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 Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 11:54 pm
"Well I'm doing a damn lousy job of getting some sick kicks. Not only did I drag your a** out of a house where you were bleeding, I came to see you, offered to see you again, and even took you out. I didn't force you to say anything, Ofelia. Don't you get pissed at me for asking. I might have a gun as a weapon, but I didn't point it at your head." He said this without raising his voice, simply stating a fact. If she wanted to start accusing him, he was going to stab back with simple fact. "If this is how I get my sick kicks, you can head back to your room. Crazy does seem to be in abundance here after all." Then again, what did that say about him? He was on this island with these people.
It was best not to think on that.
"We're all on this island because we see shadows. Why would I say you were crazy for seeing Halloween monsters when we ALL see them, hmm? I've seen them since I was little. I think a lot of people have. We all can sympathize about how terrifying the dark is, though I cannot begin to know what it's like to be distrusted to the extent you were and locked up all the time." His family had been more humane with his condition.
"So, are you going to head back or walk with me?" He asked, pausing to look at her.
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:13 pm
"Ah'm not gonna head back." Was what she said eventually, at the end of it all. Her cheeks were red, perhaps more with embarrassment at how she was acting rather than anger, and the teen turned her face away once more. For a pair who were supposed to be going on a walk together she certainly didn't look at him any longer than she needed to, and even then it was only to glare. "Ah dun know the way back, an' Ah'd be mad if we . . . " She trailed off, mumbling entirely too much to herself.
She was just being a brat, acting out like that at him, and it was so weird and rare that her normally non-existent temper had flared every so faintly. Finally, after a few more moments of just standing there in awkward angry silence, she cleared her throat. "Ah dun think yer crazy, but it's okay if ya think Ah am. Pretty par fer the course as ta what people 'round here say anyway, an' yer right 'bout all'a us seein' shadows." She touched a hand to her eye. "Mine cost me an' eye an' a family. What did you lose?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:30 pm
The topic was not one he wanted to go into specifics about. He lost a lot, but it felt like it weighted more than hers because it was personal to him. "We all lost family and friends. I lost mine. You lost yours." He looked to her eye. "But I never lost a limb." He had only been attacked, and he wondered what would have happened to him if that bug woman had had her way before his parents showed up.
"You shouldn't be okay with letting other people think bad of you. Sure, it doesn't matter, but you really just accept the worst of people." He pointed out, turning and gesturing for them to continue walking. He never went ahead of her in case she grew tired or faint, and walked slowly for her benefit. Being taller meant he tended to walk faster.
"When did you loose the eye,?" He asked, now that she brought it up.
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:51 pm
"By acceptin' everyone, good or bad, is the only way Ah know how ta live. Ah'd rather be hated than ignored, Ah'd rather be noticed than left alone." Ofelia started walking as Melvin moved along, her steps still steady and strong for the time being. "Plus if one day Ah want people ta accept me, shouldn' Ah start by acceptin' them? Kindness has ta have a startin' point, an' Ah dun care if its jus' me bein' used." Was her self-esteem really that low, that Ofelia would gladly grovel for others? Maybe it was her innate sense of loneliness or a real desire to have friends. With everything going on, with Rue in her head constantly driving her downward, it was hard to tell.
"Ah'm not unhappy though, in case yer curious 'bout that too. Ah like mah life, Ah really do, an' Ah'm not willin' ta trade it fer anythin'. This place is probably the best Ah've ever been in, now that Ah think 'bout it." She said and motioned outward with her arms. The warmth and mugginess of the outside air seemed to be doing wonders for her as they went along, at least in terms of lifting her spirits.
When the topic came back around to her, yet again, she just kept answering like the honest idiot she was. "Mah brother hit me in the head wit' a piece'a wood. Ah fell off the haypile, hit a post, an' had mah eye stabbed out via pitchfork." Ofelia counted the events off on her fingers as she went, as though explaining this was something she had to do many a time. "Brother panicked an' thought Ah was dead so he shoved me inta the haypile an' left me there. Lasy Ah 'member was voices laughin', sayin' Ah got what was deserved or whatever, Ah was like six." What had the voices said, now that she thought of it? Later on, when she was showering or trying to sleep, she'd remember. "Passed out from blood loss, woke up in the hospital."
