyyy :*
Ben! (6:24 p.m.) : helleeeerrrrr Sophie cakes
Marneyyyy :* (6:34 p.m.) : Game starts at 7:30! Where are you?!
Ben! (6:35 p.m.) : babe for real do you need a ride, cause we can get you
Marneyyyy :* (6:46 p.m.) : Is she ignoring us, cause I think she's ignoring us.
Marneyyyy :* (6:49 p.m.) : I bet she's taking a nap.
Her thumb hovered over the power button.
Ben!
(6:50 p.m.) : For real tho Soph, are you ok? Marney tried to call but no answer. Let us know ASAP
Sophie shut her eyes, willing her tears to disappear. She hiccuped out a sob and covered her mouth. Feeling foolish, she wiped her face and waited under the sheet. Maybe if she stood there long enough, a solution would arise. A permanent, world-changing solution that would change the entire course of her life.
She looked at the ziploc bag, which encased the six-hundred dollars she had just stolen. Her fingers left humid prints on the plastic. Blankly, she stared at it. By some weakness on her part, she had allowed herself to go this far. She desperately tried to suppress the unbridled rage in her chest — rage for her aunt, rage for her foolishness, and ultimately, rage for herself.
"I hate this," she whispered.
A sudden chirping caught her attention. A small Starly was perched on the courtyard tree, trilling and singing. She glanced upward, startled. It sat on the tip of a branch and fluttered its wings. When it looked at her, it tilted its head back and forth, cooing a pretty song into the rain. Then it flew off into the gray sky.
Sophie's breaths slowed.
She needed to stop pretending that she was made of stone. For seven years, she had planted herself into the ground and refused to be swayed. Because of that, she had never left this place. She had always told herself, "Leave for school. Leave when it's time." But the time would never be right if she kept herself rooted. Something would always hold her back if she kept giving herself excuses.
"Like a bird," she said softly, her eyes widening with realization. "Not like stone."
Sophie dropped the ziploc bag to the ground and ran into the rain, her shoes splashing through the puddles. Within seconds, she had been soaked through her clothes and to the bone. She sprinted through the school courtyard and into the street, across the path of cars, onto the sidewalk, and down the block.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. Someone was calling her. Without even checking who it was, she reached for it and turned it off, then kept running. She ran past a woman with her Snubbull, around a couple holding hands, and beyond who she thought might have been her neighbor, Richard, but she couldn't have been sure.
The entire run, she cried. She couldn't stop.
When her legs finally quit working, she stood panting in front of the Lilycove train station. Her shoulder rose and fell. Her breaths became mist in the cold. Then without knowing where she wanted to go, she entered in a befuddled stupor, hoping that she would know by the time she got to the platform.
She had bought her ticket with the few dollars in her wallet, but jumped over the turnstile anyway, and then she had wandered through the subway station, listening to the sound of the trains behind the shaking, advertisement-plastered walls. The lights above her flickered on and off. The people around her moved like they had purpose. She did too — she just had no idea where to direct it. Then she finally stood at the edge of the platform, her hands clutching at the edges of her dripping dress.
She waited patiently.
"Going somewhere?" asked a man next to her.
Sophie didn't take her eyes off of the advertisement directly in front of her. She saw a beautiful Altaria, its wings made of clouds, soaring through the sky. Directly below it, words were scripted: Tired of paying for travel? Adopt a Flying-type Pokémon from the Lilycove Adoption Center! HM Fly available for extra ₱300!
"I'm not sure yet," she said honestly, offering a half-assed shrug. "Anywhere but here."
"Are you unhappy in Lilycove?" he asked. "Don't you have a family?"
Sophie looked at him, incensed by his prodding. His voice was so familiar. Then she saw, below his sodden hat, a welcoming face and red eyes, diluted by the shadow of his raingear.
"You're…" she said, suddenly wide awake. She felt compelled to answer him. "My family has been gone for a long time," she said with more clarity. "The one I live with now...they're not mine. I'm not theirs. We don't belong to each other. So I'm leaving, hopefully forever."
The platform had started shaking. The cold air beneath the ground had become more and more restless. She had heard the train from deep within the tunnels.
"Well, I suppose that makes things all the easier," the man had quipped.
Sophie had looked away, only for a brief moment, to watch the train's headlights illuminate the subway. And when she had turned back around, she was already falling. Her purse, which would have carried her only belongings for a long time, was still strapped to her side. Her hand, without money for financial security or food for her to eat, held her one-way ticket to wherever.
The wind from the train had ripped the man's hood from his head. She saw his ears, like she knew she would. Out of the corner of her eyes, in a dimension of nonexistent time, she observed the train barrelling towards her. Funnily enough, the only thought that crossed her mind was: Looks like I'm not making it to that game tonight.
But afterward, in the dark embrace of unconsciousness or sleep or death, she had time to think about lots of things, just like that. So...she thought that. She thought about it over and over. And she guessed she was dead. She also guessed that this was the great adventure that had been in store for her. She had known there was one.
She just didn't know it would be so…permanent.
End of Chapter Six