The Distant Abyss.

[Stoicish]

-1-

The tide begins to come in and ripples slightly under her body. She stares blankly up into the cloudy and the sound of the gulls calling hit her ears like a familiarity that she hasn't faced before. The girl can feel the cold wet sand in between her toes as she begins to move her feet. She realizes that she hates the feeling of the sand between her feet. Especially sand that was squishy and got caught inside of her toenails.

She began to rise and looked out into the endless abyss that was the ocean. The clouds overhead held a steady pale gray overcast that hinted rain, or maybe snow, the girl wasn't sure. However, she did know that it blocked out the sun and she was unaware what time of day it was. For that matter she didn't even know where she was. There was a pricking sensation that itched in the back of her mind. It was constant, like an itch, and she wanted to scratch, but couldn't find the mental capacity to do so.

Now she jerked herself upright and began to let in and out deep and panicked breaths. She now realized that she was having a hard time even holding a grip on who she was. The world around her felt surreal like she was a part of it, but not really.

The girl looked forward horizontal to where the waves were crashing against the beach. Just up ahead looked to be a ruined pier. Most of the wood was broken apart and scattered among the water or buried in the sand. There was, however, on large piece of lumber sticking straight up out of the sand as if it had always been like that. Perched at the very top of the lumber was what could be best described as a sickly looking seagull. It's head was bent down and it looked as if it almost had a slump to it, as if the animal was depressed if such a thing could be possible.

Beyond that looked to be a huge cliff face that just looked to only go up and up and up. The girl attempted to scratch at the mental itch and put things in perspective, but was only drawing a blank. Things were so out of place that she began to touch her body just to make sure she was even real. There was indeed a stinging sensation in her lower extremities indicating that the tide was, in fact, very cold and she could feel that. She touched her neck, arms, breast and legs to attempt to put things in its place. The waves crashed hard against her this time and drenched whatever part of her clothing that wasn't damp at the moment.

"Shoot I didn' think you never gonna wake up missus," came a voice behind the girl.

The girl turned quickly and found an old black man collecting garbage off of the beach. He was hunched over with a small clear plastic bag through his right hand and his left picking up bits of trash off of the beach. He wore an old straw hat and looked as if he was running out of good teeth. This became very apparent when he flashed her a quick smile. Other than that he seemed to be wearing a standard jogging suit with the top being a dark red and the bottom being a dark blue. Like a deep fighting contrast against colors.

...

[TrevorW]

This seems to be going somewhere, shall we see?

Other than that, I noticed several tense errors -- watch that. I would try to go back and fix any tense errors that you find.

[Stoicish]

Yeah, I have no excuse for that and noticed it as I was writing with the intent for the story to be short, but decided halfway to go ahead and make it a bigger story.

So that counts for the screw up.

-2-

"Yo' gonna be allrigh' now missus?" asked the man. He began to walk over to the girl, but she recoiled slightly. She could tell by the expression in his face that he knew not to come any closer and he stopped dead in his tracks. The man let out a short chuckle that sounded like a chicken clucking and said, "Allrigh' allrigh' I don' mean ya no harm now missus. Whas yo name?"

The itch came back only this time it caused her to panic. She knew the answer to this question and yet...she didn't. The answer screamed at her, it echoed, it rolled in and out like the cold splash of the waves against her body. Yet, she could not answer the simple question, "Whas yo name?"

"I don't know," She said turning to the man realizing that she had a voice. The voices was unfamiliar to her. It was brand new and it felt almost as if someone else was speaking. A person that was her, but not entirely. It was at this moment she could swear that she was going crazy. At least she had a grip to know what that was.

"Yo' don' know yo name missus?" the man tilted his head when he asked this.

"No," the girl replied plainly.

"Well I be Thaddeus Johnson," he pronunciation of his named sounded as if he said 'Thaddus'. "Most folk call me Bo'."

"Why do they call you Bo?"

Bo looked up to the sky and his eyes rolled off in that direction. He had a look on his face that, one could assume, meant that no one had asked him this before.

