She rose to her feet shakily. The sand under her feet was damp and warm. It stuck to her body where she had been laying, unconscious. She looked at the piece of wood that she had drifted on there to the beach. It was a sad little thing, and how it ever held her up she couldn't fathom. Her flimsy white night-gown fluttered in the breeze and seemed to glow in the sunlight. She turned around to face the sea; the unfamiliar too-warm wind picked up her hair, and the distinct smell of salt water encompassed her senses.
Where am I? She thought. The seas in Germany were nothing like this. She wondered what the rest of the strange place looked like. She spun around, expecting to find that peculiar mass of trees and sand. Only, just in front of the green line of trees, there was a brown thing standing there, watching her.
She froze. Her eyes were blinded by the sunlight, but through the hot rippling air she could see it moving. She squinted, trying to make out the creature. It seemed to grow larger as the seconds drew on, and she was still scared to move. Soon, she could make out two legs, a body and a head. It was a man. He was walking towards her.
She stood stark still, for not only did fear hold her in place, but so did curiosity. She watched warily as he came closer and closer until she could make out his features. He walked with small strides and cautiously, as though he were purposely taking his time. His skin was a dark brown. His hands swung definitely by his sides, one hand open and one in a fist. He was relatively tall and his arms were muscular. His hair was wild and dark on his head. He looked dangerous to her.
He stopped about eight feet away from where she was standing, and she wondered if he planned to kill her. His dark eyes looked at her intently, and she thought dimly, I must look strange to him. She made an effort to run away, but all she managed to do was to move a foot back a little bit, so that she was facing him at an angle, hinting that she would run at any given moment.
He seemed to sense this, for he shifted his weight backwards, and said something in an indistinguishable tongue. She jerked her head slightly, and tried to say that she could not understand him. But she was petrified to the point of complete paralysis of her mouth. So she stood there, staring at him, and he stared back at her. She reluctantly looked at his face, for she was afraid at what she might find there.
But the first thing she noticed was his mouth. Set as if it were in almost a permanent smirk, but not the bad kind of smirk. The kind of smirk that is forgiving of stupidity. Then she noticed the shape of his face. It was a round kind of face, almost boyish. That's when she knew that it was not a man at all, but a boy. A boy of about seventeen, who walked like he believed he was nothing less than a man. Then there were his eyes. She looked at them without realizing they were looking back at her, and saw that they were cold dark black. No feeling could she find in them that was comforting.
She took in all of this new information as he looked at her with an alarming intensity, and she calculated the best plan of action. She could either stay and take a chance at being murdered by this boy, or she could run and take a chance at dying of hunger, thirst and disease.
So she tuned and ran.
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