⚓ - ⚓ - ⚓
The first thing he notices when he wakes up is that there's sand fucking everywhere.
It's hot—too hot for his hoodie, certainly—and he groans and rolls over, met with more sand. It's going to get in his hair and pool at the bottom of those metal beads and he's going to have to fucking take all of them out, wash them, and meticulously reattach them to the ends. Which would be horrible. So fuck that.
He groans again and props himself up on his elbows, eyes not quite adjusted to the horrible brightness. He can smell the sea closer than he usually can, which is odd, so he forces one of them open. When it adjusts to the blinding shine, he's surprised to see what was most likely the most beautiful place in the world.
Really, he shouldn't be; why the hell would be sleeping in the sand with a nose full of sea breeze if he wasn't on the beach or something like that? But this...this is so much better than any beach, with sand so white and fine you'd think it was star dust, and an ocean so blue and clear it seemed like three feet where it should be ten. The breeze made example of how the marshy grasses dance in front of the tall, immovable trees, and the boy has to give kudos to good advertising. The arrangement of the landscape and the plant life all came together in an alien exoticism.
He's not sharing it with only himself, either, but his mind is too awestruck to count the other, still sleeping figures.
He sits up in shock, both eyes now wide open. For a moment, he admires it all, faintly wondering how he'd gotten here. Then he asks himself the question again, how? He certainly doesn't remember getting on a cruise to paradise. He shrugs off the hoodie and ties it around his waist absentmindedly, trying to think back to the previous night.
The problem is that his mind is as blank as a newborn's and this startles him. He thinks harder, trying to see past the expanse of white and blue and green, and his throat tightens in oncoming panic. He can't remember anything, least of all how he got here.
The mood sours instantly, his high drops to a lowly feeling of unrealized dread. He isn't entirely in the moment just yet, still lingering on the scale between 'fine' and 'jump into the sea and swim away as fast as you can', but it's going to get to that point pretty damn soon.
His fingers twitch and he looks down at them, expecting some shade of brown, and has too bite his lips to keep from screaming. He figures it wouldn't earn him any favors if the freaky-looking green dude woke them up. Green, slimy, and malformed—he's tempted to run over to the ocean to take a peak at himself, but is scared of what he might see. And now there's blood pricking at his bruised lips, unnaturally sharp teeth having broken the skin.
The panic blooms and he trembles. What's your name? He asks himself, desperately. And since he cant answer it, he turns to the person closest to him, hoping they'll know better:
“Uh...do you know me?”
