As I stared into that abyss, without the blink of an eye or even the twitch of a muscle, the harshest of lights blinded me.

  I jumped backwards in shock, losing my balance and falling flat onto the ground. There I was confronted by a strange sight.

  A beautiful blue sky spread overhead. The heat of the ground and the sky. A blazing light above, presumably the sun placed firmly on this blue canvas. Even though my eyes were still adjusted to the dark, I could tell that this was not a scene appropriate for the middle of the night.

  The night had passed. There could be no mistake. It’s not as though a bomb was dropped, or a flashlight shone into my eyes.

  It was a confusing situation. I considered the possibility that I had fallen asleep while staring into the water. Maybe it wasn’t impossible, no, it had to have been the case.

  “Ugh”

  I closed my eyes for a moment to clear my foggy mind. Must’ve been some terrible sleep, but I guess it's par for the course when you sleep on a random boardwalk. I should just hope no one else saw me like this.

  I took a moment to collect myself, but I didn’t get to idle for long before I realized that I had forgotten something very important: my class registration. Looking at the placement of the sun in the sky, it seemed to be around noon.

  It was hard to believe that I had slept for so long. I wouldn’t be able to get an ideal course schedule at this point. Actually, I’d have to run home and look through the catalog to begin with, so I’d probably end up registering with the sophomores.

  For a moment, Lucas and Erik’s faces came to mind as I thought of how dismissive they were about my registration, only for things to end up like this. They’d probably just make fun of me if I told them about it anyway…well, it’s a bit of an embarrassing situation.

  I placed my arms at my side to push myself up. Doing so, I felt a strange sensation in my hands. It was a lot softer than the wooden pathway that I had expected. The possibility of having fallen into the dirt by the entrance crossed my mind, but I knew it wasn’t that either. I felt the substance slip through the grasp of my hands. It was warm, smooth, and comfortable. The feeling of sand, yes, just like sand.

  I swiped my hand along the surface. With my vision coming back, I lay perpendicular to the ground and stared blankly. I was right about the sand feeling. As I stared, a view of a lovely golden yellow surface filled the horizon.

  I picked up a handful and let the grains drain aimlessly through my fist. Looking to my right, I could see a vast body of water stretching to the ends of the sky. Now that I focused on it a bit, I could hear the subtle waves crashing into the shore. I could also hear something else. The chirping of birds, I think. A glance to my left, and I found the culprit. A lush canopy of what looked to be tropical trees. Certainly a different scene from the occasional cypress and oak that I had grown used to.

  By now, I had regained some composure and began to pick myself up. As I was dusting off my clothes, I noticed that it was exactly what I had been wearing by the pond. Blue jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. My sneakers were there as well, but my phone and backpack were nowhere to be seen.

  With a better vantage point, I took a closer look at my surroundings. The body of water before me stretched beyond my sight. I didn’t want to assume that it was an ocean, but there was little room for other possibilities.

  As my eyesight drifted to the land itself, I began to make out a general shape for the beach. On my right, I guess it would be to the south, the land went on for a bit before curving inwards, and on the left, northward, it took a convex shape as it moved towards a rocky outcropping. The scale was relatively large, so I’d have to walk a bit to get a more complete understanding.

  How did I get here exactly? It’s not like I was kidnapped or somehow swam to the Bahamas on some monumental bender. Teleportation, maybe? Can’t discount the possibility of a split personality involved in a drug deal gone bad either.

  I smiled a bit at the thought, but I also got the feeling that I wasn’t taking this seriously enough. Not that there was much I could do, but see as I go.

  I got the impression of a tropical island. The type you might get stranded on in a book or movie. The thought excited me for a moment before I realized how ill-equipped I’d be at handling something like that.

  Well, I probably wouldn’t have to worry about that too much. I doubt that an island of this size wouldn’t be accompanied by some degree of human settlement, if it were even an island for that matter.

  Nonetheless, I felt a sense of discomfort as I turned around and inspected the trees behind me. Whether it was the large leaves drooping down or the groundcover rising, it was hard to see more than a few feet through the foliage. I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering, thinking about the various beasts that could lurk within.

  “Haaa…”

  It was a bit childish. One moment, I’m excited as I’m reminded of movie tropes, and the next, I’m scared of some plants and animals.

