I speak of myself in third person there, because that girl and that woman isn't me anymore, in fact I don't think they ever really were me, but I'll get into that later. Needless to say, I'll never mention the names of those dead people. Neither could you ever find them yourselves. If their records were ever kept by the UCAS of Fuchi -which I doubt- they were erased the days the geisha was murdered and even if that hadn't happened, Matrix Crash 2.0 in 2059 certainly took care of that for them.
It's hard to remember what woke me up that first time, maybe a reaction to the seawater that was filling my lungs, maybe the scraping of the coast's rocks against my already torn skin, maybe it was magic.
Magic...
I'm a good liar, no really I am, practice makes perfect and I'd had practice as long as I could remember. Do you know how difficult it is to spend your whole life lying to yourself, the first 31 years of your life living in self denial? Denying, no, actively resisting and pushing back, who and what you are? And for what? My father? Damned racist sonofabitch, never even liked him, even as a child. Thinking on it, that was probably instinctive, because I knew he hated me, or would if he knew the real me, the me which he or my mom or my best friends never knew. Gets under my skin every time I think about how never allowed myself to be myself back then, even now, so many years later. Stupid little human girl, begone. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So I woke, the few scrapes left of my clothes pink now, blood and water. Bleeding, I dragged myself further on the shore over the sharp rocks, the few extra cuts didn't really matter compared to the -I counted, my finger touching every bloody hole in my body- 5 stab wounds and 3 gunshot wounds, plus 3 for the exit wounds, minus 1 because one of the bullets had entered my body through an open stab wound. I was in bad shape, amazed to be alive, realizing that if nothing happened soon, I wouldn't be for much longer.
I took a few deep breaths and tried to focus my thoughts. A jolt, like but unlike electricity, shot across my spine through my body. I knew it, I had felt it occasionally for my whole life and had blocked and pushed it back until it stopped pulsing every one of those times. Not this time, fuck it. No more lying, no more hiding, no more denying, time to be me. The jolt seemed to halt for a while, tingling in the back of my neck as if testing to see if I'd block it out this time too, but when it felt no resistance it sent a surge throughout my body. It was a bit painful, but considering I'd just been stabbed and shot repeatedly, I couldn't complain. Asides from the short pain, I felt two other things which seemed had to be dealt with quickly.
For one, I had a whole lot more energy in my body, as if I'd just had a shot of adrenaline.
Second, I felt that this jolt had been just a small tremor, a prelude to the earthquake that would soon follow. I thanked myself for the much needed energy and cursed myself for the warning of an impending surge of which I was certain in my lousy condition would knock me out cold again.
So I harnessed all of the energy I had in me, forced myself up, fell down, forced myself up again and half stumbling, half crawling moved my way along the small strip of rocks that formed this beach. The high rocky cliffs upon which a bunch of luxurious villas were built blocked my path inland; a small stairway carved in the rock and leading up would bring me straight into the backyard of the villa I'd just been tossed out, so that wasn't an option.
After a mile or two, I was about to give up and die when I came upon another rocky stairway up, probably towards another rich man's villa. I didn't have much choice but to try my luck. I doubted I had enough energy to climb the stairs, but between that or dying, I might as well give it a try, the second option would be just as available on the stairs (or backyard if I made it) as on the beach. I made it upstairs and looked around, seeing the world through a red mist, fully aware that I'd collapse any second now. No one in the backyard, no lights in the house. I considered my options again; dying seemed the easiest but I considered it that plan B. Break into the house: find the bathroom, get some bandages and disinfectant, sleep on a soft bed... trigger the alarm trying to break in, die. Calling an ambulance wasn't an option neither, with SIN I'd be tracked down and killed before they could start stitching me up, SINless they wouldn't even pick me up and just let me bleed to death there.
Only option left: the shed across the garden. Considering there didn't appear to be any motion sensors in the backyard, it was possible there wasn't an alarm on it. People bold enough to try and break into the summerhouse of the kind of men that owned these villas, weren't after their lawnmowers or other garden equipment. I checked the door, locked; checked the small windows and one of them was opened, standing in tilt position, its handle inside pointing upwards.
Thank heavens for my slim arms. I managed to move the handle into a horizontal position; the force required partly broke the mechanism of its hinges, but after I had climbed in I could easily set the window to seem undamaged unless they tested it manually. Inside, I looked around for anything that could improve my situation, grabbed some oil-stained pieces of cloth lying on a small workbench, then tossed them as I found a stack of colorful beach towels. I spotted a small canister of gasoline and suddenly remembered some old movie they'd showed in cinematic-history class in acting school. Rambo I think, might've been Terminator, or Die Hard too, the hero pouring the stuff into his wounds and then lighting it for disinfection. I'd have smiled if I wasn't hurting so much, it seemed a century ago, I probably remembered wrongly and even then, I wasn't about to light myself on fire. In the workbench's drawers I found some tools and tore apart one of the towels, folded the shreds like you would a compress, pressed them against my wounds and secured them there with some duct tape. I wrapped the remaining ones tightly around my body, some more duct tape for good measure, and let myself collapse in an empty corner, slumped down with my back against the wall.
