A walk on the beach

I awoke around 6:00. It wasn't my best sleep ever, but certainly not my worst. I looked over at Becca and she had rolled onto the floor somehow during the night. I thought "Whatever", and went upstairs to make some breakfast.

As I reached the top level, which was covered in windows, I got a look outside. There was a gorgeous sunrise which was peeking out from over the mountains to the east while the sea was sparkling in the dim morning's light.

"Fuck this," I thought to myself. "I'm taking a walk down the beach."

As I went down the creaky stairs, apparently both Mary and Emily were up.

"Where are you going, John?" Mary asked.

"I'm going for a walk on the beach," I responded. "I never see sunrises like this back in Virginia."

"At this time of morning?" Emily chimed in. "It's too early to even live."

"You're up," I stated.

"He does have a point," Mary added.

"I guess you're right," Emily said. "I was gonna go back to sleep, but then I wanted to hear what the ruckus was all about. I doubt I'll be going back to sleep now, so mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," I said.

"I'm gonna tag along too," Mary said.

The three of us walked out the front door, down the road, and across the sand to the shoreline.

"Wow, there's nobody out here this early," Emily remarked.

"Yeah, as you said earlier, it's too early to even live," I reminded her.

"It makes it so much more peaceful, just hearing the waves crashing on the shore, the slight breeze rustling the palm trees, and a few birds about," Mary mused.

The three of us walked in silence, occasionally mentioning something interesting we saw like a crab burrowing in the sand, or a seagull diving into the water. Maybe those things weren't actually interesting, but to people who lived in Appalachia their whole lives, everything on the beach seemed new to us.

Around maybe 15-20 minutes later, I broke the silence by saying, "Hey, we should probably head back now. There'll probably be some other people awake who are wondering where we went, and I didn't bring my phone.

"Yeah, I didn't bring mine either," Emily said.

"Me neither," Mary agreed. "Let's go."

We started heading back the other way to where we came from. After about 20 more minutes of walking, we reached a pier, and Emily admitted, "I don't actually know where we entered the beach."

Well, that was a bit of a problem, because Mary didn't remember either, and I wasn't focused on that.

"Well, shoot," I said. "We have no phone, no knowledge of where we came from, and, to add insult to injury, I forgot to grab a key on the way out."

"I'll go back up onto the land and see if I can spot where we came from," Emily offers. "You two stay here, because we can see this pier from miles away on the beach."

"Are you sure?" Mary asked. "I or John can go with you if you wanted."

"No, it's fine," Emily declined. "You two can just stay here. I'll hopefully be back quickly."

With that, Emily walked off, leaving you alone with Mary, one of the people that Paige told you to be careful about.