Black Pearl✔️ [rewriting offline]

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝟏

•••••••

A girl of brown skin and thick, tight curls in a pink dress of flowers embroidered along the hem showcasing her eminent wealth, walks along the fishing pier. She was to accompany her father in handling the family business but grew bored of labor her brothers would eventually learn in her place instead.

Coming upon the stones scattered along the river, she lifts her dress and jumps from stone to stone.

Her mother forbid her from stone jumping and her closest friend thinks she will one day slip and drown, but the girl was stubborn. She lived for danger. And the thrill. Gleefully laughing as the cool wind breezes through her hair. Specs of water splashes against her new shoes, living for the moment she's in the air for only a mere second before gravity holds her down.

The voice of an elder carrying a crate of caught fish echoed from afar. He warns the rich girl to be careful and remain on the stones closest to shore. Kids have washed away trying to reach the furthest ones. His voice scared the girl that she slips once landing on the dangerous stones furthest from land. Deeper in feet.

She wail her arms to hold herself up but it was already too late. And the stone is too slippery. Water rushes into her lungs and panic took hold. The old man witnessed it happen and came running but he was still too far. And too slow.

But a boy witnessed her fall.

A boy of lower status sat near the river with his toes playing in the water. Silently reading a book before he began watching the girl jump around—a girl he purposely waits around for just to watch her jump. He waited, hoping she would come to surface. But she doesn't.

He is quick to close his book and rushes into the cold river to save her. He found her fighting to swim up as the water dragged her under. Successfully wrapping an arm around her waist, the boy swam them to shore.

"Are you alright?" Asks the boy once laying her down. She turns over on her side, coughing up water and breathing back in air.

She lays on her back trying to process what happened and met eyes of the boy who saved her.  Her heart flutters beyond his look of concern. He was utterly handsome. "Y-you saved me." The girl avoided his contact. Her cheeks grew red.

He smiled a beautiful smile. "I did." He kneeled toward the girl who was equally beautiful as he was, probably more. "Can you stand or should I help you?"

"I can."

The boy offers his helping hand anyways. The white shirt he wore pressed his skin like a second layer, a small scar spotted under the left side of his rib cage. He must be a fighter. Or a hard-headed boy though his presence made the girl strangely calm. As though she's met him before and she never had.

"You jumped the stones knowing you can't swim. Why risk your life way?" The boy nagged.

The girl shrugs. "Not that it's any of your business, but stone jumping is fun." Then she stares out into the water, a serious look took hold. "But there's a connection to this river. A connection I can't explain. Whenever I'm near, there are chills all down my body. Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting for something."

"Waiting for something?" The boy was intrigued.

"Someone perhaps." The girl responded. "You might call me crazy, my father does, but I believe there is a debt to be paid. I have no way of knowing how I know it's paid, so I come here every day and wait for a sign. But it's also fun to jump the stones." She attempts to shift the mood after feeling the conversation grow dark in a matter of seconds.

The boy smiles. He smiles because not only was the girl he had been waiting for every day is beautiful and a risk-taker, but she's strange. In a good way strange. And a strange feeling that gravitated him to her. "What's your name?" He asks her.

"Peizhi. You?"

"Zian."