Waves. That was the first thing I recognized-the sound of tide waves rolling against the sand. Their rumble, a sort of muted thunder on the land, filled the air. Then my other senses awoke. I smelled the salt in the air and felt the wet sand beneath me. I didn't get up right away; I just lay there in the cradle of the earth. For maybe a few minutes, maybe many minutes, I stayed there. Then a wave crested high and splashed me, soaking me with cold water and white froth.

I yelped in surprise and sat up abruptly. I coughed the water out of my mouth, rubbed my eyes, and glanced around. The sight of a glittering ocean and gently rolling sand dunes greeted me. Behind me, sand ran up an incline on the beach until it rose into a seaside cliff bedecked with flags and little thatch houses. I blinked, confused. This place seemed familiar, but I couldn't put a name on it.

Furthermore, what was I doing here? Evidently I had been sleeping, but why had I been napping on the shore of the ocean? Judging by my tanned skin and the sand-muck caked to my clothes, I had been there a while. Speaking of my clothes, I was wearing a green tunic and matching pants with a leather knapsack. And no shoes. Adventuring clothes, it seemed. I supposed it was fitting. Until I figured out the answers to my questions, like who I was and what was I doing, it looked like adventuring was on the agenda.

I stood up and brushed the sand out of my clothes as best as I could. A good starting point, I figured, would be to check my pack to see if I had anything inside to clue me in on what was going on. The results were disappointing. I only found a wrinkled chef's apron, a collection of weird berries, and a dog sweater. Now what would I do with a dog sweater? I didn't own a dog, and even if I did, as if they would need a sweater in this hot seaside climate. Annoyed, I cast the useless stuff on the ground amidst the jetsam half-buried in the sand.

Wait a minute.

"Seaside."

Why did that name seem so familiar?

I shrugged it aside for now and started picking through the jetsam, in case there would be anything useful washed up on the shore. I found pieces of bamboo (maybe the frame of a house at some point?), a rubber toy ball, milk cartons, half of a life preserver ring, and more than enough slimy kelp. But nothing helpful. Darn.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets and started up the hill that led to the sea wall with the houses. A cool ocean breeze played over the beach, stirring my dark auburn hair. The beach was quiet at first, the only sounds being the soft wind, rumbling waves, and occasional seagull squawks, but then I heard it.

Music.

A soft rhythm underneath it all. The beat of lazy steel drums. And then the melody: a lilt on a whistling flute. No matter where I walked, the music sustained its volume, neither increasing nor diminishing. It was if the tune came from the air itself.

I recognized this song. The notes the flute whistled out haunted me. I had heard that series of notes so many times, on so many instruments and in so many moods, but I couldn't remember where or how. The memories were like dragonflies; whizzing about everywhere, but only stopping to give me a glimpse before taking off again. If only I had a net to catch them and get a better look!

Inclines and platforms crisscrossed the seaside cliff so that people could walk from building to building. As far as I could tell, the little village on the cliff was empty. Despite the empty village, I wasn't creeped out. Just curious. I just wondered where everyone had gone, and hoped they hadn't been taken away by some crazy apocalypse. I liked being left alone, but I didn't like being alone all the time.

I passed by a mirror leaning against the bamboo wall of a house. I backtraced a step and stood in front of it to see just how disheveled I really looked. My expectations were not disappointed. A scrawny, sand-caked young woman stared back at me. The icy blue of her eyes made a stark contrast against the warmth of her tanned skin. She stood, muscles tense and pose shy, like she was waiting for something scary to jump out at her.

I shook my head. No sense acting like the reflection was another person. That woman was me. I still had a lot of questions, though. I didn't know what my name was or how old I was. Judging from my appearance, I seemed to straddle the time between teen and adult, but I couldn't assign a specific number of years.

Turning aside from the sorry sight in the mirror, I kept wandering through the empty town. I passed a watchtower for lifeguards and saw an abandoned horse paddock at the top of the hill. Colorful pennants on strings were draped from roof to roof. I spotted party floors complete with deejay stands on my walk. The lamps and electric lights glowed a warm, inviting golden. This must have been a fun place to hang out, back when there were still people here. It wasn't as if anything had happened to the seaside to make it un-fun. Why had everyone left? Where did they go?

