Una Extraña Aventura: A Zeppeli Tale [ON HIATUS}

Chapter Nine: Victim of Fate

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, 1986

The young girl dragged herself in through the door of her apartment, dropping to her knees, drenched in sweat from the long walk from school. Her arms and shins were riddled with marks and bruises, the result of pencils and erasers being thrown at her at high speeds.

"Rosalia, you're back." a man said as he set his book down on the armrest of the armchair he sat on. He shared the girl's thick, brown hair and tanned skin, features they inherited from their distant Guanche ancestors. Despite only being in his mid-thirties, he was the father of that 14-year-old. "Oh querido, you look like a mess."

"You think I look like a mess? Every day...!" the girl pulled herself up to her feet. "Every day I have to deal with this non-sense. The blistering heat, the annoying tourists, the lack of direction! And my stupid, good-for-nothing classmates. Always making me the butt of every joke because I'm being raised by a man. Calling me a little boy, saying stupid stuff like I'm going to grow a penis one of these days. I hate these islands, Papa. I have no future here! Why couldn't we have moved to Madrid like Mama?"

"For the hundredth time, girl, you do not belong in the mainland! You do not belong anywhere near the mainland. These islands are the islands that our dead forefathers came from, and the ones where I will live my last days and be buried in. And you will not live anywhere near that woman. I don't care that she left me for that Japanese bastard, but she left you too! We raised you, our little girl, with so much time and effort, and all of a sudden last year she picked up and left leaving only a note behind! Rosalia, that is not the kind of woman I want you to grow into."

"If staying here means I won't be like Mama... I might as well be like her, then! M-Maybe she didn't abandon me. Maybe... maybe she was trying to get away from you!"

"Take those words back!" Eduardo Alfajores shot up to his feet. "What do you want? To transfer you to another school? I can do that. But for you to say that your mother is someone that... Rosalia, what's going on?"

"You don't treat me as a priority. Why are you asking what's wrong? You know damn well what's wrong!" she cried, turning around for the door. "I'm leaving!"

She stepped outside, slamming the door behind her, shaking the walls of the apartment

"Rosalia!" Eduardo cried onto deaf ears.

Soon after, Rosalia found herself in a labyrinth of red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and a multitude of other colors, each coating a rectangular construct of steel. She'd made her way to the Port of Las Palmas, specifically at its container terminal.

There, she would find a sense of solace and comfort. No insufferable classmates, no sweltering heat--the sun had fallen a long time ago, and no nagging father. This was more like what she wanted. Only her own presence and the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, there to comfort her. A gentle spring breeze washed over her, inviting her to let out her sorrows and anguish.

"I am just another victim of Fate, aren't I?" she asked herself as she quietly wept, sitting on the ground and leaning against a red shipping container.

Just when she thought he had the whole area to herself, she heard several pairs of feet make their way through. She snapped out of her depression and inched to a corner of the shipping container, poking her head out to get a look at what was going on. There, on a nearby pier, she saw four individuals standing. The way they were dressed and were arranged, it could not have been a normal occurrence. They didn't look like sailors or security guards. Two of them stayed close to each other, while two more stood in a similar manner a short distance away. On the ground were eight rectangular items, packed tightly.