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 11:15 pm
"Well, ********. Those two were a real piece of work, your aunt and brother. Surprised they didn't grow up to be serial killers. Shame no one called child services on them for what they did. To stab a 6 year old like that and not car." It was just terrible that people could be around raising kids who didn't care if the lived, died, or killed each other. To think that it was her brother was the worst. He loved his siblings dearly and could never think of hurting them, either intentionally or by accident.
You did hurt them. You died.
He went quiet, but only briefly.
"No wonder you burned the place down." Sure they weren't dead, which was good, but they got divine punishment for treating a small child like a rat. It explained why Ofelia thought poorly of herself and also why she was okay with it. As sad as it was, he wasn't around to make her sane. If anything, all he needed her to do was feel confident enough to swing whatever weapon she had. As a Sun, it was probably massively huge.
"Some people won't accept you. Can't be kind to everyone. If they treat you like s**t, - ******** em. Too many people in the world to please. I say stick to the ones who actually care and who will stick around. The people like your aunt and brother, well, I think you already knew kindness wasn't going to help with your acceptance when you burned it down." She couldn't be kind to everyone, and she needed some anger to throw a weapon from what he saw of the other wack-job Suns.
Looking ahead, he saw the ocean down the path. "And there she is."
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Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 8:42 pm
"Um...Ah'd kinda...like it if ya didn' talk badly 'bout 'em. Mah brother loved me in his own way...Ah think." Ofelia just shrugged on it, not wanting to press that issue further. Her memories of her brother weren't all bad, he did talk to her and every now and then join her for meals. It was mostly just that he somewhat neglected her and then eventually called her a liar to her face that burned part of their shared bridge. "Ah...probably wasn' an easy person ta be 'round anyway, so. Hard ta deal wit' a screamin' kid who keeps seein' things, right? Not to mention one who's jus' lost their eye an' has trouble gettin' 'round so ya gotta be there for 'em an' then all the guilt." She rubbed the back of her head as she spoke, fingers getting tangled in her mass of red hair. Maybe it was time for a hair cut, or at least a decent brushing session. "An' as fer the burnin', it wasn' outta revenge."
She stopped walking, briefly, and then started again. "Ah burned the barn down ta protect them, jus' as Ah did the shed at school. Ah was the only one who could hear the voices but Ah wasn' the only one gettin' hurt in there. No one else needed to go through that an' 'cause'a mah crime no one else has to." A grin spread on her lips and a soft chuckle followed. "Guess Ah was doin' mah job as a hunter wit'out even really knowin' it."
Melvin continued on about kindness, about her not needing to show it to everyone because no matter how hard she tried people were still going to hate her, and Ofelia. . . .just tuned bits and pieces of it out. She wanted to be nice to people, she really did, and so she was going to stay nice to people. It wasn't like the actions of a few assholes were going to turn her away from them because when push came to shove they'd need someone there. For a sick reason of her own, perhaps an ego boost or some perverted form of satisfaction, Ofelia would see that she could be that person.
There was no need to respond much more to that, she just sort of nodded her head in a pantomiming gesture she hoped would make him think she was listening and understanding, but in reality she didn't care. Her actions, his words, she'd win out in the end. that was all that was keeping her going, really, and Ofelia always stuck to her guns. Or at least she did until she saw the ocean approaching.
"OOOCEAAAAAAAN." Like a five year old taken to Disney for the first time, or anyone overly excited to see anything, Ofelia totally said ******** you to all the pains in her body and sprinted down the path as fast as her legs could carry her. The messy bun she'd had her hair in came loose, allowing the red mane to stream behind her like a banner, and as soon as she set foot on the sand she tried to slow down.
It didn't really work and she ended up landing fast first right before the shoreline.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 12:26 pm
Ofelia sounded like a classic abuse victim who was making excuses for others and laying fault on herself. Not a shrink, he knew he wasn't going to be fixing her and that she stayed quiet and hadn't said a word in some time. It was a subject in her past, one that made her, and one to file away later. This was a walk, not a therapy session after all.
