Part of your world

One Step Closer

The first thing Carlos was aware of when he came to was the music. Maybe not music exactly, it was more like... singing.

Carlos frowned as he attempted to open his eyes, squinting in the light of the now rising sun, someone was singing.

A face came into Carlos's line of vision , the boy squinted again, futilely attempting to bring the blurry face into focus despite having lost his glasses. He was vaguely able to make out pale skin along with light hair and bright blue eyes, but any detail beyond that was lost to the haze of his bad eyesight. There was something pink shifting in his peripheral vision but it was all he could do to gather the energy to tilt his head slightly, nevermind sit up and strike up a conversation with the mystery person.

The person was closer now, leaning over Carlos upon realising he was awake, Carlos frowned, desperately trying to bring the person's face into focus to no avail, their mouth was moving. The person, who Carlos realised now must've saved them from drowning in that boat crash, was singing to him.

If Carlos wasn't so disorientated he probably would have blushed as the mystery saviour brushed a wet strand of hair from Carlos's face, the song wasn't one Carlos knew, he wasn't sure he even understood the language the person was singing in, but he didn't need to understand the words to know that the sound was beautiful, the gentle melody washing over him as he lay exhausted on the beach.

Just as the brunet opened his mouth to say something, he wasn't sure what, to the person, a sound came from the other side of the small cluster of rocks he was laying behind.

"Carlos?"

That was EJ, they had agreed to meet back on the beach, Carlos remembered, if he was alone it made sense that his friends would have come looking for him.

The person before him seemed startled by EJs voice, hastily scurrying away from Carlos, who finally gathered the energy to pull himself into a sitting position, reaching out to the teen, because at this point Carlos was fairly sure whoever saved him was of a similar age to him.

"Carlos?"

He turned, EJ had finally materialised behind him, the expression of relief at finding Carlos was clear on his face, he couldn't bring himself to care about that for the minute, wordlessly turning back to face the stranger, only to be met with an empty beach.

"Los, are you ok?"

"He's gone."

"What?"

Carlos turned back to face EJ, the relieved expression having been replaced with one of concern as Carlos hauled himself to his feet, using the rocks beside him as leverage.

"The person, a guy I think, he was just here" Carlos insisted, staring out at the now calm sea.

EJ seemed unconvinced, "Los, did you hit your head?"

"What? No. I mean, yeah, I think I did but I didn't imagine this, he was just here" Carlos insisted again, his voice raising to almost a shout as he turned back towards the sea, half ready to wade back in in search of the person, whose voice was still ringing in his head.

EJ, seemingly catching on to Carlos's determination, gently grabbed the younger boy's arm. "Ok, I believe you, but you need a shower and food and sleep, you can look for whoever it was tomorrow, ok?"

Reluctantly, Carlos allowed EJ to pull him back from the seafront, if he were to truly kick up a fuss about going back to the house, EJ could very easily over power him, the outcomes would be the same and Carlos decided he didn't need to seem any more like a crazy person than he already did by being dragged home kicking and screaming.