Chance Encounter

I awoke on the shores of a beach, listening to the rhythmic eternity of crashing waves. My fingers felt tedious grains of sand invade the space beneath my nails. The sun scorched my already sunburned back. I heard myself moan, followed by an involuntary choke when a rush of water splashed against my face.

Wait a second.

My fingers?

My back?

My face?

I bolted upright. Sure enough, I felt the snap of limbs, the strain and pulling of tendons and muscles. I could taste the sand swimming in my mouth and I spat it out and heard my nasally cough. The salty smell of the ocean lingered in my nose like a long lost friend.

Somehow, I was human again, and amidst the tears of rediscovering my natural senses, I wondered if everything had been an elaborate dream? Diane, the Greymoors, Vivian, everyone was so vivid, and yet how preposterous was it that I had been reborn as a glorified calculator?

I stopped to think for a moment. I considered myself someone of the logical variety. Nowadays, people might call that data driven or quantitative, but what it really meant was that I looked at something in front of me, judged it as objectively as possible, and drew conclusions based on my observations.

And based on that criteria alone, something felt very wrong about where I had woken up.

Around me was nothing but an endless stretch of white sand. With the overhead sun and sound of waves, I considered that I had been stranded on a deserted island after a tragic plane crash. But no jungle forestry awaited me beyond the beach, no sound of seagulls chirping and diving into the water for prey, just the perpetual motion of water surging and retreating into the vast beyond.

Even if this was my old world, there were at most a handful of places on the planet that might look like this and they were all in uniquely obscure locations that I never had any intention of visiting. I ran through the list of possibilities including kidnapping, amnesia, that I was within dreaming, that I was hallucinating, that I was simultaneously dreaming and hallucinating, none of which satisfied me enough to believe as potentially real.

“You’re forgetting something,” a hoarse voice broke the monotony of the waves.

A lanky old man stood behind me, dressed from the top down in a white toga. He held a makeshift wooden walking stick and strode towards me. He cracked a smile in my direction, revealing a row of missing teeth.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“The question is, who are you?” he asked.

I paused. Where had I heard that line before?

“No, actually that’s not the question. Who are you?” I asked again.

“You don’t have to be so adversarial Kyle,” the old man said, “After all, we’re both stranded here on the beach.”

“Alright I see where this is going. I’m not really interested in hamfisted references to movies or glorified walking simulators,” I sighed, “And if you know my name, and you can listen in on what I’m thinking, then you clearly know what’s going on.”

“I am the Architect. I created the Ma–”

“Next reference please.”

“Patience, Kyle, patience,” the old man replied, “We’ll be spending roughly an eternity on this plane together. It’s better to get along.”

“An eternity? What are you talking about?”

“You’ve…” the old man squeezed his eyes as if trying to remember lines from a movie that he was about to quote to me, “A-awoken on the shores of your own subconscious!”

So this was how it was going to be.

“Yes. Okay.”

“It’s limbo!” the old man cried, “Unconstructed dream space. Raw infinite subconscious, nothing is down here! Except for whatever was left behind by anyone who’s been down there before.”

“Right,” I said, “So you.”

“Which is just you,” the old man pointed with a shaky withered finger.

“I’m leaving,” I shook my head.

“To where?”

“Back to the Greymoors,” I said, “Back to Vivian. Back to civilized society and as far away from you as possible. I don’t know where I am, but I’ll go make a boat or something.”

“Wilson!” he croaked. “Come back!”

“My name isn’t–” I started but stopped myself, “Right, I forgot. Goodbye.”

I began walking along the sandy expanse. The old cinephile kept up with my pace, but as long as he didn't reference another landmark movie or video game I didn't mind him tagging along.

What I did mind was the endless nothingness of the beach. The beach promised nothing but an infinite field of white grains. Even after a half hour on the beach, the sun had not moved from its original position. My physical body felt artificial. My soles didn't burn from the scorching sands and my back felt warm and cool.