"I dunno, I guess it be better than callin' me Thaddeus."

The girl finally pushed herself up off of the cold sand. She looked down at her feet as she was rising to notice that there was two pink flip flops buried in the sand. The girl decided to pull them out and put them on her feet so they wouldn't be touching the cold sand anymore. The girl slowly dusted whatever wet sand she had on her body as best she could. She turned away from the ocean and could see a town not too far from her. In fact there was a wooden staircase path leading up to a paved road.

"Who am I?" The girl asked turning back to Bo.

This question looked to be difficult for Bo as he began to scratch his bald head under the straw hat. It seemed that he was considering if it was a trick question or not. He shot a look at the girl and looked down at some trash on the beach.

"Oh I dunno missus, you ought not know who ya are then you best go to da town or somthin'. Maybe even see da doctor allthough I spect they don' know neither," Bo said spitting when he said the word 'doctor'.

The girl considered this for a moment and decided that Bo was in no way related to herself. In fact chances were that they never met especially after what he said. The girl looked up to the staircase path and decided to walk up it. Bo gave her one last look shaking his head and continuing to pick up garbage.

When the girl reached the top of the path she found herself to be in a parking lot. Her immediate focus shifted over to a blue four-door car that's driver side was completely crushed in. The odd thing, other than a crushed vehicle just sitting in a parking lot, was that even though there was a lot of twisted metal and broken windows is that there was no debris. Not a single piece of the car was scattered around the parking lot.

The girl began to walked around the car examining it all though nothing was coming to mind. She tried to open the car door on the passenger side, but it wasn't going to budge. As she was attempting to do that she managed to get a glimpse of her face reflected off of the glass. It was alien as far as the girl was concerned.

The girl in the reflection had bleach blonde hair and bright green eyes. Black make-up was smeared down her thin cheeks as if she was crying for an hour or so. For some reason her nose bugged her and she had no idea why. Like some kind of backwards logic in her head that said she didn't like her nose all though as far as she knew that person wasn't even her. In any case her nose looked a little disproportional to the rest of her face.

The girl moved away from the reflection finding it attractive enough, but doing nothing in helping her finding out who she was or even knowing what was going on. A tough breeze blew in and the girl began to shiver. She crossed her arms in attempts to keep them warm and found herself to be under dressed for this kind of weather as she was only wearing a tight fitting blue t-shirt and what looked like white track pants that were meant for a small child.

As she realized herself in her clothing she decided that maybe there was something that could help identify as to who she was or maybe give a hint. She checked for pockets in her track pants, but found there to be none. She then decided to check her flip-flops in hopes that she had enough sense to write her name. No, in fact the only thing that was written was a large "L" on her left shoe. The girl knew that it obviously meant to mean that the flip-flop was meant for the left foot, but decided to go ahead and assume her name was 'L' for the time being just so she could get a hold of herself.

"Okay," L thought to herself, "I am L now and that's the best I came come up with for the moment."

L put her flip-flop back on and looked into the town with a deep intent on finding out just exactly where she was and if this town was a home...or something else.

[Stoicish]

I've decided to make this an episodic story with updates taking place Monday and Friday at 6PM EST. Anyone who is generally interested in my story can check in on it from time to time.

-3-

L walked towards the town and for a second she swore that she could see a man with a dog face jogging right by her. What made it even stranger was that the dog faced man was panting like a dog.

L was only just a quarter of a mile from the outskirts of the town with what looked like the school yard being at the very end of the town. There were small children playing outside on playground equipment. As L started to pass by the playground every single child stopped what they were doing and began to stare at L. A redheaded freckled boy who was hanging off of the monkey bars dropped from them and just stared at L with a shocked expression on his face. Two smaller girls who were skipping jump rope began to whisper to each other with the one in the pink dress pointing at L accusingly.

The moment was so strange for L that she found herself stopping as well. L stared at the children and they stared right back at her. A young bully helped up a kid he was beating up so he could get a better view of L. In her mind the moment seemed to last forever, but in reality a few seconds were just passing by.

