1. Nothing to Say

College was going to dawn on me sooner or later, I'd realized. It had taken so much time and studying and effort to get accepted into the college I'd applied to, but now I was beginning to feel…old. Like my life was almost over, and that nothing else mattered now - no fantasies, no eating candies with friends deep in the forest, no giggling at corny jokes - and that it was all left to the numbers and my memory skills. It seemed that way ever since I'd realized life was about how good you were at remembering things, and since then, I'd decided to harden my personality. I wasn't going to get shot down in this new college.

I'd wanted to explore America for a while since I only had this summer before going in my first year of college. That is, I had wanted to. I wasn't able to do that since I'm broke and I didn't want to ask my older brother Lukas, who works at a bank in his birth country Norway, for money, so I had to scale my adventure down to staying at my aunt's and uncle's house on a small, pretty much unknown island called North Sand Island. It was pretty much just a little rise of land in the Atlantic Ocean, with no connection the mainland other than a ferry that came by a few times in a day. That being said, the island was pretty barren, with very few people living on it…so it was peaceful. I'd often take long walks around the island for hours, not bothered by loud noises or screaming or the scrambling in large cities I'd visited before.

There was a full moon tonight, and I'd decided I was going to spend my time by capturing pictures of it rising into the dim sky. I'd always been into astronomy as a child, but I'd never done anything about it. I still enjoyed gazing up at the stars and recognizing the constellations, though, and that was all I needed. I jogged down to the small, south end of the beach and propped my camera on the tripod I stuck into the cooling sand. I sat back and put on the correct settings and, with my remote that had come with the camera, I snapped a picture every few seconds or so to capture the moon and its gorgeous reflection upon the clear ocean water.

It had taken a while, and I eventually got bored of taking the same pictures. It had finally risen over the horizon, so I began packing up the tripod and camera, but that's when I saw a silhouette slowly and gradually coming my way. I could see anything about the person, but I could tell it was a girl from the flowing white dress she wore. Interested, I crouched down onto the sand and waited. As she inched closer, my curiosity increased. Some people would go out to the beaches late at night to walk around, but they'd never stare at the sand like she did and would rather stare up at the stars with someone with them. She was all alone, watching her feet imprint onto the golden sand quietly, and I was slightly worried. Was she dangerous? Was she searching for treasure long buried in the sand?

But it was all nonsense, of course. I remained where I was, though, and watched her sluggishly make her way toward me. As she was now closer, I could see a bit of her using my camera. And…she was stunningly beautiful, looking nothing like anyone I'd ever seen. She seemed to be around my age, though she was a bit small. She was rather pale - paler than me, and I don't see the sun often - but her skin was flawless, not a mark marring it. Her hair was short and somewhat messily cut with a small lilac-colored bow wrapped around her head and sticking out at the side. It only extended to her shoulders, helping her give herself a younger appearance. With all her beauty and her paleness, she practically glowed in the moonlight, making her look like a goddess of sorts - or at least of an ethereal beauty.

She was still way off and she hadn't even glanced my way quite so yet. I knew what I wanted to do now, though.

I set my camera up appropriately. If I wanted to pursue something with photography, I'd be a failure if I couldn't capture this girl's immense beauty. I chose not to let her know I was there since many people wind up posing unnaturally if they're told their picture is about to be taken. I took a dozen pictures, which I had found helped a lot when you wanted at least one marvelously perfect photo. I finished fairly fast and quickly packed my things up again before I waved at her and called a "Hello!"

She lifted her head up fairly fast, somewhat surprised, but a smile settled on her face and she waved. Her eyes were a beautiful green, wide and youthful. I desired to talk to her, but it was getting late and I was still too far away to talk to her. The waves would drown out my deep voice. Deciding I'd try and see her tomorrow night again, I scurried up the small hill and jogged back to my aunt's and uncle's little house, hoping the pictures I had taken were good.

I speedily hooked my camera up to my precious laptop and began downloading the pictures I had taken. The process went by rather fast and soon I was looking through the photos I had taken of the moon's ascent into the night sky. But that wasn't what I wanted to see.

I skipped to the very end to the photos of the girl, but something was…amiss. I squinted, hoping my vision wasn't failing me, but it did nothing to help. She wasn't there. I clicked along the rest of them, shaking my head in disbelief. She hadn't appeared in a single one of them. I'd framed it perfectly and I'd made sure the camera had been positioned right on her form to snap the image, but she hadn't shown up in a single one of them.

What had I done wrong?

I went stargazing bunches of times after my encounter with her, but I never saw her again. And now years, later, I'm still puzzled by the mystery behind her disappearance in the pictures.

This is based off of the first ending of a little visual novel I went through called Moonlight Walks. c: I'll be doing all the other endings as well. The narrator, also, is quite obviously Eiríkur (Iceland).