𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐋 ᴰʳᵃᵍᵒⁿ ᴿᵃʲᵃ

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐃𝐨 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐀𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐢𝐞

The waves. Melodic, soft, salty, and constant crashed into her. With great difficulty, feeling the water creep into her ears, reaching up her throat, her eyes flickered, stunned by the daylight. The sky greeted her—she felt sick. The sun shone brightly—she started to cough up water. The waves of the ocean, as calm and wild as they are, calmly rocked her body, motioning her forward, to the surface to the land—she was alive.

Her eyes, once again unused to the bright lights, sacred of seeing the bright burning of the sun, lost and regained focus on the couple before her. A family appeared. A couple, most likely enjoying a walk on the beach, with a child, her face made small by her blunt bang and cartoonish pigtails. Her eyes focus once more on their faces as if they were camera lenses. Worry? Was it worry that washed over their faces? Or was it disgust? Weakly, MC brought her hand toward her eyes. They were as ugly as always. As sad as an abandoned ragdoll, now, with the addition of fine lines on her finger.

She, wearily, stood up, her legs unstable. Trying to step forward, in the horror of the couple, she reached her hands, wrinkly as they were. She fell towards them and promptly, the man caught her, exclaiming this time.

"何か手伝いましょうか!"

It was only a yell, yet it felt like an explosion in her ears. She yanked herself away from the man, falling behind and finding herself back in the water.

"何か手伝いましょうか?" the man repeated.

MC looked down at herself, and her body. Her suit was still on, at least in parts. Quickly, she checked her compartment area, which was still glued firmly on the back of her claves, unlike the fabric on her left arm, which had ripped away.

Inside was a full bottle of her sleeping pills, but the other was opened and some water had slipped in. Her pocketknives were nowhere to be seen.

She stared blankly at the man who kept yelling at her. Was he sacred perhaps? How badly did she look?

"お母さん！お母さん!" a high-pitched voice yelled. The girl, that child, MC thought. Wavering, she motioned her eyes toward her. Innocently, the girl with the pigtails showed an hourglass, slightly broken on the edges, to her mother excitedly. MC's hourglass.

Suddenly regaining all her energy, she rushed to the child, snatching away the hourglass, and holding it protectively toward her. Immediately after the initial shock, the little girl began crying hysterically, shaking in her oversized pink dress.

The parents, it seems, were so confused they didn't know what to do. They only wanted to take a nice family outing when they found what seemed to be a foreigner drowning in water in a strange suit, that refused to speak and had just stolen a toy their kid found.

The kid continued to cry, the parents continue to stare, and MC slowly regained herself. She had her hourglass, meaning she still had her Gemini.

She was alive when she had been left for dead. For the second time. She looked at the child, her tears falling on top of her red rain boots. It wasn't raining. Perhaps she just really liked them.

"I'm sorry but it's mine."

The kid continued to cry but slowly wiped away her tears.

"You-you know. I speak English too. I'm the only girl in my class that can!"

The mother took a deep breath, feeling it easier to figure out what was going on now. She looked tentatively at MC, who still glared blindly at the little girl.

"My husband has been trying to tell you, do you need help?"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───