The scent of saltwater lingers in the air. Bioluminescent algae pulse across the shoreline. No stars shine tonight; instead, the sky churns like liquid metal, a deep, swirling gray. Beneath this sky, Charamaynne steps cautiously on the sand, feeling it shift and sink underfoot, as if it’s alive and pulling their down into some ancient secret.
S/He’s lucid. S/He knows this is a dream — it has to be. The world around them stretches too wide, like a memory washed out by time, yet sharp as a knife. S/He glances down, their fingers flexing as if to test their body's boundaries, but their hand is transparent, fading in and out, translucent like water. The Lucid Sea, s/he thinks, or maybe s/he speaks, their voice drifting away in the low tide. S/He read once about this place, this dreamscape that those who know say comes to you only once — and you might never wake from it.
A figure appears on the horizon, barely visible against the shifting sky. It’s hard to focus on them; they seem to blur and flicker like a half-forgotten face. S/He walks toward them, feet gliding over the wet sand, hardly leaving a trace. As S/He draws closer, the figure reaches out, their hand open as if to catch her. Their eyes are mirrors, reflecting the vast gray sky, swallowing light and giving nothing back.
"Who are you?" s/he asks, their voice thin in the echo of their own awareness.
The figure tilts its head, smiling faintly, and something passes between them, a thought or a memory. Suddenly, Charamaynne sees flashes: a lighthouse drowning in fog, the crackling of wet wood in an ancient fire, and their own hands reaching, touching — but for what, s/he can’t tell.
S/He’s swept away into the tide, drifting with the currents.