The beach by the cliffside

It’s the spring, and you’re standing by the California coast, feeling the gentle rays of the sun and the cool breeze. Not too far to your right and circling behind you is a tall cliff with lush grass and trees.

There is nothing to do but walk forward.

So you walk, feeling the soft sand beneath your feet, smooth from the waves that slowly wore it down. You don’t think about it in the moment, but one day you’ll realize that the cliff was here centuries ago, and the ground was made of hard, jagged rocks.

Yet you keep walking, and to your surprise, you spot another person in the distance. They are only a couple of inches taller, but it seems as if they tower over you. Once you get a few steps closer, the pleasant smell of the ocean is overpowered by a horrible cacophony of odors. In a few seconds, you realize this putrid scent is coming from them.

They greet you, and you mumble back an awkward hello. You head on your way as quickly as possible, but it seems like they want to tell you something. For a moment you resign yourself, but then you remember that horrible stench. So you run. You run as fast as you can, and they are chasing after you, shouting something you can’t make out, and you run even faster, you are running for your life.

By the time you stop running, the skies have turned red and the sun is about to set. You look back and they are nowhere in sight. Now that the danger has passed, you are so, so tired. You think to yourself, no, you can’t quite rest, it isn’t dark yet, as if you only deserve to rest when it’s properly nighttime. But your body, exhausted from all the running, screams at you. So you acquiesce.

You lie down on the sand, and as you are about to fall asleep, you notice your pockets feel a little lighter than before. You think back to what you might have lost but nothing important comes to mind, and you slowly drift back to sleep. ∎