He jumped when she screamed and rushed ahead, and he was surprised that she had such vigor considering her condition. As she raced ahead, he walked behind up to the beach. The ocean was strangely beautiful and he had never lived on an island this tropical before, but water was something they had in abundance back home. Fishing was common during every season and if you didn't have a river nearby, then you at least had a lake. Water wasn't a big deal to him.
When Ofelia fell, he just placed a hand to his face and sighed, before dropping it and walking over to her. Taking her arm, he tried to help her ease back up without pulling on anything that still might have stitching. "You're going to break something. The ocean isn't going anywhere after all." There was sand on his gloves and he frowned as he dusted them off, leaving Ofelia to tend to her own sandy clothes.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 7:34 pm
"Ehehehe, sorry." Ofelia didn't mind that she was being scolded for running too fast and hurting herself, instead she just shook it all off like the sand that was on her clothes. Nothing had gotten hurt in her tumble, the shock of sand had absorbed it nicely, and she dusted everything off her body with a few pats of her hand. Then she kicked off her shoes and darted towards the water once more, this time taking a bit more care as the tide grabbed her ankles. "Melvin look, s'ocean!"
She giggled and kicked around in the waves, ignoring everything else about her body. Sure he was probably going to yell at her, sure she was going to be hurt and maybe need some meds to clean everything out, but for the time being she was in the waters. The redhead splashed a bit as she chased after a fish, or something, and the water was rolling all over the clean clothes that she'd worked hard on (and to have help getting on). Eventually she did take a pause, glancing back to her companion on the shore, and she waved him in. "Com'on, come in an' play."
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:47 pm
Melvin remained on the shore, looking very much like a cat very much against the very idea of the ocean. He wasn't afraid of water, but he had taken a shower this morning, got dressed, and was clean. He didn't have appropriate clothing and hadn't planned to swim. This was a walk. Walking would be done, and he wasn't about to change it up for anyone.
He let Ofelia play, and he rose his hand up and waved it. "Oh no, you go right ahead and have fun. I'll just stay here." Dry and nicely pressed. It was at least nice to look at the ocean.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:11 am
"Are ya sure? The water feels wonderful." Ofelia kicked around more and more, splashing and getting herself entirely soaked. It felt amazing to be outside, to feel the sun on her skin and saltwater in her. . . eye. Well the saltwater part wasn't overly amazing but she just sucked that up because it came with the packaged deal of having fun. After several more rounds of jumping and moving her arms were getting tired, an unhappy and unwelcome ache leaking across her back, and the teen just stopped moving and turned to look out at the horizon.
"Yanno Melvin, sometimes Ah wonder what would happen if Ah jus' let mahself go ta the waters." She called his name loudly but the rest was sort of a mumble, marred by the cries of seagulls and the turf itself. "Not like a suicide or anythin', but like...jus' lettin' go." She turned and looked back over her shoulder. "That probably makes no sense at all ta ya, huh? Sorry fer sayin' sommin' stupid." Her whole body turned now and she started back to the shore, a slow pace. "Jus' ferget Ah said anythin'."
Soaked with sea water and with the sun to her back she looked like a corpse rising from a watery grave on a march towards an unknown destination.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:43 pm
He listened to her, moving closer to the edge where the waves just grazed his shoes. Ofelia was a bit more unstable than he thought, but given how long she probably was on the island, her past history, added to the fact she was young, all probably was a bit overwhelming. He couldn't see him doing this at 19, but then again he couldn't have thought of doing this sort of lifestyle now at his age.
"I don't forget." He told her. "You want to let go - of what? Life? Problems? Seems like you want an easy escape and what you are talking about is suicide." If she brought it up, he wasn't letting it go. It was a rule of conversation - if you said something, it was up for talking about.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:58 pm
Ofelia finally reached Melvin's side and brushed her hair back from in front of her face. She tucked it behind her ears and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Ah'm not 'fraid'a dyin'. Sometimes it' jus' the livin' that can get scary, dealin' wit' people." She said and kept her eyes closed, though she turned her face in his general direction. Slowly she opened the empty eye socket, then her other eye, and the stormy gray color gazed at him. "Yer right that Ah can' be kind ta everyone, can' be friends wit' everyone, an' Ah think deep down Ah know that but. . . it's hard, it's weird." Ofelia raised a hand to the back of her neck.
