our second hello comes with last goodbye

The beach. Where people spent their summer vacation: bathing under the sun, swimming in the sea, playing on the sand, building bonds with their loved ones. Dianna gets off her vehicle and found the beach empty. 

Birds are chirping while flying above the shore— with calm and low splashes on the end of the fine grey sand. She carried an urn with her and steps towards the seacoast and stopped at a distance between the land and sea. She stared at the blue sky mixed with a fiery orange sun. She sat on the sand and laid the urn beside her. 

It has been a long time since she visited Ilocos Sur, back then she was only a child. She remembered well what happened, yet the feeling was gone. The beach is in a far small barangay away from the town which is not known by the tourists, only the locals and near neighbors know how to get t. In early mornings it was usually crowded by fishermen with freshly caught fishes that they'll sell in the town's market afterward, in the afternoon until the evening the beach is mostly clear for everyone. Dianna knew this and to add that it's the last day of everyone's vacation, not that she's still concerned about school. She has already graduated and worked under her older sister's company for two years, she's already an adult yet today she wants to be a child just for today and bring back the last time she was here. 

She laid down on her left side and stare at the sun bring itself down to hide behind the sea. It was moving slower than she thought that her eyelids felt heavy. 

"Come back," she whispered heavily before losing herself in slumber. 

*** 

A little girl is probably seven years old wearing a white sundress was hugging her knees behind a wall; she suddenly moved—her head jerked up while wrinkling her nose—her face was sour like she just smelled something horrible. She pinched her nose, got up, and opened her eyes. The shock was evident in her face—facing back and forth with a clueless stance, lost in a strange place. In a short period, she calmed down while examines her surroundings. In an endless small alley where her small body fit between walls, she looked to her feet—sand. She looks around and both ends nowhere, still hesitant she steps toward the right. 

All she was hearing was her footsteps— a soft crunch on the sand. Minutes had passed, two to fifteen, she paused. She heard something, she looked back and there it was—a faint soft cry. She steps forward holding the hem of her dress tightly—her heart skips a beat that her legs felt weak, there it was again—a cry of someone trying to escape then it followed by a shout. 

"Please!" someone said. That voice, fragile and gentle like an angel's cry—she heard her loud and clear, that voice oddly sounds familiar. The voice pleads again, the girl did her best and listen—she was on the right path, the voice is coming from the right end of the alley. 

"I'm coming!" she heard herself as she runs heaving and gasping for air. As a child, she's a terrible runner, her mother never let her play tag instead she's locked in the house playing with her dolls pretending to have a tea party that results in her poor metabolism and now she's feeling it again. She runs as fast as she can even not sure if she'll reach anywhere, she tried to say something vulgar out of frustration, but she didn't know any—her mind was blank. 

The alley was endless, it was impossible to reach anything. Until she passed an entry on her left; she paused and run a few steps back, she leaned on the cemented wall and peek. A man facing his back with his arms raised with a narrower piece of wood and in front of him was a child on her knees holding something between her arms, she stood after him with open arms—shielding the girl behind her like a knight protecting her princess from being beheaded. 

"what the f- you want to get hurt too?" he growls as he speaks in a deep groggy tone, he's towering two children in his huge and broad body. 

"get out of here, he'll beat you-" the defenseless girl ordered, her words got strangled.