Destiny

     When they first arrived it was still morning.  Hours had passed yet it was still not nighttime.  However, they could no longer see where the ocean ended and the sky began.  There was nothing but darkness, and the wind bristling through their hair was coming from that darkness.  The faint chime of a buoy was barely audible over the sound of the waves, but they knew it was still out there, bobbing and floating, alone atop the current.  There was something else out there, although what that was was still uncertain.

     The young boy gripped the man's hand tightly.  "Daddy, what are you looking at?"
     "Not looking," he replied.  "Waiting."
     The surf was nearly at their feet.  As each new wave bid farewell, the wet sand left behind inched closer and closer.  The wind was beginning to pick up and the man could tell that the boy was growing restless.  He felt the same way when he was the boy's age.  He felt the same way when his father took him to this very spot so many years ago.
     The boy began to shiver as he continued to follow his father's gaze.  Staring out towards nothing.  Although there was something.
     "It's getting colder, daddy.  We've been here forever."
     "Forever?" he replied.  "I said the same thing to my father when he took me here.  I was full of questions as I'm sure you are now."
     The boy had never met his grandfather.  He knew that he died when his father was very young, but that was all he had ever been told about him.  He wondered why his grandfather had taken his father to this beach just as he wondered why his father had taken him here on this day.
     "What we're waiting for... has been here forever.  But us?  We're just a blip.  We've barely been here for an instant."
     Cold and confused, the boy didn't know how to respond.  His father had always been mysterious and distant, but this was something different.  For the first time in his life, the boy was afraid of him.  For the first time he didn't know if he should trust him.
     "What are we waiting for?" he asked, loosening the grip on his father's hand.
     A soft rumbling sound began in the distance and grew louder and louder as the waves carried it towards them.  The boy stepped back, but his father kept hold of his hand.
     "Our family has many secrets.  Things that I have purposely kept from you for many years."  For the first time since they arrived, he looked down at his son.  "You're old enough now to know the truth."  

     A flash of lightening in the distance caught the father's attention, briefly revealing where the ocean met the sky.  Another soft rumbling accompanied the flash, and as the sound dissipated into the void, so did the horizon.
     The boy tugged on his father's arm.  "Daddy, it's going to start raining.  Can we please go home?"
     "That's not a storm.  And if we leave now, we won't have any home to go back to."
     The beach had been full of life.  People swam and sunbathed as they would on any ordinary summer day.  The sky was so clear it allowed them to see the elipse of the earth.  It was gone in an instant and took with it everyone that was there.  The darkness arrived without a sound but the wind quickly began to pick up.  The boy had turned to leave, but his father took his hand and led him to the shoreline.  They stood there for hours without saying a word.  Filled with terror, the boy now wished they hadn't started talking.
     The howling of the wind grew deafening.  They could no longer hear the sound of the ocean waves.  At first the boy thought it was because of the wind, but soon realized that the entire shoreline was gone.  The ocean was slowly disappearing into the horizon, leaving behind a darkness more striking then the sky above them.  It was not the darkness of the abyss, rather something else.  Something that began to rise.  The boy was terrified and desperately tried to separate himself from his father's grasp.
     "Try and remain calm.  It can sense your fear," his father yelled over the roar of the wind.  His gaze remained locked on where the horizon should be.
     The creature was the size of the entire ocean.  It was a site the boy could barely comprehend.  It had no defining features nor shape.  It was pure darkness and as it rose, it brought with it an indescribable sound.  A sound the boy had never heard before.  A sound that echoed deafeningly.
     Suddenly, a bright light appeared in front of them.  Almost like a doorway.
     "You will know when your time comes.  And at that time you must bring your son here, just as my father once brought me and his father once brought him.  You must be brave and accept your fate."  He released his son's hand and stepped into the blinding light before them.
     The son reached his hands out to his father, but the light enveloped him.
     He heard his father's voice one last time.  "Your destiny and mine are different than anyone else's.  You must face yours without fear, just as I am doing right now."
     At last there was silence.
     The wind stopped.
     The sky turned blue.
     The ocean returned.
     The world remained.
     The light disappeared.  And with it, his father.