BE!Maria Tachimi's Street Testimony

I am a former heiress of a wealthy family turned street homeless rat.
Maria Tachimi, aged 16 in 1997.

My name is Maria Tachimi (立見茉莉亜) and this is my story on the streets of Miami, Alabama and Jacksonville.

My father was murdered when I was 16 on December 5th 1997, During the night, My grandfathers agreed I must get out of here and don’t come back.

He was shot in the chest and bled out, I saw him die through the window.

I went out and I was led to the nearest train station, I had my ticket paid and I went to Miami Central Station.

I packed my mother’s JoJo volumes, my Dragon Ball volumes, they gave me over $1000 to get me through the fact I’ll be living on my own running away from these people.

I couldn’t stay in the Docks, for the first years until I graduated unless on summer holidays, I spent my time in youth hostels and homeless shelters.

During the summer holidays, I spent my time going around Miami Central City.

I met a woman in a homeless shelter when she was 18, her grandmother prostituted her to several men, she died several weeks later from suicide, her father died when she was four and her mother when she was 17, at least she’s out of this shitty world and with her parents again, She told me she wished she could find God, but what kind of God would allow her to be born in a life like that, her mother was prostituted as well, the grandmother didn’t take it kindly for being ousted what she was doing with her daughter and granddaughter, claiming it was a family “tradition”.

Another was a 15-year old who and his 12-year old sister were the only survivors of his family after a fatal car accident claimed their parents’ lives.

My mother’s books were all I had left of her and there was a time a kid wanted one of my volumes and I wouldn’t give him it, I ran before the kid’s mom came.

It wasn’t a very safe time during those two years on the street.

When I was 17, I was nearly raped by a sexual predator who dragged me into the alleyway and proceeded to take my clothes off, I was lucky to be armed that day, I shot him several times.

It was my first ever kill, an attempted rapist, I found out he was a guy with serious mental health issues who was charged with 2 violent rapes, one of which was against an 8-year old girl, He was already an escaped convict thanks to the “seven deadly sins” law, which is two-strikes, I was told he would have gone to jail without parole if I didn’t fire the fatal shots.

During the time I was homeless, I looked at Pokemon toys in the shops, I remember buying teo Pikachu plushies to keep myself company because Pokémon back in 1996 was released in Japan but I never had the time to pick up the game, the Docks would probably ban Pokémon, they hate Japanese stuff.

When Longwei discovered them, he let me keep them because they were basically my only friends on the streets.

When I was in a youth hostel, and an elementary school class came to visit, I held one of them when a mother who chaperoned the trip and tried to take it off me because “adults don’t play Pokémon and you’re not a kid, that’s for kids“ (My first EP story), she ripped the ear off, The staff at the hostel fixed it up, but I was bitter about it because she got no consequences for her actions and that pissed me off.