13 - Mavka 01 - Awakening

... Her eyes fluttered open, and everything was just a blur... A Dark, sullen, wavy blur, with a brown grey blur disappearing into the near distance. It took a second for her to realise that, it was because she was underwater.

Underwater? No. She tried to splay her arms, to look around, to see the surface... And nothing seemed to want to move. Everything was stiff. Solid.

It was at this point that she realised that... she wasn't breathing. Or rather, wasn't needing to.

She tried again, to turn her head, and found at this point, it responded. She felt things audibly crack in her neck as she rotated, and found that things moved freer once she had. Then it was to her arms, and again, as joints settled and were pushed, she managed to slowly move.

So far, she realised that she was underwater, and she was now able to move. But she felt no need to breathe.

Something called to her. She could feel this pull, behind her eyes. Slowly, she turned towards it - a distance off, where the water was murkier and muddier than here, where, as she looked up, she could see the brightness of the sun reflecting off the waves.

Slowly, she kicked her legs, and rose to the surface. Breaking, she looked out. There were boats, a boat ramp and dock... And beyond it, a City.

A City.

She was near a city, but she couldn't remember what City... What city.

Then the realisation hit harder.

She couldn't even remember who SHE was.

Panic struck again, and she dived down under the waves. Kicking and pushing with her arms, she found herself rocket under the water back to the bottom. She looked around, on the verge of panic. The pull behind her eyes was getting stronger, and she shook her head. It was no use. She turned towards it and swam.

--- She could feel the change in the water as she approached. Part of her couldn't understand or describe why, but the other part could tell that the water was thinning. It was less full sea brine, and was mixed with muddy river water, as the silt in the water rose. Strangely, she felt more and more comfortable with it.

She reached the bank, and broke the surface again. Keeping close to rocks at the edge of the breaks, she looked around. It was getting close to dusk, the sun had already disappeared behind the City skyscrapers, and a chill was descending on the air.

In the darkened shadows, she pulled herself from the water, and climbed up on the shore.

Almost immediately, she felt the pull behind her eyes again. Something sharper this time. She closed her eyes, and took a step away from the river. The pull hit her sharply, with each step, getting louder, and more painful...

... She turned back around, and walked back to the shoreline. She sat, her feet in the water, and as she did, the pull disappeared and she felt... at home.

Finally, she looked down at herself. Her actual self. Her clothes were mattered, tattered and barely concealing her body from the rapidly growing moonlight.

In the water, she could see how much of a mess she felt she looked. Her eyes were wide when she stared, wide and wild, and her hair was unkempt. She felt that, for some reason, this was wrong. Everything should have been neat and straight.

Almost before her eyes, her hair seemed to slowly straighten, shimmering from the rich brown it was to an almost jet black.

She shook her head in disbelief, and in doing so, it shook out the change back to its original unkempt self.

WHAT was she?

She didn't know the answers.

There was the sound of crunching behind her, and a laugh as if a group of people someone were approaching, and instincts told her to get back into the water.

She slipped noiselessly in, sank to the bottom, curled up in a ball, and lost herself in thought.

- "Some don't even know what they are..."