  I took a good minute to catch my breath before beginning my way down the shoreline, to the north, I think, toward the rocky outcropping.

  I stayed around halfway between the ocean and the trees. Away from the water so as not to get wet, and away from the forest just in case. Well, the idea of getting into the shade crossed my mind for a moment, but…I thought there was no point in being risky about things.

  This measured distance also seemed to have masked some of the sounds from the forest with the crashing of the waves, which was a nice comfort. I had too much on my mind with the whole situation anyway, without having to think about some creature rustling the leaves.

  Even then, I could still hear the occasional chirp from a bird, croak from a frog, or even some deeper sounds from things I could hardly imagine. Not that I could see any of the culprits behind this symphony, but it was enough to let the mind run wild. A reminder that what lay beyond the edge of the sand was truly a jungle.

  I continued walking for another few minutes until I had reached the rocky outcropping. By now, some combination of heat or stress had turned me into a sweaty mess. I tied my sweatshirt around my head and neck like a makeshift hijab, which didn’t really tip the scales. I considered throwing it to the side entirely as well, but I had hoped that I wouldn’t be in the sun for much longer anyway.

  I was reasonably confident about finding some evidence of how I got here, but there was nothing to be seen. Not a single break in the trees. Nor any signs of a path or any sort of human habitation. Thinking on the sounds I heard from the forest as well, and none of them seemed particularly human either.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Looking at the rocky outcropping from up close, I could see the waves crashing up the jagged edges that protruded from the ocean. It was a truly monumental formation. It stretched a good few hundred meters into the ocean, and its height seemed to approach thirty to forty meters in parts.

  Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, but the ocean also seemed a bit rougher at this point. Not so rough that I couldn’t make it through, or maybe even around the formation, but it was enough to deter any attempt.

  Cutting through the trees might have also been an option, but I couldn’t tell how far the formation stretched inland, or its length, which is to say that there was a chance of getting lost or otherwise injured if I went down that path.

  Hitting an impasse, I stopped for a moment to think about things. Maybe I was too tired to properly consider my situation earlier, but this truly was an outlandish scenario. Nonetheless, I needed to remain calm no matter what. I felt that I might get swept away in the absurdity if I lost focus for even a moment.

  It didn’t matter that nothing made sense. Just as I might not consider the setup for a dream, I also don’t need to think about the setup for this scenario. All I need to do is work with what is presented before me.

  Rational choices. Only rational choices. If I work like that, then maybe this won’t be so bad. It’s tough to throw the fear of the unknown aside, but at times like these, you either sink or swim.

  With the rocky formation being too big an obstacle, I decided to start walking south down the shoreline. It looked like it curved inwards, which left open the possibility of this place being an island. If that ended up being the case, then I’d definitely have a lot to think about.

  …

  I had been walking for at least half an hour, maybe longer. Some time ago, I had rounded the corner and began walking along a south-facing section of the shoreline, although the curve was subtle enough that this detail could easily be overlooked.

  I saw a few rocky formations here and there on the way. Either in the ocean or slightly inland, never obstructing my path on the beach like the one from earlier. Furthermore, while the general trend of the beach curved consistently inwards, some sections were a bit more jagged, moving out some distance into the ocean, and then rebounding to where the jungle might’ve stood.

  Still, despite these occasional breaks from the mold, the journey was beginning to feel monotonous.

  Maybe it was the jungle. It might have been an issue of perspective, but there didn’t seem to be any notable elevation changes inland. Well, the trees themselves were more than a few meters tall, so they might be obscuring my vision. More than that, though, there wasn’t much change in the foliage from what I saw. I couldn’t see any animals either. For a tropical environment, you’d expect a little more.

  The walk, as uninteresting as it was, did give me some time to focus on other issues at hand. I had gotten some sand lodged in my clothes earlier, and this, coupled with my sweat from the heat, left an irritating feeling as I walked further. I considered taking off my clothes to make the walk easier, but I was worried about the prospect of another person seeing me in that state.

  Aside from the sand, the heat was beginning to leave its mark, although the issues in solving that were more or less the same. I might get naked if I were alone on an island, but alas…

  I let out a careful smile at the idea of a newspaper headline about a deranged idiot stripping and walking down a beach in a panic because he thought he was on a deserted island.

