The Sentinel

"Wake up, wake up..."

 The waves came crashing on the cliffside. On their back, howling winds followed, hunters chasing a fluid beast that engulfed everything that dared to oppose it, slithering and squeezing into the coast. The beast made way and found the only weakness through the rocks and ventured into the cove. Their it bellowed and rose, arms open, unwelcomed in this quiet refuge. It sat upon the innermost sands, licked them and retreated. However, the beast dared not touch the feet of the man standing watch on the sand bed. His eyes commanded it not to, or so it seemed, his hair flowing elegantly, caressed by the breeze that found its way in here. 

 This cove, carved by the sea inside the cliffs, was not a place accessible by land. It was embedded so deep inside the rock that not even green plants grew in the lack of sunlight. The walls jailed it from all sides, a protruding stony balcony shadowed the grinded earth that formed the sand underneath. Yet, in such a desolate place, a person stood sentinel to the waves that periodically made their way inside.

His hair was rust brown, shoulder height at rest, and his eyes burned with a silver flame glazed with a hint of celestial blue. They were deep and focused, keys to a thousand hidden thoughts lurking inside. His feet were bare, his toes printed were he stood, and on his wrist he wore a bracelet with seven rings dangling on golden strings from it. A wave came rushing in and touched his feet, he recoiled and moved back. 

"Wake up..."

It is time, he thought. With a sleight of hand he grabbed a ring from his bracelet and wore it. Everything turned to silver dust. Across the room there was a boy, very young and innocent, playing with his cowboy hat. An elderly man giggled at the sight of his grandson, coughing with shortage of breath. On the other side of the room was a bartender polishing his glasses, more precious to him than diamonds. This was an inn, as old as the elderly man and as weak as his boy, built from wood imported across the desert from the swamp. But what significance does it has? The silver eyes veered from the scene. 

The waves came crushing back in. The Sentinel removed the ring from his finger, and sat down on the sand. He knew not what to make of what he just saw. Lately, they had started to become stranger. The setting, the characters, the sensations he felt in these dreams he ventured into. They all seemed so alien nowadays. He recalled how different his work was a few aeons ago. Time itself was no matter for the Sentinel, but nowadays something different was concerning him. His relevance and his position in all of this. What exactly was his job? He tried to think, to come up with a conclusion, but he could not understand. He could not even remember how he ended up in the cove, why he dreamt, and to an extent, who he was.

 "Wake up, wake up..."

He picked a different ring this time, one adorned with veins of ebon running through a river of gold. He admired its beauty. As he slid it into his aging index, all around turned dark, the sound of the waves ceased, and a crushing sound of caving rocks engulfed him.