Waves beat against the shoreline. Birds called out in the distant, empty sky. White foam climbed up the sandy beach after every crash of the ocean, tickling the toes of a small six year old girl who giggled at the cool, refreshing touch. She wiggled her toes, watching the water change course as it washed against her tiny feet. Dark ringlets hung in her face. The cascading breeze blew on her curls, tickling her freckled nose.
"Sienna!" a masculine voice called from a short distance away, "Stay here! I will be right back. Annette is in charge while I am gone. Listen to what she says because she is oldest and knows best."
Sienna crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip. Just because Annette was twelve years old didn't mean she knew better. Sienna hated being bossed around by Annette. But when Daddy shot her a stern look, she reluctantly agreed. Daddy ran over to her and kissed her on the forehead. Then he walked away with Mr. Blackwell, Annette's and Landon's daddy.
Sienna didn't like Annette and Landon because they always left her out. They never let her play with them. They always said that she was too young. But she was six years old now, and six years old was old enough to play with a twelve and seven year old.
So Sienna ran over to the pair and, bouncing up and down with excitement, her ringlets bobbing in her face, asked, "So what are we going to play?"
Annette groaned slightly. She already had to put up with her brother who was five years younger than her. She didn't want to have to deal with this child also. But her dad told her that she had to watch over her. She was young and could hurt herself after all. Annette didn't like the job, but she liked the title it came with. She liked being oldest and in charge. She pushed her jet black hair out of her face, shook off her pessimism and decided to embrace the task left to her.
"Come on. I'll teach you how to skip rocks on the water," Annette flatly stated before trudging through the slippery sand to the water's edge. Landon and Sienna followed her like a game of follow-the-leader. Annette scanned the water, and after several moments she found what she was looking for: She plucked a perfectly flat rock from the shallow depths and presented it to her audience.
"You have to find flat rocks like this one. The flatter it is, the better it will skip. Then you have to keep your hand level," she instructed, bending down slightly, holding her hand out parallel to the water, closing one eye to aim, "then toss it like a Frisbee. Try to make it so that the rock lands flat on the water. That's how you get it to skip. Now go find some rocks."
And so the search began. Sienna hunted for the perfect rocks to throw. She wanted to impress Annette so that maybe she would want to play with Sienna in the future. She found some flat rocks washed onto the shore, some that were just under the surface of the water so she had to wait for the tide to recede, and some that were deeper still that the tide would not uncover. But they were the perfect rocks, so the little blue-eyed girl had to get them.
Suddenly, Sienna felt a big tug as a current pulled her little body in with a particularly strong wave. It ripped her right off her feet and dragged her out just a bit off the shore. It took her far enough out to where she could no longer feel the sandy bottom with her little toes, so she began to tread water. All the wonderful rocks she found to give to Annette fell to the bottom of the ocean as she used both of her arms to keep herself afloat. Internal panic alarms went off. What if she couldn't find any more flat rocks for Annette? Then Annette would never want to play with her again. Instantaneously Sienna decided that she must retrieve the rocks. She took in a big gasp of air. She plugged her little nose. She dove to the depths of the ocean to recover her perfect rocks.
Sienna had always been a good swimmer. Daddy said it came from his side of the family. He joked and laughed and said that Mommy had been a terrible swimmer. But she was a good swimmer, so she wasn't afraid of diving under. She had been in the sea before too, so she wasn't afraid of the waves.
Sienna wasn't aware, but the tide was much stronger that day than the other times she had been in the ocean. While she was under, the current violently tugged her out farther and farther to where the waves were the largest. These were waves that experienced surfers liked to ride, because they arced high enough to allow passage through the inside of the curl. When Sienna popped her little head up to the surface to take in another breath of air, it was met with a pounding wall of white water. It dragged her back under before she could take in another gulp of air.
"Where is Sienna?" Landon asked after about fifteen minutes of collecting rocks.
Without looking up at her brother, Annette stated, "Last time I saw her she was swimming down there." She pointed to the location.
After several moments of silence with no response from her brother, she looked up at him with annoyance. He was staring out at the sea, scanning for any sign of Sienna, to no avail.
"I'm worried," he confessed, then squinted his amber eyes and continued his search.
Landon's eyes widened and his arm shot out, pointing a pale finger while shouting, "There!"
A dark mess of curly hair bobbed out of the water a ways away from the shoreline. As soon as it appeared, it was gone, dragged back under by fierce looking wave. It created a forceful boom! upon impact.
"I'm going to get Dad and Mr. Terrell!" Landon yelled instantly, sprinting as fast as his short legs would take him away from the water and in the direction he seen his dad last head.
Landon had found a way to help but Annette couldn't. She didn't know how to swim. No one in her family really knew how. There was nothing she could do to help Sienna, but cry her name as loud as she could and sob a little in the process.
After several agonizing minutes Sienna's head stopped making its regular bobs about the water. The waves were coming to fast that she didn't have the opportunity anymore. Annette started hyperventilating. She heard pounding footsteps behind her. Mr. Terrell flew past her. His bright blue eyes were filled with panic. He dove into the water. Then everything went calm. The entire ocean just stopped. And with it, it seemed as though the entire universe seemed to halt as well. Even the birds grew quiet. The waves stopped crashing. There were no people on the beach. Mr. Terrell retrieved his daughter, swimming faster than anything she thought humanly possible. He performed CPR, and only after Sienna hacked up her first gulp of water did everything return back to normal. Annette had nearly passed out with the stress and strangeness of it all.
A/N : I went back and corrected some grammatical and spelling errors that had been bothering me for awhile. I also added a few things that I felt needed to be added to some of the first several chapters.
Also, I originally had two different storylines going in the same fanfic, but I am going to separate them. I think it is too confusing when it goes back and forth, especially with a third story popping in there every once in awhile. I will most likely be focusing more on Sienna, because she was originally my main focus. We'll see how it goes! Please feel free to review. Whether negative or positive, I would love some feedback.