i

I

You are crashing into the ocean.

Your body breaks the surface, and the bubbles rise to the surface with dread. You open your eyes slightly, watching the small shafts of moonlight hitting your face as you sink lower and lower. Your hair waves above you, and your hand reaches out, grasping for something, anything.

What is your name? You do not know.

How old are you? You are unsure.

Who are you? Who cares?

You are about to die, and as the water fills your lungs, taking your final breath, you think one thought: So this is what it's like to live.

You don't know why you think this, considering you don't remember how you lived before this. You can't remember much, really.

Oh, well. You're dying, anyways.

That is, until a man grabbed your arm, giving a sharp tug and your head broke the surface. You inhaled, breathing, gasping, choking. Your body shivers, landing on the white wood of a motorboat. There's a soft humming in your ears, and you figure it's a side effect of death. You are dead, right?

“Sweet Jesus, girl, I thought you were dead!” A scruffy man proclaimed, chuckling like this was the most natural thing in the world to say. Also, you are female. Makes sense, for some reason, you have a belief that men aren't shaped like you are. You don't know why this is in your mind, but oh well. You are apparently not dead, so it's a win win situation. Whatever that means.

“Who...” You attempted to speak, but you instead cough up a mound of water and mucus. Holding your stomach, you heave your guts out on the side of the boat, wiping your mouth and turning a ghostly pale at the thought of the phrase 'heave your guts'.

“Don't try to talk, sweetie,” the man said, smiling sympathetically. You blinked, lying on your back in the cramped space, resting your head on the north bench. It was nighttime, but that should have been obvious by the crescent moon above your head. You stared at it, sighing and wondering why you feel so cold. “Here, take this.” He placed a yellow plastic jacket over your shoulders, and you realize that the water must have taken any heat your body could have made. The man who saved your life had grey whiskers coming off his chin, and crinkles around his mouth like he has spent a lot of his life chuckling.

“Shore,” you sputtered, surprised you even knew the word. Only few words stick out in your mind, you're not even sure if you even know English fluently. That was something to figure out at a later time. The man nodded his head, revving up the black motor at the opposite side of the boat, letting it roar through the night. There was a bag of fish at your feet, they are all dead, and seemed to be staring at you. You pulled a disgusted face at the sight, and whipped your sight away to stare at the night sky again. It was inky black, lashing across the sky in seeming anger. The stars all shined, almost too bright for your eyes. You looked at your hands, and you know everything there is to know about your hands. They are powerful.

The water was choppy, and sloshed against the side of the boat in rage. You finger a lock of your hair, which the color of dim silver. For some reason, you seem to believe this is unusual for someone to have. But you're probably wrong, anyways. The man attempted to speak to you several times throughout the time in the ocean, but you ignored him, not wanting to reveal anything about your life, mainly because you can't remember a single damn thing about it.

Finally, the boat pulled up to rows of docks, varying from tall sailboats from tiny rowboats. There is a booming city beyond the docks, with plenty of lights and bridges. This does not seem like a tiny island town, more like a metropolis.

“Welcome to San Francisco,” the man said, throwing his hands out in a celebratory way. You nodded your head, staring at it with disinterest. The name had no meaning to you; it didn't roll off the tongue as things that might have been familiar before you lost your memory. Or maybe you never lost your memory. It's all very confusing now. You attempted to smooth your hair down, perhaps to look presentable. To whom, you are not sure. You cautiously stepped off the boat, feeling the dizzyness of landing on stable land. You hold your head, trying to make the world stop spinning.

“Thank you,” you whispered, taking another hesitant step. Maybe you are something that is not supposed to be here. Are you not welcome into this San Francisco, as they call it? What if you were drowning for a reason? Were you supposed to die out there? You whirl around, facing the man again.

“Tell no one of me,” you growl in a menacing voice, or at least, you hope is a menacing voice.

Sparks gather in the palm of your hand, as they are drawn from the tiny lantern hanging off the side of a nearby boat. They stream through the air, landing in your veins as you tighten your fist. The light grows brighter and brighter the tighter you hold. This is not fire in your hand, it is pure light, pure energy. It spins and waves at your fingertips, waiting to be controlled. You are not good at keeping it in your hand for long periods of time, even though the longer you hold it, the more powerful it gets. You throw your hand back, crashing it down through the air, and the light once in your palm goes sailing through the wind and comes booming on the small motorboat, exploding into millions of sparks and light flecks. Some small fires are born from the incident, flicking into the ocean water and eventually dying off.

