[ WP ] The ocean is a scary thing to you . But you made a promise to a friend .

The smell of the salt was enough to feel me with trepidation. The arrival, all it did was add to the tension. The salt breeze had a way of bringing back all my darkest memories. But I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 Sand. I remembered, randomly, Hayden Christensen's infamous line. A smile briefly danced across my face, replaced quickly by my stoic scowl. Huh, a scowl- never had thought of myself as a scowl-er. Had n't even... but there was no use dragging up old memories, especially now that I was ankle deep in the sand that was less sand and more rock, mostly pebbles that grated on my feet. All the movies had made it seem like bringing shoes was a bad idea, it seems they were wrong. I knelt, and scooped up the coarse sand, and let it spill through my fingers. That had been my life all those years ago. It did n't matter now. Correction: it should n't matter now. But somehow the memories did. But I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 Forward. The lighthouse, the destination, stood up ahead on top of a craggy cliff. I could see from here the waves crashing on rock, a perpetual war Mother Nature waged against herself. Heh. Humanity was so insignificant to Her that she needed to fight herself to pass the time, She was the only worthy foe. She was the chess master that had n't considered the possibility of challenging the child in the room, opting to play both sides. Perhaps this was why it was loosely known as the Suicide Cliffs. What better place to end things than a war zone? No one could survive a fall. Least of all... I pushed against the memories again. They threatened to come back again, but I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 `` This better be worth it,'' I muttered. In my heart, I knew it would n't be. I knew what the end held. The lighthouse's doors failed to creak as I pushed them open, they really should've, I felt. But the decrepit place did n't need help in creating such an atmosphere. The place had been like this when I was a child, when me and my brother ranged over these cliffs and this lighthouse. Back then, of course, the armchair had yet to collapse into a pile of tinder, and you could still see how the leather used to be a rich burgundy. I remembered the time we lit a fire in the grate and suddenly it felt like, like, like we were at home, like the sea was nowhere near and there was only the rich, homely warmth of lighthouse. But the sea had claimed this place as well, and the grate was damp, the armchair a rotted husk, even the painting a curled husk. But I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 The stairs, unlike the doors, creaked as I carefully crept up them. I told myself it was because I did n't want to break them under my weight. I knew it was a very different kind of fear. The second floor had been a bedroom, once upon a time. It'd also been the home of my dreams of sailing. My brother, he was the elder, which meant he was captain, grand captain of the boat that was this bed. But that was fine with me. As a common sailor, I got to'report' on the disasters incoming. I got to watch how he solved the unsolvable crises. But that was all childhood. That was before he turned our dreams into a reality. But I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 The final few flights led to storage, mostly. The lighthouse itself was old, from all the way back in the history books when it required actual wood for the fire to rage. All the wood was gone now, gone like him. The elder brother, he'd felt the Call most keenly. Our family... there was a reason we lived near the sea, near this old place. The Navy received a commendable captain that day. Me, I'd been left behind. Left to endure the infinite years that remained of my education. By then, I was always the weird creature of the sea. But that song has been sung a thousand times. I remembered how the bullies would try to'return me to the sea,' the same way one would a dead fish. I remembered the nights warming myself by a fire after the bad days. But I persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 The open air seemed oppressively freeing, after my stint within the lighthouse. The light itself was ready to go, the wood preserved by the ancient's technology to make sure the place was always ready for its duty. And inside, a package. We had discovered the place, a place long forgotten by time, and made it ours. And that included putting our childish dreams in this place of forgotten fire. I pulled out the battered shoebox- no more children would roam this place after what happened here, no parent could possibly allow it- and contemplated it for a long moment. But I could not open it. Those dreams were no longer meant for me. It would hurt too much. I simply carried the box back down those stairs. I had persevered. I had made a promise to a friend. 
 
 But she was n't really a friend. Not really. She was his widow. My brother and her, they'd married when the war had come and he'd been sent to serve. He'd weathered the fires of war and the fury of the sea for her, and he'd returned to her many a year later. In the time after the... when she'd gone from being a wife to a widow, we'd grown closer. Somehow, our grief pulled us together, cemented our lack of feelings towards each other. We became friends of a sort, the kind of friend where the idea of spending time away from the other is only marginally less appealing than the alternative. She'd driven me out here, she needed `` the last of his things,'' she'd finally decided to move on. And so I handed her the box and turned around. 
 
 `` Where you goin'?'' she asked quietly. 
 `` To think.'' 
 
 She nodded to herself. It had been five years after his... She had approached me, five years after IT had happened, and she wanted to move on and she needed everything of his. And so we came out here. 
 
 She turned to leave, she even made it back to the car, before she sighed and turned back. `` It should have been you.'' 
 
 `` I know.'' She was right, she always was. 
 
 I really do n't know how I managed to get back to the cliffs, but I did. Exhaustion tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of how tired I was, how tired I always am, and so I sat, letting my feet dangle off the edge. 
 
 Finally, I let the memory return, and I felt the crushing guilt hit me for the hundredth time of how he had saved me, his stupid little brother who'd decided the bullies were too much for him to bear, of how he'd caught me, just before I reminded the world of why this place was Suicide Cliffs, of how in pulling me up his foot slipped, of how I'd managed to make one last unsolvable crisis for him. But Mother Nature was never one that he could solve, and I remembered how powerless I felt watching the sea take him and throw him against the cliffs... the fury of the sea. 
 
 The box, the box sitting in her car, it held our dreams, but really it held our promises to each other. He was my captain, I had sworn in a fit of childish loyalty, I swore I'd follow him into the jaws of death itself. I'd even signed a contract to that affect, which he'd told my was `` Legalese binding.'' Into death itself. He'd promised, of course, that he'd lead us out again, and I'd half believed him. But it seems now, that he could n't. Or perhaps he just need his one-man crew to help me out. Into death itself. I'd made a promise to a friend, after all.