For a short moment, nothing else to do but to wait for sleep or death, I considered something which I only now had time to notice: I could see pretty damned well in this low light condition; the moon and stars outside mostly blocked by clouds, of that sparse light only a small part could enter this tool shed through three small curtained windows barely big enough for me to crawl through, yet I hadn't stopped one moment to consider searching for a light switch or a flashlight.
I would've drawn some conclusion too, if not for the sudden reappearance of that jolt along my spine. I realized the instant before it struck me that I wouldn't stay conscious as this thing would surge through me. I gave myself a 20% chance of surviving this night, not too bad all things considering...
I could always die of infection later.
That didn't happen. I woke seeing the moon through the small window across me. Couldn't be the same night, must be the next. I tried standing but a sudden pain flashed through my body to remind me of my condition and knocked me out again.
Next day I woke around noon, sunlight shining in, a couple of rays warming my feet. This time my head was clearer and I remembered my condition, the throbbing muscles, aching skin and formerly-colorful-but-now-all-red towels wrapped around me were a pretty good hint. I was thirsty and hungry, which were good signs of recovery according to doctors and nurses in hospital TV-shows.
Not ready to try standing up just yet, I decided to check my wounds. As I unfolded the towel about my upper body, I realized it didn't hurt all that much. I'd been beaten up before by some of my previous owners who got a kick out of that sort of thing, and this didn't feel much worse. I continued the unfolding, removed the easiest to reach compress, a bullet wound in my belly and looked at the wound. Or the lack thereof. No bleeding gaping hole in my body, the wound looked as if I had scratched myself there a few days ago, had treated it properly, and now had a new layer of light pink flesh closing it. Shocked and in disbelief I tried for another one, a stab wound a few inches to the right and found the same there.
I carefully proceeded my examination, my muscles burning with every movement in every limb and saw all my wounds were gone. For a time I sat there in shock, laughing one time then crying a second only to resume laughing. What. The. F*ck.
Disregarding the option of having used some enchanted beach towels or having been saved by some magical fairy or guardian angel, only one option remained: I had Awakened.
I'd known for over two decades that I wasn't what my father considered "normal", so I'd fought back against everything inside me that didn't fit in the family picture.
No more. That girl had died in a plane crash almost 6 years ago. The woman that had taken her place, too, had died last night.
I had Awakened, I had magic, whatever the hell that meant to me. Somehow this had saved my life, but I can't say I knew enough about magic to understand how.
This blockade removed from my cerebral cortex, another truth I'd been denying also became undeniable to me: I wasn't human. Couldn't be. Always too pretty, too agile, too fair skinned, too slender, always shrugged it away. In college I had overheard some elves talking in their strange language and though I couldn't understand it, I felt that I should and had stood mesmerized by those sounds, but I shrugged it away.
Never really liked those American burgers and steak neither... I liked sushi, like to sometimes try something new but spent most of my diet as a vegetarian.
I was so tired of lying to myself, so tired of this-denial, the little girl was dead, the spy was dead, the obedient geisha was dead. I was none of those, I was an elf, a magical tree hugging fucking elf. I loved it.It was as if a weight were lifted off my shoulders and manacles removed from my wrists. A never felt before freedom took hold of me, though I forced myself to rest. I found a small bottle of water in the shed and drank it slowly as the day turned again into night, resting my body but stressing my mind, trying to think of how to get out and stay alive.
The answer was obvious. No doubt the people of Fuchi had been searching for me and not having found my body, they would still be looking. They would contact the UCAS too, I used to be their employee after all, they knew some of my contacts and safehouses.
Good thing was, the UCAS would be looking for a Caucasian women that might look somewhat Asian and all the people Fuchi would send looking for me were looking for a heavily injured Japanese women. No one was looking for some elf.
So I felt reasonably safe after I cleaned myself up a bit. Clothes were a problem and I didn't want to risk my chances with the house's alarm system. So I set myself to work on the remains of my clothes and towels and created me the worst dress ever made, leaving more of my body naked than dressed. It'd have to do. I braided my hair, styled it to draw more attention to the slightly different shape of my ears and the slimness of my neck, intertwined some colorful shreds of cloth in the braids and laughed at the reflection I saw of myself in the polished bottom of a paint can. The difference from the luxurious geisha that died 2 days ago couldn't be more different, I looked like the homeless stray elf that I was now.
