Droplets of water splashed onto my legs, bringing a fresh feeling under the heat. The feeling of the soft, golden particles trickled past my bare feet as I walked near salty water, the imprints trailing behind me. A vast pool of water in front of me filled up the horizon, and the rays of the sun jumped on the calm waves, making the blue liquid shine brighter than normal. The scent of the salt fluttered in the air. As I stared into the emptiness and endless horizon, a small movement was caught at the corner of my eye, making me stop and stare at the person not too far from me.

A young man, probably around his early twenties, was staring off into the horizon, feet settling down onto the soft sand. There was a calming aura that seemed to surround the man. His tanned arms were crossed in front of his chest, and his light, brown hair gently brushed over his forehead as the summer breeze glided through. The long, slender fingers of the man clenched tightly to his light-blue shirt as he slowly crouched down to the ground. My eyes trailed to his hands as the young man grasped a small pile of sand, staring at it blankly for a while, before letting it flow out through the gaps between his fingers. 

I guess I had been staring at him for a while now since he turned his teary eyes to meet mine, motioning me to come closer to him.

“Time passes quickly, huh,” the man said softly. His delicate fingers quietly glazed over the golden speckles on the ground. Splotches of water dripped down from his jaw, wetting the dry sand beneath him. “Lucky used to love to play here.” Silence followed. The person next to me pushed himself up from the floor and stood up, rubbing his reddish eyes afterwards.

The young, brown-haired man then glanced back at me and shakingly pointed up towards the clear sky. “She’s up there now.” A pause. “We would always play fetch here...” he then quietly murmured.  He took another deep breath before continuing. “Lucky has been with me ever since she was a tiny puppy. I was probably around 13 years old when I first held her. We legit grew up with each other, here on this beach…” There was a small sniffle, and I awkwardly turned away from him to stare at the endless water in front of me. 

“But it’s over now, isn’t it? Lingering in the past isn’t going to help anyone. Lucky is gone, and she’ll never come back.” I just quietly nodded. Not too long after, a light, firm hand clasped my shoulder, making me turn to see a grim smile that now appeared onto his face. I replied with another nod before his hand left my shoulders and turned around and started walking away from his once called “home”, with the man’s silhouette gradually disappearing into thin air. I turned up to stare up at the sky: the clouds in the sky slowly started to gather together now, closing in on the blue canvas.