Chapter 1 (B)

You don't have a name either.

_______ is your name, everyone calls you that, you write it down on school assignments alongside the date, and you answer to it when someone calls you. That's your name, nothing else to it. You think, as you're walking.

They stop in their tracks, and turn to face you with a gesture, they want your attention, but they're also looking down. Seems like they're not used to talking about themself. And must feel like they shouldn't be. You stop too.

They stop sulking, look up, and they smile to you. Their gesture is now a gentle hand wave. Like they weren't scared at all.

Feeling recognized, you smile and wave back in response, leaning forward a little and slightly turned to the side, to face them.

You both resume walking, it's not far now...

You're both coming up to a steep hill leading to the shoreline now, you see that pale water rushes onto the shore, its waves look almost invisible on the equally pale sand. But the sounds of the rushing water lets you sense how far inshore it's being pushed at a time, before sinking back out. There's a relaxing feeling here.

So the two of you descend downhill. the texture of grass and sand below your feet mix together until you're now standing on the beachside. Blue walks further in front, you're both looking straight ahead to the expanse of ocean. It meets a white fog at the horizon, with clouds.

The water rushes up, meeting your feet, they feel numb where it touches, but only for a bit as the wave returns. You sigh.

They hear you and turn a little. They place their right hand on their right shoulder, looking at the sand.

Their right hand lowers back down, and they shrug, looking off to the left.

You walk up to blue, and sit down next to them, in a cross-legged position, your arms are bent to support your head, it rests on them, and you look down.

They shuffle their feet in the sand a bit while standing in place, thinking, before lowering themself down to sit alongside you.

You admittedly only recall few things up until now, like there's gaps... They're vivid

You flinch

You were deep in thought, and couldn't tell it was blue for a second. They place a hand on your shoulder, you're tense, you're shaking again, and they can feel it.

You couldn't notice until now, but you're sitting curled up, with your arms crossed on your knees. A wave rushes up once more, surrounding your sand-planted body as you look straight out to the sea.

They seem to turn their head away for a second, 'hmm'ing softly, you see the eye facing your direction of their face squint slightly. They turn back to you and their other eye is closed. Then they lift their head and look at you with their eyes now open. Maybe they're trying to figure something out.

They stare blankly at you, confused? Was that sudden?

They look shocked and even more confused now

You try to stand up to your feet, looking at the water now, and reach out a hand to blue to help them up to their feet too. You have an idea..

You and them walk closer to the shore's edge where your feet are submerged in the senseless water rushing rhythmically, the sand here has a weird texture to it, mushy, it's not bothersome, just a new feeling.

You lean over and cup some water into your hands, it feels lukewarm, and you have to learn how to hold it properly, so you try multiple times to cup the water efficiently to be able to transport it. But it keeps slipping away, back to the source. It gets easier the more you try, but still difficult to not spill much.

You turn to where blue is, a few steps away, holding some water cupped into your hands, but they're looking away, distracted, down into the water where some fishies are, you only just noticed that these were here. And you look down into the water you hold, there's a little dark guppy in it swimming joyfully in various orientations, it tickles.

Blue hears you and turns, seeing you holding the water, it's dripping down in drops periodically through the bottom of your cupped hands.. They walk over, poking their finger into the water with the guppy, and it swims around it.

They take their finger out, and the guppy splashes toward them a little

You kneel down to release the guppy into a patch of more guppies, contributing to the guppy hoard. Then cup some more water without one, lifting it up and over to the top of blue's head, attempting to release it, and little streams flow down their face

You notice the water dripping from their face is creating dark spots on their cloak, and you look down at your own, then back to them, the bottom of your cloak is very darkened, feels cold and damp. Maybe it's better to use this, it's soft, so you take some of the low damp part of your cloak in-hand and lift it up.

You reach to their right eye with it, they turn their head to see what you're holding

You move your hand around their head to their right eye, and gently apply pressure while moving the fabric along that part of their face, down and off. They look in the opposite direction a little and you look at their eye, it's not as squinted, but still has the same 'shape' from before, so it did something.

They look down and see their reflection in the water, they see you holding your cloak still, and then their eye.