YooHoo! (A One Piece Fan-Fiction)

4. Puddle Jumper

YooHoo!

-   An arbitrary adventure of the nautical variety  -

4. Puddle jumper 

"You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it..."

-Unknown 

Soon, Gary departs, as do the rest of the class and the professor, who looks as though he is in need of a bitter coffee with just an extra tipple of something alcoholic slipped into the blend of coffee beans. Distracting myself from this useless display of anthropology and the slating sound of heavy rain upon fragile glass, I immerse myself into writing; only stopping when a full two pages of A4 is covered on each side in black biro scrawl and the rain has lightened to a menial 'pitter-patter'.  

Gathering my things and rubbing at my arm one last time before wriggling into my hooded top, I pat my pockets; checking I've got the keys to my dorm room and my mobile phone on hand in the pouch-like front pocket of the soft hooded sweatshirt- I adore them for their ambiguous qualities, comfort and warmth.  

Making sure to switch off the lights in the room and close the door securely on my way out, I wander through the empty halls of the university. How late did I stay? The time my phones supplies tells me that it is a little past six- not even the lecturers remain on site at this time. Clomping through the sopping car park right next to the main entrance, I wait patiently to cross the busy road adjacent to the main facilities of the university, the dorms of course, being separated from the lecture halls and the library- thus why I had to cross the street during rush hour.

Keeping my toes behind where the curb protrudes, I stare down into a dank puddle, marvelling when someone in turn stares back up at me. The pools of water stretches down the road and I fret when a car trundles towards me at speed, waves of water rolling up from the ground and lapping hungrily at the footpath to my right. My fretting is justified when a freezing splash of water soaks me through, and part of my left arm- the place where that weird mark had surfaced burns excruciatingly, forcing me to drop to my knees as the car simultaneously stops aggravating the rainwater clogging at the side of the road. 

The girl I'd found in the puddle earlier fearfully searched for the source of her reflection, the girl standing on the pavement only moments before as the puddle she resided in settled once more.

But the girl was gone.