"You know I've actually escaped this place before," said the old man.

"Yeah, and how did you do that?" I asked, not expecting the answer to be remotely useful.

The old man adopted a pirate's grin.

"Sea turtles mate."

"Lovely."

“You don’t seem to like me very much, Kyle,” whined the old man.

“Gee, I wonder why?” I asked, “Maybe it’s because I’m stuck in this hellish afterlife with a nerd with bad taste.”

The notion of an afterlife left me wondering. Was I dead? That was a previous possibility I hadn’t considered, but it was also one that I wrote off fairly quickly. I had already died once, why would my second encounter with death be so different?

I walked for several more hours to confirm what I already suspected. I was trapped in some kind of suspended timespace. The sun had still not moved from its highest point. The beach, in both directions, stretched seemingly infinitely with no visible artifacts on the horizon. I even spent some time measuring out each grain of sand, finding them, to the naked eye, perfectly uniform, perfectly balanced.

“As all things should be,” the old man whispered into my ear.

“Would you stop that?” I snapped, “If you’re trapped in here with me, why don’t you at least help me out?”

“Who said anything about helping you out?” the old man crossed his arms, “What if I want you in here with me forever? It’s gotten so boring just replaying the same movies and games in my head.”

“Right, I’m just going to throw myself in the ocean and drown myself,” I pointed at the beach, “You know, die in a dream, wake up in real life.”

“Be my guest,” the old man rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

So that’s what I tried. I rushed towards the waves and flung myself into the water. Something about the water felt refreshing, like I was speaking again with an old friend.

I swam further and further out until my arms lost all their strength, until the waves receding from the beach, now far in the distance, dragged me towards the greater ocean. Waves crashed upon me and I found myself flung underwater, gulping down seawater and struggling to breath.

I wasn’t truly drowning, I was waking up from this dream by ending this game of charades. Like all dreams, I wouldn’t die, I would stand at death’s precipice as my last breath threatened to give out and compel this nightmare to end.

Another wave fell upon me and pulled me underneath the surface of the water. It was nice down here, and I felt the need to linger here and perhaps allow more water to enter my lungs.

“You idiot!”

A familiar voice boomed so loudly that I could hear it from the depths of the ocean. A tremble shook the ocean floor and flung me back to the surface. Floating upon the surface, I watched the sky above me split open like a cracked mirror. Fractales of scarlet red lines cut open the sky and from the void beyond the heavens, descended the Astral Viscountess.

When her feet touched the water, the oceans parted in Diane’s wake. The disruption roused up a tidal wave that crashed into my body with enough force to send me flying back towards the shore. I washed onto the beach, and Diane strolled after my flailing ragdoll of a body with her hands pressed into her face.

“Dear me, how many times do I have to suffer your stupidity?” Diane groaned, “You can thank me later, but first thank Vivian for begging us to come here.”

“Us?” I choked on some seawater. As my eyes cleared of the salt, I noticed another figure walking behind Diane, a young woman with brilliant red hair, “Vivian?”

It was her. Vivian rushed from behind Diane as her feet touched the sands of the beach and ran towards me, tears in her eyes.

“Oh! My bracelet!” she cried, “It really is you, isn’t it? My goodness!”

“Y-yes,” I croaked, realizing then that my time had come, “Yes! Vivian! Is that you?”

I walked towards her, holding my arms outstretched to fall into her embrace. As she approached, my knees grew heavy and weak and I fell, but I knew I would fall into her waiting arms.

Except I didn’t fall into her waiting arms. Instead, I fell and my knees and face planted into the sand. Vivian ignored and ran past me to reach her true objective, the old man who was still standing behind me.

“It’s you, isn’t it, bracelet?” she laughed, “Dear me, you do look just like a sage!”

“Indeed,” the old man nodded, “I am a servant of the Sacred Fire.”

Kill me now.