All I saw when I came to was darkness. I could feel the callous texture of minuscule sand particles biting my skin, dry as a desert in a drought. The blazing rays of the Sun in the boiling sky chewed at my skin whilst the waves crashed the shore with a consistent rhythm, though at the time indiscernible to me from all the surrounding noise. From the chirping of birds to the whispering wind as it whisked sand of the ground, everything flooded my ears. I pried my mouth open, sand where saliva should have been, through lips that had fused shut and were hard as rocks. I allowed my tongue to prudently explore the interior of my mouth, discovering sand in every nook and cranny, moving it slowly like an animal stealthily manoeuvring a maze. As though boulders had been attached to my eyelids, it took a great deal of sheer willpower to take a peek of the world I'd found myself in.
Sunlight seeped through a minute opening I'd managed into my pupils, engraving themselves onto my sight like a brand forced onto a slave. Gradually my eyes adjusted and I caught more glimpses of my surroundings. Behind me was a vast, endless ocean, tiny ripples sporadically appearing here and there, waves of varying sizes intermittently growing and dying, the sapphire waters were a sight you could savour, yet an obstacle hindering me from home, with a horizon impossibly out of my grasp. My eye was caught by the reflection of the Sun in the water, along with the azure sky in which it rested, unmoving and uncaring. Clouds dispersed in the sky, ebbing and flowing like oblivious fish in an ocean above, or tiny characters in a painter's conjured image. I saw trees, heavy, lush vegetation dancing sideways in the distant view. Surrounding me was a pool of sand, dull in colour and uninteresting, I couldn't tell whether any malicious creatures lurked beneath the surface, patiently awaiting to attack me, vulnerable as I was.
I made a pitiful attempt at standing up, yet my noodle legs seemed to be in unyielding reluctance to my needs. At the slightest movement, a thousand knives would be cruelly stabbed onto my fatigued thighs and hips--it was excruciating. Having given up, I pathetically lay there helpless and impotent. While my throat yearned for consumable water, not the salt-dissolved water nearby, despite being a tempting resource if I were to disregard my knowledge of its danger, it was my soul that yearned for shelter, to shield me from the vicious elements out to decimate me. It was my soul that yearned to be safe--yearned for a home.
The sky had begun to dim, as the Sun commenced its rapid descent into a lengthy slumber, like a fleeting candle it beamed luminously one moment and was absent the next. The abyss miles above me felt so close as it stared back. Stars twinkled and giggled like schoolgirls at my woeful state and the moon lamented pitifully. Every one of my muscles, however, still ached and throbbed agonizingly, relentlessly forbidding me from activity that bore profit. I attentively listened for a lengthy amount of time for any trace of a sound that harkened civilization or a vessel to escort me to a place of hospitality. My vision began to gradually fade due to my fatigue, at the very least granting me long overdue respite.
