I used to take daily walks on the beach until a couple of nights ago. The entrance to it is right behind my house, under some low-hanging branches from the old trees in my backyard. My grandmother and I moved in about a year ago, when we wanted a change of scenery and to put some distance between us and our hyper-religious relatives.
I liked to walk when the sun was about to set, for the view and also because the sand cooled down and felt nice on my feet. I would walk for a couple miles, sometimes listening to music but mostly just to the sound of the ocean and wildlife. My grandmother never accompanied me, she was too old to walk far and usually was asleep by the time I got home. I was okay with it, I used the time to gather my thoughts and never really liked to have conversations anyway.
Colorful houses lined the beach, a few yards away from the water, but most of them were either uninhabited or was temporary shelter for squatters, so the houses were mostly uncared for. In wasn’t a very populated area, a small town in North America. The shoreline houses were mostly deserted because of the hurricanes we had been getting, with most moving farther inland or even out of state. Again, I didn’t mind much because I wasn’t a very social person.
Past the rows of houses was a thin clump of tall trees, but nothing made it’s way onto the sand, not even weeds or grasses that reigned over the small low-ground plants in the forests.
A few houses down, a memorial stone sat far away from the water, but still in the sand’s territory. It was too weathered to read, but the size of it indicated it was made in the honor of someone important. Despite being weathered, it stood out and was impossible to miss by anyone passing by. Every time I saw it, my stomach sank, for some unexplainable reason. It was unnatural on the line of cute little cottages, but I learned to ignore it when walking by it.
The last time I took a walk, a couple nights ago, I followed my same routine. Avoiding the glare of the memorial stone, admiring the cottages and little animals, and stopping to watch the sun disappear under the ocean. After that, I walked on until the cottages dwindled in number and trees lined the sand instead.
I was tired that night, which was strange because I hadn’t really done anything all day. I wanted to keep going, and persisted on even though my leg muscles burned and my breath was short. Eventually, I had enough and even though I was barely halfway through what I normally walked, I decided to turn back. Maybe I was coming down with something and if so, walking even farther wasn’t going to help my situation.
Suddenly, the water started to recede quickly. I knew the warning signs of a tsunami and sprinted into the trees, tripping on roots and cutting myself up a bit, but didn’t stop for anything. Strange, I thought the group of trees was thin, but from where I was the trees grew more thick and didn’t show a breaking point into the main road. I was panicking a little, so I didn’t stop running until a thought made my stomach plummet.
My grandmother was still at the house, most likely asleep and unaware of the danger. I would have continued into the direction I was going in to get to our little house, but like I said the forest only grew thicker. So I turned around and ran back towards the sand, until I stupidly tripped on another, larger root and fell right on my face.
I got up, dazed, and felt my stinging face with my bare hands, finding blood on them when I pulled back. I cursed, but continued to run. I could tend to my minor injuries when my grandmother and I were at a safe distance from the ocean.
I made it back out on to the sand and ran in the direction of my house, shakily throwing looks to the water to sea how much time I had, only to stop abruptly. The water was back to normal, resuming its usual motion.
God, I still don’t know what made me see the water receding that quickly and that far out, but it showed no trace of ever doing that.
I was confused as hell and decided at the time that I was extremely tired or sick, and walked back to my house, even slower now that the adrenaline had worn off. My joints were back to aching and my muscles were back to burning, so I had to move pretty slow.
When I finally made it back to the low-hanging branches, I instinctively looked towards the memorial stone, only to find it was gone. I was surprised, that thing was huge and no one could have moved it that quickly without me noticing. There wasn’t even imprints in the sand from the stone being dragged. I hurried my way back to the house, in fear that I was hallucinating. It was all a rush from there, but I remember noticing little things, like my flower bushed were now trimmed trees, or that the front door to my house was the wrong color, or the extra step leading up to my porch that hadn’t previously been there, and this freaked my out even more. I ran up the stairs, sure that my grandmother would come into my room and scold me for being so loud, but she never came.