"Seaside." There it was again. Now why did that strike such a familiar chord?

The longer I walked, the deeper I pondered it. And then, when I reached the top of the cliff and examined the beach in all its sandy fun glory, painted pink by the sunrise, it hit me.

Seaside was the proper name of this place. I'd finally jogged the memory. There were still questions and unknowns, but if I could set one piece of the puzzle in place, who was to say I couldn't do the same for the rest? Most of the clues, I figured, would be in Seaside. I went back down the cliffside to the beach. In the process, I was treated to a glorious sunrise. When I first woke up, the stars were still fading out and dawn was a red glow in the east. As the sun appeared, the sky burned a fiery orange. Then it blushed pink. Finally, it blossomed into a clear, pale blue. A sweet floral smell carried on the gentle breeze.

All right, so I knew this place was Seaside, but how I wished I knew my own name! I supposed that, perhaps until I find out who I actually am, I should make up some name. That way, I could have something by which to call myself. Maybe that would help make this seem less crazy. I decided that I would name myself after the first thing that I saw. I closed my eyes so I could get a fresh look at the beach and find a namesake.

Of course, I realized too late that closing your eyes while walking on uneven ground isn't a good idea. I tripped on something (probably a rock) and stumbled, landing on my knees in the sand. When I cracked my eyes back open, the first thing in my line of sight was a seashell.

It was a small, fist-sized shell, rolled up into a cone shape. Pale peachy-pink in color, it had a rough surface and a smooth shiny interior. I wondered if one could pick it up and blast on it like a trumpet. For some reason, I could reach into a tiny corner of my memory and identify it as a conch shell. I didn't want to call myself Shell. I thought it was silly. Calling myself Conch, however, I wouldn't mind.

I, Conch, set to wandering the beach searching for clues. My mind was slowly untangling its secrets. I recognized bits and pieces of Seaside, remembering what purposes the various buildings had served. Over there were the trampolines that people would bounce on for fun. Out in the ocean floated the pirate ships. Up the hill was the paddock where they sold ponies to the rich people who had that funky cash they obtained from some "station." Me, I only had a pocketful of the regular coins doled out by quests and errands and that sort of thing.

I thought back to the "useless" stuff I had found in my backpack earlier this morning. The chef apron...the berries...the dog sweater. Ah, that was right-I liked cooking and gathering produce! Of course I would be carrying the related items!

Dummy! Now I felt stupid for throwing away the stuff I kept for my pastimes. I ran back to the shore and picked through the jetsam, hoping to retrieve what I had discarded. Unfortunately, waves had swept up on the beach and carried a lot of the refuse back into the ocean. The items I had dumped had been washed out to sea. Irretrievable.

Way to go, Conch, I thought glumly. Shouldering my mostly-empty backpack, I headed up inland again. I was still confused by the dog sweater. Of course, by now it was bobbing on the waves somewhere in the ocean, but why had I carried it in my pack? Had I mistaken it for a human-sized sweater? Or was it a sign of another old hobby of mine? I enjoyed cooking and farming, so if I owned a dog sweater…

If I…

Wait a second…

Did I own a dog?

I liked dogs. They were cute and friendly. I liked the idea of me having a canine companion on my adventures. If I had owned a dog, though, where was he or she now? Oh, she hadn't run away, had she? What a sad thought! I hardly knew my dog, but I missed her already. I hoped I could look for her pawprints in the sand and find her that way. She had to be close, right?

I walked along the shoreline, hearing the waves crash softly onto the sand beside me. I couldn't tell if it was low tide or high tide. I wondered if people who grew up in Seaside would be able to tell high tide from low. Yeah, they probably could. They could probably tell with just a glance.

First I'd need to find more people, though, before I even thought about folks specifically from Seaside.

To my right, the cliff rose up as a steep wall of rock. The crashing waves echoed off the stone, as did the seagull cries.

"Helloooo!" I yelled.

"Helloooo!" responded the echo.

"How are yoooou?"

"How are yoooou?"

"I'm gooood!"

"I'm gooood!"

