The tattered bits of yellow caution tape blew with the wind as Charles and I looked down the salt-stained roads marking the beginning of the flood zone. Some of the homes bubbled and leaned precariously in all different directions, the rush of water and rotting foundation weakening them until they were close to collapse. We had to be careful not to get caught near them.

"You ready?" I asked Charles.

"Always," he said with faux confidence. "Let's go."

We gingerly stepped over piles and piles of dried and fresh kelp rimming the edge of the flood zone before making our way down the streets. As we got closer to the rush of water and the stench of salt in the air, the mansions around us looked worse and worse. There were half-collapsed adobe roofs, walls stained dark brown from sand and mud, gashes carved into formerly manicured lawns, entire buildings dislodged and smashed into others, rusted cars stripped of paint. It was surreal, like we were stepping into another universe.

But even in this twisted world, there were moments of beauty.

"Look," I said and pointed into a tire lodged in the soil. In the middle of it, there was a shallow puddle of water, holding reddish algae and a giant, orange starfish.

"It's like the tidepools down at the beach," he said.

"Yeah. It's so pretty," I said. "I wonder what else we can find."

"First person to find another starfish wins," he said, and we rushed down the street, looking everywhere for the next starfish, from giant ceramic pots to tiny marble bird-fountains. Most of the pools were empty, except for some amorphous algal blobs, but even then, there were small signs of life everywhere. Small clusters of snails stuck onto sagging roofing, sea urchins tangled in the slimy kelp, mussels and other shells scattered around, like little jewels amidst the wreckage.

I ended up finding the next starfish, a pudgy red one, but Charles found something cooler: a pool filled with fish. When he was searching for a starfish, he stumbled upon a massive pool filled with water and murky with seaweed, but in there, he could see flashes of silver. When I came to the pool with him, the fish came out of hiding from the kelp and were darting all around.

"Who needs to go to Monterey when you have your own private aquarium in your backyard?" Charles said.

"I wish I could live here," I said. "It's too bad that it's flooded half of the time."

"The moon sucks," he said.

"Hey. Don't be so mean to the moon," I replied. "It's the one that even made this possible."

"Whatever," he said and looked westward. "All of this reminds me of this anime movie, I forgot its name, but it's where a whole village was swallowed by the ocean. But it wasn't violent like the Mooncrash, and it ended up being beautiful. I wish that it didn't have to be this way."

"Yeah, I guess the moon sucks," I said with a pause. "What did you come to the beach for?"

"There's one day that I'll always remember," he said. "It was a long time ago, but it was beach day—"

"In fifth grade?" I said, finishing him. "The annual trip to the beach."

"Exactly," he said. "Wait? Is your beach memory that memory?"

"How could it not be?" I said.

"You definitely copied me."

"I think you copied me," I said before pivoting topics. "What was your favorite part about it?"

He extended his arms around, pointing at our surroundings. "The tidepools."

As he described the memory, the day came rushing back to me like ocean waves. Charles wanted to explore the rocky outcrops, and I followed him, albeit a bit hesitant since we weren't supposed to go there. But I had no regrets as we tip-toed across the algae-soaked coastal rocks, marveling at all the wonders tucked within these little pools.

There were blobs of lime-green anemones with crowns of tentacles, and rows of opaline mussels glistening under the sunlight. We hopped from one pool to another as the ocean spray misted us and sea foam curled around the olivine boulders close to the ocean covered in kelp. As we chased scuttling crabs and drifted pieces of seaweed in front of anemones to try to tempt them to eat them, that's when I felt the beauty of life. It's the sounds of laughter and bubbling swash, the swirling turquoise and sapphires of the sea, the exploration of creatures around us in this safe haven.

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That was my favorite part, but I didn't want him to feel bad, so I chose my second favorite memory down on the beach. "Well, luckily for you, my favorite part was when we built sandcastles on the beach."

"We should go check out the beach," Charles said. "Maybe even 'reclaim the memory.'"

"Stop mocking me," I said jokingly. "If you really want to, let's go."

