@CweedbrainWisegirl (the one person reading this) I wrote this like 5 years ago. It's really bad.
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Whale Bay Australia 2012
She was alone, something she was never meant to be. But now she almost preferred it. If she was alone, she didn't have to make choices that affected anyone other than herself. Eat or not, sleep or not - dream or not.
She tried to dream as little as possible, but that morning in particular, it just wasn't happening for her.
Jane's eyes snapped open, she was breathing hard and sweat rolled down her face. The nightmares continued to plague her even after ten years, it was just her luck, time didn't heal. There wasn't any point in going back to sleep now. She glanced down at the silver titanium of her forearm glinting in the morning light. Surprisingly the nightmare hadn't been about that.
I am Jane Wallace. She thought to herself, eyes closed. I am 26 years old this year. I live in Whale Bay Australia. I am no longer Little Winter.
It was a trick she had to help settle herself. You close your eyes and as clearly and calmly as you can you tell yourself who you are, cause more often than not, it too easy to go down the rabbit hole in your own head.
Pulling on her wetsuit, Jane grabbed her surfboard, and made for the beach. Winter was fast to arrive in Tasmania, the wind coming from the south and bring the cold with it from Antarctica. The morning air clung to you and was the kind of cold burned your lungs on the first breath, dry and sharp.
She didn't mind the cold though; in fact it was part of the reason she had moved to one of the most remote places on earth. The longer she could chase the cold, the less likely that her appearance would attract any unwanted attention. Mismatched layers and leather gloves would raise suspicions anywhere warmer.
The fridged air was familiar too, in a way she could place all too well. That much she could remember.
Much like that she knew pain and loss, that was deep rooted in, fuelling a cycle of vengeance. A disjointed image of a car crash, a broken stereo playing Danger Zone, and two dead bodies.
How she knew she had a brother.
How she knew her name was Indiana Stark, because someone had told her, not because she remembered being called it.
Even ten years after escaping, her mind was a mess of fractured gulfs, flashes of images interspersed with unattached memories of sound, sensations – disjointed and senseless, most of the time. Unpleasant for the majority. That was another truth she knew; she knew she had done terrible things. She knew she was a monster.
That was part of the reason she stayed so close to the end of the world. In the days following Amber's death, there had been too much tugging at her splintering mind. Visuals and facts, memories of recent moments of lucidity and past ones that she couldn't make sense of. The wreckage of a car crash, even a shiny house that she'd ventured to explore on an aimless journey the Malibu coast – she knew it should all connect, but she couldn't force the pieces together. It was like being shown photographs of faces, and she was expected to know the names of the visages looking back at her. She was supposed to remember how she knew them, but she couldn't place the man in the iron suit. A dark-haired boy that shared his cigarette with her. He had greasy hands and an easy smile. Crowded spaces with people and music and a red plastic cup in her hand. A sudden stop. Screams and blood and pain. A room tinted red and little girls. Snow and trees, cold hands clasping her face. None of it made any sense, and in the end, it had been easier to run. To put distance between herself and places that triggered those memories.