Chuckling to myself, I walked further down the beach. The sun helped dry out my clothes and hair, but they were still wrinkled and dirty. I avoided the palm trees swaying in the wind, afraid that they might drop a coconut on my head. I started to get a little bored as I walked. Not much was happening.

Then I heard a wonderful sound. It echoed off the sea wall, repeating the lovely noise.

"Arf!"

It was a dog! I gasped out loud and turned about frantically, trying to spot the doggy.

"Here, puppy-puppy!" I cooed, trying to convince the dog to come. I wandered a little further down the beach and called again. I clapped my hands a couple of times.

"Arf!" A furry form came bounding out of a cluster of palm trees. A big, friendly, beautiful dog with golden fur and floppy ears ran at me. Her mouth was open in a dog-smile and her tongue lolled out. I bent down to get on her level, but she knocked me down anyway. For a second I was afraid that I was about to get bit. But instead I got a face full of dog kisses.

Laughing, I gently pushed the dog off me and wiped the spittle off my face with my shirt sleeve. The dog whimpered happily, bounding around in a circle. Her tail whipped from side to side in a blur.

"Aren't you just the cutest thing?" I cooed. "Do you have a name?"

"Arf!" she yelped.

"Of course you can't tell me your name. You're a dog, and dogs can't talk." I paused for a second. "Would be cool if they could, though."

She sat in the sand and whined, tilting her head to one side.

"My name's Conch...I think," I said. "I don't really know. I had to give myself a name. Would you mind if I gave you a name too? I think I'm good at naming things."

The dog just wagged her tail obviously.

I looked up at the sea wall. "I found you in a place that echoes a lot. How about I call you Echo? That's a pretty name."

I scratched "Echo" behind the ears. Her tongue lolled out as she dog-smiled again. I nodded.

"Echo it is."

We started walking back the way I came. Echo was at my heels, spraying sand as she bounded around in excitement. She was a very energetic dog.

"So here's what we're dealing with, Echo." I knew she couldn't say anything, but I wanted to voice my thoughts out loud. "Like an hour or so ago, I woke up on the beach after being asleep for who knows how long. This place is called Seaside. I remember a couple things about this place, but not a lot. I don't remember much of anything, actually."

I made myself sad by saying that. It was a little frustrating to to know, or at least not remember, what we were doing here.

"Like, I don't even know what my own name really is. Or how old I am, or if I was born on this beach or not. So I hoped that walking around Seaside might help me remember some things. I like the beach and the ocean, but I don't want to stay someplace that isn't home. You know? I walked down by those sea walls for a while, and that was when I found you. I had a dog sweater in my bag before I threw it in the water by mistake. I think you're my dog."

Even though she could never say anything back, Echo was an attentive listener. She would blink and nod (I think she was nodding) at appropriate times as I talked. I noticed that she wore a purple collar. A silver butterfly-shaped tag hung off it.

"Wait, stop for a second." I bent down to get a closer look. "I want to read that tag."

Echo stood still as I held the tag in my fingers and turned it over to see if there was anything printed on it. Sure enough, the word "ECHO" was engraved in the silver.

"Gosh!" I said. "Your name really is Echo! I remembered it. You knew just where to go so I'd remember what your name is when I was looking for you. You're a smart doggy!"

Echo made a light growling noise, pleased to be complimented.

"But I don't know, Echo. I'm not finding anything helpful here in Seaside. Do you think we should look somewhere else?"

Of course Echo could give no answer, so I decided for us. We headed back towards the cliffside village. Echo trotted faithfully beside me as we ascended the stairs and boardwalks to the top of the cliff. I paid little attention to our surroundings, as I had already been there once before, but Echo sniffed the ground and pawed at the floor. She seemed to be searching to find if there were other people here.

"I haven't found anyone else in this place," I told her. "I hope I do eventually, though. It's scary being all alone."

Echo whimpered sympathetically. I scratcher her behind the ears. We kept climbing up the cliff, until we finally reached its top. A dirt path snaked up over the hill and into the forest beyond.

I adjusted my backpack so it was sitting better on my shoulders. "Ready to go, Echo?"

"Arf!"

"All right!"