It was two nights before Daniel felt brave enough to walk the midnight sands once more. This time it was cloudy; he made his way across the beach with timid feet, near-forgetting to breathe in his fit of nerves.

His feet met ocean. This time, he walked only up to his shins before stopping and looking to the sky where he knew the moon hid. Almost on cue it appeared, gazing down on him through a gap in the cloud.

At once, he heard splashing. He looked down to see Lizzie rising from the sea, ethereal in the light of the moon, her hair as wild as before.

Daniel's eyes widened. Real, he thought. She's real.

"Daniel! Hi!" She called over to him. "You came back!" As her legs and feet clambered out of the surf, he noted that she was barefoot. This time he saw her clothes; a simple top and jeans, surprisingly intact though waterlogged.

"Yeah," Daniel replied. "Honestly, I thought I'd dreamed you before. Wasn't sure if you were real."

Lizzie cocked her head to one side. "Not real? Why?"

"Um…" Daniel began, thrown off by her question. "You ever met someone who only comes out of the sea at night?"

Lizzie giggled. "Dunno. I don't remember much of anything."

Daniel held back the words he most wanted to say: You're missing. You've been missing for over a week. Instead he sat down, ignoring the scratch of sand on his legs. Lizzie sat next to him.

"What do you remember?" Daniel asked with a carefully neutral tone.

"Hmm…" She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. Daniel stole a look at her hands; they were unwrinkled, as if she'd not spent who-knows-how-long in the sea. "I'm Lizzie," she said. "I grew up somewhere small and nice. I don't know where that was, but I spoke to lots of people every day."

Daniel bit his lip from nervousness. "Holmes," he eventually replied.

"Huh?"

"Elizabeth Holmes. That's your full name."

She clapped her hands to her face. "Oh my god, it is! How could I forget?!"

Daniel watched her with trepidation; but she showed no signs of remembering anything else. He opened his mouth to say more then closed it firmly shut. Don't, he thought.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"How's you know that?" She asked.

Fuck- "Uh," He replied, "I heard it on the radio."

"You did?"

"Yeah…" He sighed, then bracing himself, elaborated, "You're missing. Reported missing. It's all over the news."

To his surprise, Lizzie shrugged. "Oh," she said. "Weird."

"You're not worried?"

"I don't remember anything about that. So nope!"

Daniel nodded slowly. "Look, um, people are looking for you. Do you want to come to the police station with me? They'll open in the morning-"

"No!" She shrieked, startling him. "I can't!" She put a hand over her mouth in surprise, then removing it said, "The sun hurts," She said. "It burns my skin."

"I could call them now-"

"NO!" She shrieked again. Steadying herself once more she said, "I… don't want to. This place is safe. But nowhere else is. I don't know why."

Daniel stared at her. "Oh," He eventually said. "Right. Um. Sorry." His eyes moved across to where he could see the bruise on her forehead. Hmm, he thought.

"It's okay," she said as cheer returned to her voice. "You didn't know. Um, I'm gonna head back. I'm cold." Daniel spotted her shivers; looking more closely he noted her hands had lost circulation.

"Right um, yeah, course," he stammered.

But as she made her way back into the sea he called out, "Wait!"

"Hmm?" She turned around.

"Will you be here tomorrow?"

She stifled a giggle. "I'm here every night, silly!" With that she waved, then sank into the ocean.

Daniel looked round nervously. Deserted, he thought. Always is. No CCTV here, either. So nobody knows she's here but me. Should I tell the police? But then he remembered her as she'd screamed at him not to; for a moment there'd been nothing but terror on her face. The police would never believe me. And something beyond these sands scares her, he thought. But why? What's so scary about this stupid place?

~~~

That night, as Daniel fell asleep in the bathtub, his dreams were clearer than they'd ever been. He found himself standing in a bar that felt familiar; all around him milled crowds of patrons. He pressed through the crowd to where the bar sat. Nobody paid him any heed.

There was a woman behind the bar with her back to him, reaching for a glass on a tall shelf. Then she turned around. Daniel felt his stomach lurch as he recognised the woman: Lizzie. She stared past him towards where the exit was.

"Lizzie?" He asked. She didn't respond.

He felt unease pressing in from all sides; he lurched towards the exit. He stumbled and almost fell as a patron walked straight into him. His brief glance at the floor precipitated his second shock of the night as he saw neither shoes nor socks worn by any of the crowd.

He reached the door and crashed through it to the outside, looking up to see a full moon in a cloudless sky. Wait, he thought. This is a real place-

He awoke, shivering violently, as the shower above him dripped ice-cold water onto his forehead.