I passed out immediately, having dreams that I can’t remember and waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, only for my body to go limp and fall back onto the mattress and slipping back into unconsciousness. When I finally woke up for good, it was around 6:00 am. I sighed as I read the clock, but knew I wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. I had completely forgotten about the previous night’s events, but when I touched the door handle it instantly came back to me, and my legs basically collapsed on themselves, but I recovered quickly and got back up.
“What the hell?” I muttered under my breath, and stopped. I swear my heart stopped beating. My voice was somehow different, having higher pitch and a slight wisp. I spoke a few more times, small phrases that came to mind. Eventually, my voice went back to normal, and now I really was convinced I was sick with some cold. I made my way carefully down the stairs, trying not to trip or pass out again. My grandmother slept on the ground floor, because of her inability to climb stares due to an injury from years back. I was sure she would know what to do.
I stopped myself before I knocked and reasoned that she wouldn’t want to get up this early for something that was probably just a cold, and to be honest, I wanted to go see if that memorial was there. I put on shoes but didn’t bother getting dressed, it would just be a quick look and then right back inside again. I ducked under the branches and walked out onto the sand, looking to my left in the direction of the stone.
It was still there.
Relief washed over me and I went back inside, sitting down at the table. I started feeling a lot better, and made myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t even feel sick anymore, maybe I was just really tired.
The door to my grandmother’s room opened, and I was about to greet her when my mother came out, yawning with a disgruntled look on her face.
“Your grandmother called last night, going on about wanting to see us again. As if what she did never happened,” She sat down at the table after making herself some coffee, and finally looked at me. “Oh my god, Sam, what happened? Your covered in cuts!” She got up and tried to touch me, but I snapped out of it and got up as well, and sprinted towards the back door, and ran out into the trees, probably cutting myself up more, but I didn’t feel a damn thing, just kept running.
I heard her yelling after me as I jogged on the sand, trying to get as far away from her as possible. I ran to the end of the houses, and turned right into the trees, around where I had originally ran into. When I got there, I stopped, and walked more cautiously into the forest, dodging around branches and roots. Finally, I found the large root that I tripped over, and upon further inspection, realized it wasn’t actually a root. It was too dark at the time to notice, but what I had tripped over was actually a stone. Not natural, either, it was cut into a perfect triangle and wasn’t weathered at all, despite being in the middle of a forest. I got on my hands and knees, and started to dig around it, not really knowing what I was looking for.
Maybe and hour passed, and all I did was dig. The ground was soft around it, and I made a lot of progress, and when I was finished I stepped back to admire my work.
I was right. It was the same shape as the other memorial stone by my home, except this was was made very recently judging on the fact that I could actually make out symbols. Not letters, not really looking like any of the human languages. I wiped away more dirt from the surface of it, but my finger caught on something and cut it open, causing some blood to run down the side of the stone.
I can’t make this up, the thing started to fucking sink into the ground, and my blood got absorbed into the stone. I backed up real quick and started running back to the sand, my head and heart pounding harder with every step. I barley made it to the sand when I fell down, no longer able to take the throbbing headache. I passed out right there, little black spots taunting me even as I slipped into unconsciousness.
I woke up in my bed, at 6:00 am. My grandmother was sitting in the corner, watching me.
“You came home late last night, I tried to talk to you, but you just passed out. I think your coming down with something.” She said in a worried tone, her eyebrows scrunched up. “You can probably stay home today, but that means no walk tonight.
“Where’s mom?” Was the first thing that came to mind and the thing I couldn’t keep from coming out of my mouth.
Her face got even more scrunched up, and said, “Back where we came from, why? Did she call you last night?” Her face didn’t change.
“No, no, I guess it was a dream.” I muttered, and maybe I would have believed that. But there was no goddamn way she could have carried my up to my room, up those stares, with her bad back, and as far as I was sure, no one else was around to help her. She was good at mimicking the expressions my grandmother wore, but she couldn’t mask the dead, uncaring look behind her eyes as she watched me from her chair in the corner of my room, never leaving me.