  I looked out to the sea. The sun was making its way overhead; it was probably a bit past noon. The chirps from the birds inland were slowly being masked by noises from animals I couldn’t hope to identify. So many thoughts crowded my mind. I had been tired from the start, but it was really starting to weigh on me now.

  …

  It was a good while later when I noticed that I was on a west-facing beach. Once again, the transition from one face to another was too subtle to really notice. It really put the size of the land into perspective.

  It was unfortunate timing. If I had been here earlier, then the shade from the trees would have covered the beach.

  I licked my lips and cleared my throat as the heat of the sun continued its wrath. I’d like some water, but my thirst wasn’t so bad that I would go into the jungle in search of a dirty pond or the like.

  Despite this commitment, I was very excited to come across a water feature that was noticeably distinct from the ocean. It looked to be a lagoon of sorts. At a glance, I might’ve hoped that it was a pond, but upon closer inspection, I found that it connected to the ocean through a small opening in the beach, which meant that there was no fresh water for me.

  It was a few meters beyond where the tree line would’ve stood, much like the jagged edges that I had seen on the walk earlier. Despite this comparison, it notably diverged from the standard form. Perhaps closer to a well than the sort of lagoon that I was more familiar with, although it didn’t particularly give off the feeling of being man-made either.

  Its edges, instead of just being a sand bank, were carved into stone, which left me questioning how the feature was formed in the first place.

  Its shape, upon initial inspection, looked somewhat like an oval, but more scrupulous consideration revealed its irregular nature. Even the jagged features along the beach earlier were comparatively smooth compared to the erratic boundaries of the lagoon. Furthermore, one would be remiss not to notice the sharp stone protrusions that periodically broke from the flat stone exterior.

  And most notably, its depth. It looked special from afar, but now that I was standing next to it, it really was beyond my estimation. Forget light reaching to the bottom; it looked as though even a few meters of depth was enough to plunge me into darkness.

  I paused for a moment and took it all in. There was no sound. The jungle, which had been decently lively on my walk over, was silent. Even the water in the lagoon was still. Everything was too calm. It felt eerie.

  Staring into the lagoon, this eerie feeling was only amplified, along with another strange feeling. An indescribable pull; a desire to sink into its depths.

  Is this what they call the call of the void?

  Refocusing, I put these intrusive thoughts to the side.

  The lagoon certainly had an unnatural aura, but there was something more. At first, I couldn’t figure out what that something was, but as I scanned the edge, I turned my attention to a part of the stone formation that was very notable. It separated the edges of the lagoon into two halves, but more than that, it felt very similar to the rocky formation that I encountered when I first began exploring the area. From the shape of the rocks to their proportions relative to the beach, it was too similar to ignore.

  Looking at the rest of the rim with that same mindset, I noticed that what seemed to be irregular before was quite…calculated. If I take the shape of the beach that I walked on before to be the edge of the lagoon, and the irregularities in the stone exterior to be the rocky formations that occasionally jutted out from the land, then this lagoon could be a near-perfect model of the…island?

  Not that I could get a perfect sense of the shape of things from just walking the length, but every feature and every length that I could remember lined up to support this conclusion.

  I paused for a moment in deep thought.

  I now very carefully reexamined the lagoon. I looked over its shape again and again, but I reached the same conclusion every time. I don’t know how, but the lagoon too closely matched the path of the beach that I had walked for these past hours, almost as if it were a scale model.

  A strange thought, but not one I could afford to disregard.

  If the lagoon really is representative of this land, then I would really be on an island. I take it that the strip of water that connects the lagoon to the sea is probably the lagoon's representation of itself. If that is the case, then I’m about an hour away from reaching the rocky outcropping again from the other side.

  It's strange. I remember that I thought of teleportation earlier, but seriously, how did I end up on an island? There’s also the eerie feeling from the lagoon, and its unnatural shape.

  No, it's too soon to jump to these sorts of conclusions. I should at least struggle a bit before I go crazy.

  Even if it is an island, there’s probably some larger land mass nearby. Or, maybe this is a fishing outpost, and I’ll find signs of human habitation if I go a bit further.

  Yeah, that makes the most sense. I can’t be losing my mind at a time like this.

  I nervously tapped my finger on the stone as I mulled over it.

  I’ve had too much on my plate since the moment the sun graced my eyes. If I really am on an island, and if there isn’t anyone here with me…what then?