#Guys this is totally not unwind stuff brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[luckytidbit]

IT’S TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME!

Proceeds to play All I want for Christmas is you- Haha no.

ALRIGHT, I PUT UP A POLL, AND YOU GUYS VOTED! HERE’S TOTALLY NOT A LATER CHAPTER OF RECALLED!

(Note: because this was a writer's craft project names had to be changed and I couldn’t really talk about unwinding, obviously, also some things might seem over explained to you guys, but know that I had to give context to my teacher.)

SPOILERS FOR UNDEVOURED IF YOU CARED.

HERMOSA BEACH

During Christmas break, Michael and his family have decided to go up to see his grandmother in California. Down in Indianapolis, he’d say it’s cold right now, but his friend from Canada says it only feels like fall weather. So who is he to judge really? It could be worse.

His grandmother lives in a beach house on Hermosa Beach, it’s a beautiful estate, Michael and his sister pass the picket fence as they get closer to the door. The picket fence has a distressed look, and there’s a multitude of shells that Michael gave his grandmother when he was little glued onto the fence. At Least that’s a good visual memory about this place, he can’t say that there are other good ones. Heading inside her house, the place is a little tacky, at least to him, he supposes that the taste of a 65-year-old woman is far different from the taste of a young adult. At least she’s keeping on theme with all the beach decor. His mother and sister go over to hug their grandmother while Michael goes to sit at the kitchen island gently dropping his things underneath him. 

“Oh, who’s this grim man? No hug for your grandmother?” Michael smiles, looking over at his grandmother as she comes over with her hands on her hips. Michael gets up to hug her. He must’ve gotten his height from his father, because his mother is quite shorter than him, and his grandmother is even shorter, though that could be her old age. Michael practically envelopes her as he hugs her. “Oh, cold!” She comments, she gently grabs his arms from around her, looking at the technology and its etchings in her hands. 

“You could have gotten him ones that look human.” She says to her daughter, commenting on how cybernetic Michael’s arms were. Two years ago Micheal had gotten into an almost fatal accident. It was one including machinery, the machine had ripped him apart and caused a severe injury to his brain. In the end, Michael was left with his personality changed, and cybernetic arms and legs.

“We couldn’t afford the realistic ones, besides I was more worried about his brain.”

The grandmother turns back around to him, “What happened to your brain dear?”

“My personality changed,” He pauses. “I don’t think you’d notice, I haven’t seen ya since I was thirteen?” He tries to recall, his grandmother nods. “A very long time.”

Michael curses his existence, he wishes he could have had more time with others before his new body made everything awkward. The last two years he’s been god knows where, being constantly worked on. In that time his mother and stepfather got a divorce, not that he’s complaining, that guy was a piece of work.

His sister stares out the glass patio door at the beach, she wraps her arms around her, her hands reaching the top of her opposite shoulders.

“I’d like to go out, on the beach.” She states.

“Micheal, could you take her out?” His mother asks. 

Michael nods, he goes over to slide open the patio door, holding out his hand for his sister, Hannah, to take. 

“I meant to go swimming, you brought shorts for that didn’t you?” Hannah asks. Michael hesitates, he nods again, grabbing his swimming trunks out of his bag and heading upstairs to change.

As Michael and his sister splash each other back and forth he tries his best to think about the ominous structure to the left of him. Next to him is Hermosa Beach’s big long pier that spans 1,140 out into the ocean. They say that if you go to the end of it you can see sharks a little farther out. And they’re right, Micheal would know, he had a very close encounter with a shark once. It seems like it’s not only Micheal who’s trying to ignore the pier, soon enough Hannah’s non-offset eye turns to the pier.

“Do you remember when…” She starts.

“I’m sorry.” He spits out. In truth, a long time ago his stepfather had thrown him off that pier, promising he’d jump in after him, but he did not. To prove to himself that he was better than his stepfather Micheal threw his own sister off the pier, unlike his stepfather he jumped in after her. 

“I wasn’t talking about that, I was talking about when I used to watch you up there while you’d be using your boogie board.”

“Oh, yeah, that was nice.”

Hannah starts walking back to the beach line with Michael following her. “I want to jump off the pier with you.” She says. Michael freezes in place. “But why?” He asks.

“Because it would be fun,” She then looks him in the eyes. “And maybe it would prove to you that you’re better than Mr. Trent and your younger self.”

She keeps walking forward to the sand. 

To prove that he is better than his younger self? Is that what Michael’s self-worth has come to? At least it’s better than thinking his self-worth is the gummy worms Mr. Trent gave Hannah to try to calm her as she cried, wondering if and when her brother would return.

Hannah holds Michael’s hand as she climbs the steps of the pier, Hannah turns her head to look at him. “You’re waterproof right?”

“I was just in the water with you,” Michael responds, Hannah rolls her eyes.

They get to the end of the pier, it’s windier out here. Michael remembers kids used to jump off this pier all the time, but no one is out here, maybe it stopped with his generation, like how that machine stopped being manufactured after his accident. 

“I can’t do this.” He tells his little sister. 

“Sure you can, people younger than you do it.” 

“I know, I just,” He looks over the edge at the big drop. “I can’t do this to you, or me.”

“What have you got to lose by doing this?” Hannah asks him. It makes him think for a moment, what does he have to lose? He’s got friends, he’s got a boyfriend, he’s got a family, he’ll soon have a job, and he can’t lose any of that to jumping off a pier.

“Nothing.” He finally tells her.

“Then jump with me.” She grabs hold of his hand and starts to run, he’s got no option but to run with her. He sees the drop again but he’s now being fueled by adrenaline, the drop doesn’t seem so bad anymore. 

As they jump over the railing Michael hears something snap behind him, he flips himself around to look at the broken wooden railing. Michael had broken the railing as he jumped off of it and it makes him laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Either the laughter is contagious or Hannah either for another reason, it’s mixed in with screams of joy, so probably the ladder. Michael had been laughing so hard that as they hit the water he hadn’t realized his right arm had come off. His sister frantically tries to put it back on until Michael explains it won’t work until it’s dried.

As they swim back to shore Micheal looks up to the pier again, and he smiles. There’s finally a good memory to associate with that pier.