"When Ah was growin' up Ah was usually always alone, save fer when mah brother would play with me. We hung out lots until the accident, but even after that he stayed at mah side 'til he entered high school. Ah was in middle primers then an' still hearin' an' seein' stuff no one else could. Eventually Ah guess he got fed up wit' tryin' ta defend me ta people, ta explain ta them why Ah did stuff or said stuff. Eventually, he jus' gave up on me." She said, and rubbed her neck. All this talking about her past was making her stomach hurt, the nostalgia she thought she was feeling slowly being replaced with something else, and even though it was aching she did her best to keep a grin on her face. It was faltering though, she didn't know why, and this was making her even more uneasy. "The night Ah came ta Deus, Ah told him Ah wished he was dead, an' he told me Ah should'a died in the accident. Those were our partin' words. Ah wonder if Ah feel guilty 'bout it, like Ah should have said Ah loved 'em or sommin', but Ah think that feelin' we once shared got scattered all over the barn floor like mah blood on that day."
It wasn't like Ofelia to get serious, it was now even more possible that all Melvin thought of her was a suicidal loner who was dangerous and unable to be trusted, and that wedged another pit in her stomach. She was starting to feel violently ill, her vision a little blurry. Was it the feeling in her stomach or the wounds on her shoulders? Had she pushed herself too far physically or was it all mental?
"Lordy, Ah still dunno why Ah'm tellin' ya all this. Certainly dun help any case'a where ya dun think Ah'm some crazy nutjob who will turn on everyone an' kill 'em, or one day jus' throw mahself off a cliff an' hope Ah die on impact."
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:19 pm
Melvin stood where he was, making no motion got hug her, comfort her, or well, actually touch her in any way. (She had just been rolling about in the ocean after all.) Instead, he did what he had been doing to the point. Listening and talking. It was easy when you didn't let yourself connect.
"You're fixating on your past. Since it was brought up, you are always thinking about your d**k aunt and brother who could care less if you were dead. Your aunt locked you up and did nothing a parent should do, and your brother tried to kill you. Face it. Somewhere along the line, the people who cared for you stopped. If you stayed there, you would have been abused more or maybe your brother wouldn't have missed with that pick axe and just went for your skull. Seems that's what he was trying to before. Now either here or there, you would have died and you don't seem like you would have run away if you still are thinking about them. Now I'd focus on healing up, living, and meeting new people who aren't going to try and take a sharp object to your face."
He had to pause. "Well, a sharp object they mean to kill you with. Not sparring."
"You are avoiding people and thinking about people you'll never meet again and who probaby would hate seeing you. Leave em." He looked down and took his shoe to make a hole and pointed. "Bury them there and cover them. That's all I can say really."
He turned. "We should head back and get you some dry clothes before you catch something." He told her.
You sure are talking a lot of bullshit. You still look at those pictures every night.
It's different. Those people never tried to kill me.
Yeah, but you still won't see them again. Why not make two graves in the sand?
He said nothing as he took a few steps towards the trail, pausing to wait for the teenager.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:34 pm
Ofelia didn't go after Melvin, instead she just watched him move, and she squatted down in the sand and stuck a finger in it. Slowly she wrote out names, and then a message, and she rose up to stand once more. The process had been slow and she'd spelled a few things wrong, leaving her to wipe it all clean with her hand and try again. Eventually though it was done and she dusted her hands together and looked down, still not really moving to follow. If he left her she'd be okay, there were usually hunters crawling the island to get to places so it wouldn't be too long before someone found her, right? Also she knew her way back from some parts of the beach.
She stared down at her message for a while, tilting her head back and forth, and then just eventually stomped it all out. The redhead turned to face Melvin, to walk towards him, but she had to stop herself as soon as she felt something warm start to run from her eye.
There was no way she'd cry in front of him. No. damn. way.
And so she dropped down to the sand again.
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 1:54 pm
Melvin waited, hearing her cry, before he called over his shoulder. "I'll be up the path. If you don't show up in 10 minutes, I'll come back." That was all. Ten minutes to sort herself out and then he'd come back and take her to her room. It was time she let these people die on the shore and let herself live. That or make the decision to really walk into the ocean. Either way, someone was going to be buried.
He started to walk.
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