Finally, what looked like a small brown haired 9 year old, walked over to in a fashion that looked like she was ready to give L a stern talking to. Which, to L, was very odd.

"What the fuck are you doing?" asked the little girl.

"I...uh...what?" L responded not expecting that at all.

"I said," the little girl responded sternly, "Just what the fuck do you think you are doing?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Obviously you don't otherwise you wouldn't be staring at me with that retarded look on your face."

L found herself grinning for a moment. Mostly just out of shear disbelief.

"Wipe that fucking grin off your face bitch before I do it for you."

L promptly did so, and found the urge to tell the little girl to watch her language rising inside of her. In the end she decided that it was best to play it cool and not antagonize her for whatever reason.

A couple seconds passed and the little girl crossed her arms finally saying, "Well do you have an explanation for yourself or do I need to talk slower."

"I...uh..."

"WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING. HERE. MORON." The little girl said putting a loud emphasis on every word.

"I'm not even sure what here is, " L finally said calmly.

This actually caused the little girl to recoil for a second with a shocked expression on her face. the little girl looked as if she was considering this for a moment then said, "Are you fucking with me?"

"Actually I was thinking them same thing about you," L said.

This caused the little girl to laugh and the tension in the playground began to subside for a little bit. The bully began to beat up the helpless younger kid again and the redheaded freckled kid jumped back onto the monkey bars.

"Okay, where are you from?" the little girl asked.

"I don't know," L responded.

"Okay, what's your name?"

"L"

"Elle?"

"No, just the letter L."

"What kind of fucking name is L?"

"I don't know my real name and I found that on the bottom of my shoe."

This caused the little girl to laugh uproariously. After she was finished laughing the little girl sat down behind the chain link fence and made a gesture for L to sit down to.

"Okay, you don't know your name and you don't know where you are from. Is there anything about yourself that you know?"

"No." L responded feeling that itching feeling in the back of her head.

"Are you saying you lost your memory then?"

"I...uh...I guess. Things just feel really strange. I mean I just saw a man with a dog face and a little girl just cursed me out for no reason."

"I didn't curse you out for no reason. Adults aren't allowed here because this is our territory."

"Excuse me?"

The little girl signed. She stood up and pulled herself up and over the chain link fence. She then made a motion for L to follow her inside of the school and L did so.

As they were walking in the halls of the school L made a quick observation. There were no teachers anywhere. Small children were running wild all around the hallways. One was smoking a joint near the doorway of a classroom where L could hear brief lectures from a child telling other children about self-defense.

"I'm Brittany by the way, but people here call me Brit," Brit told L.

"What exactly is this place?" L asked looking down at Brit.

"Are you sure that you don't know anything?"

"I'm sure."

"Yeah, you do have a dumb look on your face. Well, okay I'm going to take you to the Boss."

"Boss?"

"Yeah, the Boss, he's the one that runs this area for us." Brit began to walk up a concrete staircase. "Come on follow me."

They both reached the third floor of the three story building just outside of a door that said "Principals Office". Only the "Principal" part was scratched out and "Boss" in bold red ink was written bellow it.

"Now, before you go in there I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"Boss hates adults and he isn't going to enjoy your visit. In fact he might pull a gun on you."

This caused L to have serious second thoughts.

"Before you go in there and start babbling like a retard just tell him that Brit sent you up and wait for his response."

"Then what?"

"Well, if he doesn't shoot you then you'll be off to a good start."

"Great."

"Okay, I gotta go check on my playground again and make sure none of those ginger bastards are selling me short again on my supplies," Brit said making a mad dash to the staircase. It took a moment for L to collect herself from what just happened.

Stared at the door for a moment hesitant on what to do. Her armpits felt sweaty and she scratched at her right arm. This was all just posturing until she knocked on the door. In all honesty she didn't even know what she was supposed to talk to Boss about, but then again L didn't know much of anything.

L slowly moved her knuckle to the door and knocked on the Boss part lightly.

"Come in," said the voice from the other side.