What little remained of bloodstained cloth, I piled up on the beach, covered with gasoline and torched. I sat there a short while, watching the last of my past lives burn, then picked myself and went for the road.
The elves' reputation had exceeded myself, some hot female hippy elf in ragged clothes hitchhiking at the side of the road wasn't really all that strange nowadays, and who knew if the helpful driver could collect a reward. So I hitched a ride but gave no reward, that would've been too easily remembered and bragged about in a bar, someone might've taken interest in a woman hitching in that area at that time.
Figuring out what had happened and the reason for it took a long time, mostly because I had all the time in the world -elves could live for centuries I had just realized- and I wanted to be very careful.
Along the years I'd made preparations neither UCAS or Fuchi knew about, just in case you know. Other identities I'd bought, accounts I'd opened, filled with money I had saved from both the UCAS payments and the Japanese gifts, all laundered of course and passed through too many accounts to be traceable. I'd made some contacts too, it had been a bit trickier and riskier, but no one recognized me. When I had dealt with them before, in my previous identity, I'd offered to put in a few good words with some business associates of mine as thanks for their correct dealings and now I was a friend of a brother of an associate who heard through the grapevine that here's where things and info could be bought.
So after a year I found out what happened, knew who set me up, knew I couldn't get back at them and knew that they were powerful enemies that best keep considering me dead.
So I lay low and left the country, time to start a new life... my third if I counted correctly.
So that's most of the story that tells what made me who I am today, I suppose. Afterwards follow 29 and a half years I'm not going to bore you with in detail, because there isn't much to tell.
First travelled to Tír na nÓg, where I finally learned something real about my race, learned the language -picked up a whole bunch of others on theway there too-, learned to understand our language, the freedom of our race and the way of my magic. That last one not as impressive as I'd hoped -I couldn't brainwash or turn people into zombies with my spells, but then again I never needed spells for that anyways- but learned what had happened that day when I'd died my second death. For 31 years I'd been blocking what was inside me, but truth is that there's no stopping what's there. So it was preserved and when the moment came when I was too weak and unwilling to block it, the magic I'd bottled up had shot through every little bit of flesh, bone and blood in my body. Too much for me to control, it had taken its own course, fixed me and what I couldn't use at that moment vanished.
The magic in me now, my "normal magic" -which felt funny because I'd always been told how abnormal it was- as they called it, wasn't nearly that powerful; I didn't have the regeneration powers of some super troll or such, that had been a once in a lifetime stroke of luck, it did however give me a far more than usual control over my body. I learned to become aware of every single muscle and nerve and to control each and every one of them. See, normal humans or even metahumans have a lot of small uncontrolled reflexes like eyes narrowing, lip, chin and limb movement whenever they experience any kind of emotion. I on the other hand could now not only understand and control mine, because of this supernatural understanding and awareness I could easily read that of others too.
Asides from great fun at poker nights, the same control of my reflexes allowed for quicker and more precise movement when the need for reflexes arrived too. Another change I discovered was the control of my vocal chords, allowing me to throw sounds from any direction and in a tone, pitch and volume the combined repertoire of Pavarotti, Prince and Barry White would be nothing against...
So I enjoyed my stay for a few years and then grew restless. I'm a city type of girl you know. Not to mention the fact that this was probably the only place in the world where my type of beauty wasn't all that special. I was still among the best looking, but there were others that could match my looks and that thought stabbed me. My looks are all I have you know!
So I left, a gorgeous woman -I'd decided to hide my elven blood again and started a new human identity- and travelled around. I'd enough money to spend a lifetime I figurered, for a moment forgetting again that my lifetime was probably going to be much longer than a human's. So the years passed, technology advanced, my identitiy changed about as often as I changed my underwear -and I've a very good personal hygiene thank you very much-, I enjoyed life without duties or restrictions.
I doubt anyone who'd known the me-I-never-really-was still is in business today. Most died from 'natural causes' -if not from old age then a knife of bullet through the heart is naturally a way to die- others died in freak accidents, hostile takeover rapidly becoming more hostile than ever. The ones that haven't died would be retired now, and if they'd ever pause to look back and doubt that I had died, they'd think of me being an old woman now, retired as well, all fangs removed. I let it pass. Just knowing I'd outlive them all, forever young, was enough to satisfy the feeling of revenge that had almost faded into nothingness throughout the years.
I blew most of my cash too quickly, having almost grown to consider it an infinite resource. Got some pretty nice upgrades, didn't need plastic surgery to have looks that filled any woman with envy, so spent it on gimmicks like synthetic pheremones, ear- and eye-enhancements, -never was I going to caught pants down and violated the way that dead geisha had been-, fiberoptic hair, the works.