As we walked more and more westward, the landscape around us began shifting. Mansions were crumbled and some were completely demolished, with just concrete foundations and a bit of miscellaneous metal junk lying around. Sand was strewn everywhere, and the ground was damp with puddles of seawater scattered in dents on the ground. The railing that we stared out from last time that we were here had been torn from its foundation and was lying on the ground in front of the sandy bank.

The beach was about the only thing that was similar to last time. The sand was still wet and bubbling, signs of it being quicksand, and it was absolutely littered with kelp and man-made objects like rusting boats and car frames. The ocean had extended so far back that I could see the concrete poles that once held the westernmost edge of the pier sticking out from sand.

"Yeah," I said. "There is no reclaiming this."

"What happened to your hope and positivity message," he said.

"Well I'm a big hypocrite," I said and changed the subject. "The ocean looks so far."

"It looks a lot less scary than last time. Or the time before."

"If only it would just stay back there," I said.

"Then we'd be able to claim that mansion," Charles said. "With the swimming pool tidepool."

"Wouldn't we need the ocean to refill the pool?" I was about to point out, but Charles brushed me off.

"We should totally build a sand mansion," he said. "Or a kingdom of sandcastles. We don't even need to go down to the beach since there's sand everywhere around us. It'll be what you want with reclaiming the memory."

"I guess that's a good idea," I said, trying not to give Charles the win.

"Just admit that it's a great idea."

"I don't think the sand is even going to hold to build sandcastles," I said. "It's too wet."

"Watch me," Charles said with a smile. "You're going to lose this bet, you know."

I did lose the bet because the sand held just fine, even if it was a little soggy, and we spent the rest of the afternoon building our sprawling kingdom of castles, though it would've been a lot better if we had some shovels and a pail.

The day passed by in a flurry of tiny moments. Everything felt like one golden blur.

"Look at the spire," Charles had exclaimed before it immediately collapsed to the embarrassment of him, as I helped him reform it even while quietly laughing.

"We are not adding snails to the castle," I said when Charles started plucking snails from pieces of metal scattered around and putting them inside of the walls. "Just because they are regal in France doesn't mean they are in America."

"I can't hear the ocean," he said as he held a mussel to his ear as I laughed because conches were the only ones with this property. "What are you laughing about?"

"No. No. don't you dare do it," I said as he held some murky water in his hand, ready to splash me with it. "You know how much I hate getting wet."

He gave me a devilish grin and did it anyway. We ended up having a mini-sand snowball fight, flecks of sand flying onto our jackets and hair, before we continued carving roads and building walls out of the flats of sand near the former railing.

It was as if I was a little kid again. Building the sandcastles with Charles took me back to the time when growing up wasn't terrifying and life was just about having fun. Maybe I'm gold-washing my childhood memories, rewriting them to be better and happier, but honestly, I don't care. It's better to think this way and let my fantasies of memories remain untainted.

"I'm done," Charles announced as he placed a stick with a piece of seaweed tied to it on the main castle.

Our kingdom sprawled across a relatively small space, but we packed it with details. Hedges of seaweed marked the borders of roads and spires adorned with empty limpet shells with mussels acting as large windows. Colorful rocks speckled the land outside the walls, and I drew lines into the sand bank, representing the crop fields. There was a central garden in the castle, where I put a variety of algae (and even added Charles' snails) to make it as vivid as possible. We wanted to add colored beads into it, but Charles felt uncomfortable about it, probably because he didn't know if they came from a corpse.

It was exactly what a younger me would've wished every day for his sandcastle to be like. Even though I chose that day on the beach as one of my favorite days ever with Charles, there was a tinge of sadness attached to the memory when a large wave crashed and washed away my pitiful castle. It's like building this sandcastle not only reclaimed my memory of this beach, but it also served as retribution to the waves that smashed my early attempts to build a sandcastle.

"It looks even better than your swords vs axes kingdom drawing," I said.

"Hey," he said and lightly punched me on the shoulder. "My drawing skills are far superior to my sandcastle building skills."

"Whatever makes you feel better," I said as I nearly got smacked with a sandball.

I then looked up at the sky. "Oh... Wow, it's late."

The sun was nearly setting, the rim of it hanging just above the horizon. We must've spent hours on building the castles, time slipping by us so fast. I almost had a panic attack because I should've savored every minute, made every moment last forever, because at that moment, the end felt so close and real.