So Large, So Small

Emil

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Apr 23, 2016
18
All around Emil, people play. The water glistens, shining, under the setting sun. He just stands there, watching the waves as they lap at the shore. No boats. No signs of life out on the water. Swimmers, yes. But no one's leaving the island. No communication with anyone back home. He found it hard to be sad, however, because of the amount of people who were happy. He could feel their happiness. For some reason, he just wanted to be alone. To feel for himself, without anyone else getting in the way of his emotions. He missed the one person who he could be around without his emotions feeling forced. The one he left behind, for who knows how long. Maybe forever. He shook his head. It wasn't smart to think like that. He would be going back, someday. He would see his family, or foster family, again. He'd see his friends. Thinking that he'd never see them again would just ruin his possibilities of going back. If he let himself change like that, she'd never forgive him.

Still, an emptiness continued to fill him. He was all alone. No one he knew was there. No one he cared about was there. He was all alone. With the weight of promises on his shoulders, he vowed never to change. How, he wondered. How would he survive that. It went against everything he was. Yet, somehow he had to.

The waves came closer, nearly reaching his toes. People started to clear out of the beach, the happiness slowly seeping out of his heart. Leaving the emptiness to slowly take over him. Soon, most people leave the beach as the sun shrouds away behind the horizon. His heart becomes as empty as the water looks, static and colorless.

He closes his eyes, clenching his teeth and grabbing his shirt over his heart. Tears form in his eyes, as he falls to his knees in front of the open ocean. Why did it have to mock him? Reminding him that no matter how far he tried to look, the ocean was too large for him to ever see the other end. Reminded him just how far away from any friends or any family he really was. Stranded, and small. Small and alone. All alone, with nothing but the emotions of others to remind him that he's not really feeling. To show him that even he can't remember himself. That he's so dull that he can't tell himself apart from the crowd.

Tears now stream down his face, hitting the sand beneath him. He didn't want to feel so empty, but he couldn't make himself stand up, let alone go find happiness. He wanted to scream, but he didn't. He didn't want to make other people worry. It was the same as before. He couldn't show his pain, in order to stop others from feeling the same way he did. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. None of it.
 

Romi

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The beach was full of mixed feelings to Angelo. As beautiful as it was, it was hard to not look at it and think of the tsunami which had hit so recently. Even if the island had bounced back far faster than any normal city could have, there had still been a lot of things left behind. People had died, and looking at the ocean was no longer the comfortable gesture it once was. He couldn't look out at the ocean and think of home - now all he could do was look at it and think of all the damage.

He tried to skip past it on patrol as much as possible. Of course, he couldn't avoid it entirely (someone might be drowning, or injured, or half a million other things), but he tended to speed past it.

Or he would have if he hadn't spotted someone crouching down by the edge of the ocean. He paused, staring down at the water before letting out a little sigh. There was no avoiding it - he was going to have to check.

He made sure his uniform looked halfway presentable before he headed down, walking along the sand on his way towards the little figure.

"You alright..?" He called out. They had to be pretty young. They looked more like a kid, not even a teen.
@Emil - remember to stick to third person past tense!
 

Emil

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Apr 23, 2016
18
OOC : (Oops, okay I'll keep that in mind. Sorry)

Emil heard a voice behind him, and was startled. Quickly, he tried to wipe his tears away before whoever was there would notice.

"Uh, yeah, sorry." Emil said, trying to make it sound normal, but his voice came out cracked. He winced at the failed attempt. He stood up, still facing away from the person who'd just approached. For some reason, it was hard to pinpoint a particular feeling coming from the person. Emil was trying to figure out what sort of person they were. He was pretty sure they were male, but that was only from the voice.

He stared out over the water again, the stars making it somewhat beautiful. How terrible. It really did seem like it had been trying to mock him. It made him think it was trying to say that his loneliness was beautiful. Though, he'd probably just been reading into that.

"Hey," He started, without turning around. "Do you ever get lonely here? I mean, it's just an island. Completely isolated from the rest of the world. Doesn't that ever feel... empty?" He didn't even mean to say it, but it just came out. He was kinda talking to himself, but he wanted an answer from someone else. He knew others probably felt the same way he did, but that wasn't enough.
 

Romi

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Angelo knew the sound of someone's voice when they'd been crying, and whoever the kid was, they were not doing a good job of hiding it.

