Lucy awoke with the lukewarm surf of the Atlantic tickling her toes for the third night in a row. She didn't quite remember where she fell asleep, but she was certain it wasn’t where she woke up.
Rolling to her side, she nearly sang in relief at seeing Ricky snuggled beside her. Life was stranger than strange, but it's a bit easier to navigate when someone’s by your side.
"Time to wake up," Lucy tapped Ricky's shoulder. He covered his face in response, ignoring the itchiness of golden sand his hands were now introducing to his cheeks.
"Seriously, we need to get moving," Lucy stood up and surveyed her surroundings, eyeing the familiar boardwalk hiding under a veil of fog off to the distance. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've sort of lost all of our progress."
"It all ends the same. Back at this beach." Ricky muttered, his face still shielded by his tattooed fingers. "Does it really matter if I sleep in?"
"You always sleep," Lucy said.
"You don't know me. We known each other for two days. Talmbout I'm always sleep."
Yes, Lucy thought, we've only known each other for two days and we're arguing like we've been in a loveless marriage for fifty years. She pressed her lips together and swallowed the thoughts that threatened to escape her mouth. Even if Lucy didn't know who she was, where she was, or what to do about it, she was certain that alienating her only ally in this strange town would be her worst move yet.
Lucy sighed, breathing to the rhythms of the tides to regain her composure. "Look. I know all of this is hard and exhausting. It is for me too. It's all awful. Terrible." She paused for Ricky's reaction before going in for the kill. "I can't imagine how it must feel for you. But we need each other. I know we can find our way out.
"Soon you'll be sleeping...wherever you were sleeping before...here."
"Great pep talk," Ricky sat up slowly, crossed his legs and threw his head back into his hands. "Just give me a second."
"Sure," Lucy said. Unable to keep up her facade for long, she whispered her true thoughts to herself. "So damn dramatic."
"I heard that." Ricky was getting up now, shaking off the last bit of sleepiness left in him when he saw his backpack lying in the sand. Lucy was excited when she saw hers, too. The last time she woke up at the beach, all of her belongings were gone.
"Here's the thing," Ricky started ruffling through his backpack and doing inventory of the items still in it. "This whole thing is like a movie I saw once. A movie where the characters were dead." He paused and looked up at Lucy. "Like, what if we're dead? So, what's the point of all this?" He gestured to the items of his backpack—binoculars, a notebook, flashlights, a knife—before starting to put them away.
"You really are dramatic, you know that?" Lucy swung her bag over her shoulder and a small folded piece of paper she didn't recognize fell from one of its pockets. She picked up the small thing, her brown fingers attempting to open the mystery note as fast as possible. An ancient map revealed itself, the paper nearly crumbling in the palms of Lucy's hands. Noticing Lucy's captivation, Ricky rushed over to her, peering over her shoulder as she read the words scribbled across the map aloud.
"If you believe in fate, you're never lost," Lucy read, "because you're always exactly where you're supposed to be."
"Yeah," Ricky sighed and put a hand on Lucy's shoulder. "Sorry to break it to you kid. We're definitely, definitely dead. This is just like that one movie. I guess you could say death's a beach..."
Rolling her eyes at her companion, Lucy tried to hide the trembling of her hands as she carefully folded the map and slipped it into her jeans pocket.
"Let's say your dramatic ass is right, and this whole thing is death playing us." Lucy turned to Ricky and held his face in her hands, his beard's stubble bristling her wind-dried skin. "Then I guess it's my fate to hunt that beach down."