The man gawks at the sight, twitching and staring at the havoc you recently wreaked. “Demon...” he whispered, pointing an accusatory finger at you. “Heathen! Satanist!” His voice grows louder and louder, but you are already running away, stumbling through the wet wood planks and trying to escape. You have no idea what the words he is shouting mean, but the connotation sounds negative. You rub at your hand, flinching at the burns quickly forming at the skin. You keep running, though. Weaving up the side of a mild incline, breathing the fog in your lungs and enjoying the refreshing humidity. You finally hit the city streets, pulling back as a night biker races past you. Your burn starts to sting, really badly. You need something to sooth it. With your limited knowledge, you have no idea what to do.

Just escaped from the hands of death, and leaping into the eyes of chaos.

The wafts of food aroma drifts down the street and into your welcoming nostrils. Your stomach growls, and your mouth waters at the idea of nourishment. You wander down the street, weaving in and out of late night traffic, and follow the scent as best you can. You reach an old Chinese resteraunt, the sign unreadable and with strange symbols on it. Maybe it is English, you aren't sure. No, it's not English. English are the letters on the sign of the store next to it. This is probably another language on the sign. The clear glass windows reveal bustling of customers sipping noodle soup and shpoving chopsticks into their mouths while enjoying their meals. You push open the door, flinching at the quiet jingle the bell makes as you open it. You cautiously step inside, and the man at the cashier watches you expactantly. “Order food, yes?” he asks, and you c**k your head.

You are not sure about this English language stuff yet, but maybe you'll get the hang of it. “Food, yes,” you say, pointing at the little box on the tabletop, smelling of chow mein and rice.

“Money,” he says pointedly, glaring at you. You blink, checking the pockets of your still wet sweatshirt. You come up empty.

“None,” you admit, shrugging your shoulders.

“Out,” he says, pointing to the door. Your eyes dart quickly around; you are still hungry. You make an awful decision, you grab the box on the table, and run with it. The man shouts, waving his fist. “Thief!” he yells after you. “Dirty, dirty thief!” You ignore him, your sneakers pounding against the sidewalk and the only sounds are the heavy breaths of your strenuous lungs.

Thief. You know this is probably not a human name, but you like the sound of it. This word does roll off the tongue, and it pokes at your memory, like a needle trying to get a string of thread. You keep this close to your heart. “Thief,” you whisper, squatting in an alleyway and tracing the letters in the gravel with your finger. “My name is Thief.” You stretch out your legs, opening the box and almost fainting at the beautiful sight. Ypu pick up a noodle with your begrimed fingers, plucking into your mouth and chewing thoughtfully. You eat like this, one noodle at a time, watching them each disappearone by one. You would like to think of yourself as a polite young lady, despite learning that you were a lady an hour ago. You're not even sure what being a polite young lady consists of, but eating noodles more than one at a time probably isn't it. You toss the box aside, licking your fingertips one by one. You inspect what you are wearing.

Dirty blue jeans. They are tight to your skin, but not as tight as the jeans you saw on some of the other girls in the streets. They have dark patches on them from the ocean, still drying. Your shoes are black with white laces, also wet. You are wearing a black sweatshirt, with no distinguishable marks on them. You spot a puddle at your feet, probably caused from the pipeline crawling up the side of the building you are leaning on. You bend your back to peer into it.

Your silver hair looks shimmer-y in the moonlight. Your eyes are small, almost like slits, but that could be from the (probable) lack of sleep. You probably aren't getting sleep, right? Your lips aren't full, but you aren't sure if full lips are a diserable quality or not. You brush your cheek with your fingertip. Your eye color is a pale blue, almost grey. You find this boring, and you are sick of staring at your reflection. You lay on your side, breathing through your nose and wondering if Thief is the right persona for you. Thief is probably a bad thing, but maybe you don't care. You just burned down a nice man's boat, right?

Speaking of which, your hand is still throbbing. You aren't supposed to hold the light for too long, or else this happens. Or, you think so. You rub it, sticking it in between your thighs and hoping it doesn't hurt for too long. You aren't sure what you're doing in the morning, anways. You shut your eyes, hoping to fall asleep quickly.

~*~

Author's Note

What you have just read has not been edited, it is fresh off of nanowrimo, and it generally awful at this point. The roughest draft you could read, and pointing out grammar or spelling flaws is unhelpful here, but will be later on.

Reviews

[Shaka-Greywolf]

See this is how i need to be writing..... like wow but i love this story so far. i need to read more.

[Egress]

Ooh, second person, interesting!

I actually think that second person, as long as it's not a novel, is nice. Sometimes when I'm being immature, I'd say, "lookie, it's talking to me!"

[roarke]

Thief? sounds more like "Sparky"