That said, he wasn't panicking just yet. He was a cop, and it was his job to stay calm. No one was bleeding out, no one was screaming - probably the problem was something that wasn't dangerous at all, but still upsetting.

Even if no one was hurt, he still felt a bit like it was his job to try and help the kid out. It was hard to see just by the light of the moon, but they seemed so young. Just a kid.

The question couldn't have been better though. Loneliness was something he'd dealt with a lot, and he paused before sitting down cross legged on the sand beside the kid.

"Yeah. Especially when I first got here, when I was younger. I ended up leaving my whole family behind, so it was just me. I was old enough to be on my own though, because it was even worse. I thought about going back a lot." That had never really been an option for him though. Going back would only end badly.

"How long have you been on the island, then?" He was probably pretty new. A few months? A few weeks?
 

Emil

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Apr 23, 2016
18
The man sat down next to him, and spoke. Emil listened intently, though he was slightly disappointed by his answer. Although he was glad to understand how the people around him felt, he didn't feel much emotion in his answer. It was like he was reciting it from a script he'd memorized a long time ago.

"I haven't been here long. Got here less than a week ago." Emil responded to his question, before sitting back down on the sand. He caught a glimpse of blonde hair, before looking away.

"Uh, sir, I was wondering..." Emil started, but stopped. He wasn't completely sure what he'd been planning to say, but he was lost. "I was wondering why people have to feel this way." He finished. He'd been thinking about that a lot. "I mean, everyone does. Even if they have the perfect life of one person, they still find something wrong it. It doesn't make any sense." For some reason he felt like he could talk to this person. Like somehow he wasn't really there, just a person. Tomorrow, he knew, it would seem like just a dream. He just wanted to get answers, even if they weren't true. He wanted hope, even if it was false. He felt so alone.
 

Romi

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A week? So he was even newer than he'd thought. Newer and probably younger, although it was hard to tell when he began getting into some pretty deep questions about the philosophy of human nature.

Angelo took a moment to consider his own answers, sitting in silence and churning over it. He'd never directly thought about that question - about why people had to feel lonely - but at the same time, he felt like the answer came easily to him. Maybe he was just a simple sort of person.

"Human nature, I'd guess. If humans could just be happy with what they've got, we probably wouldn't advance as much as a species. The fact that we're never happy with what we've got pushes us to keep improving."

He paused, suddenly embarrassed. Was it, what, speciesist for him to talk about humans like that? Especially considering he was mostly talking from personal experience, and he wasn't even human anymore.

"And, uh, I mean humanoids. Humans and humanlike things." He muttered, cheeks a bit red. Even if he'd been there for years, it was hard not to trip over things like that.
 

Emil

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Apr 23, 2016
18
Emil found himself laughing lightheartedly at the man's embarrassment. "Nature, eh?" He asked, calming down. He smiled, sadly. "Well I guess nature sure likes its entertainment, now doesn't it." Then he shook his head about.

"I guess that's how it is." He found himself thinking of her again, but pushed the thought out of his mind. "Anyways," he turned to face the man. He was older looking than Emil had expected, and almost felt small but not really. "I'm Emil. You seem like an officer or something. Do you patrol the beaches?" He asked, kindly.

The moon seemed to get brighter, and the illuminated Emil's now light blue eyes. Light blue? No. They were more like a dull gray blue. Like the sky on a cloudy day. Emil'd eyes said a lot about him. Now, his emotion seemed like a mask to him, but he had no control over it.
 

Romi

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Angelo could only shrug--he'd never really thought about nature as a thing, although he certainly knew that some people did. He had never been that particular brand of spiritual. The laugh was enough at least to ease away the last bit of his embarrassment, leaving Angelo feeling fairly relaxed.

Still sitting up straight, Angelo held out his hand for a handshake, grinning at the kid.

"Yep. Officer Genovese, although I go by Angelo to pretty much everyone." He'd never been very big on the idea of being 'Officer Genovese', so first names were his go to in pretty much every situation. "I patrol all over. We check the beaches a lot around here because the island gets so many people washing ashore. Something about the island makes it more likely, I guess. Probably magic." He lets out another little laugh, shrugging it off. The island, like it or not, is fairly weird.

"Just thinking about things then?" That was a relief, considering all the other terrible things it could have been.
 
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