**Beyond the Seashore**
Author's note: I don't really have one a note, but I can tell you this; it's cute but sad, it teaches you how you should take the power of friendship seriously. Misty is about 14 in here, (She will be telling her point of view, she's in her late 20's when she's telling the story) sorry Brock-Lovers…he's not in it. And just to tell you, it's reaaaaaaallly short, only 906 words. Enjoy the story!
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As a young girl, I can recall strolling down the beach in Vermilion City. My sisters and I always used to rent out a seasonal beach cottage on various parts of the shoreline. My first two weeks down in Vermilion were actually lonely, since I didn't know nor had anyone there that was my age I could socialize with. And so I spent long hours walking on the beach alone, looking for interesting shells and Pokemon. Then, one Thursday, I met a girl about my own age on the beach; she was walking alone like me, and she came up to me and said her name was Nicole. She told me she was fifteen. I was really happy to find that she was very nice. We immediately hit it off.
Each morning, Nicole and I met on the beach at 9:00 a.m. We spent countless hours together beachcombing, swimming, and sunning. Nicole was a very pretty girl, that and her very outgoing manner, made me look up to her a bit because my sisters never really wanted me around much, though they always told me they loved me. There was something very serious about her, even though she was only fifteen. She also seemed very knowledgeable. She carefully identified all of the shells we found together on the beach, and she told me a lot about the history of the area: Pokemon, shipwrecks, and things like that. Nicole was definitely the dominant partner in our friendship.
One afternoon, Nicole took me by the hand and began leading me away from the beach.
**~~~~**Begin Flashback**~~~~**
"Where are you taking me?" I inquired. She didn't say anything but just kept leading me along. Finally we reached a grassy, barren knoll not too far from the beach.
Nicole pointed at it and said, "That's my house, I wanted to show it to you." I didn't understand what she meant. There was no house on the empty knoll.
"Uh, Nicole…what do you mean? What house are you talking about?" I asked. She got very frustrated when I said that. She began to sigh deeply and didn't say anything. Nicole was extremely quiet for the rest of the day.
**~~~~**End Flashback**~~~~**
The following morning after the incident with her house, I arrived at the usual meeting place on the beach. There was no sign of Nicole. In fact, I never saw her again for the rest of the summer. I never knew what happened. Until…
A couple of months ago, when my husband, Ash, and I got married, we took a long walk on the Vermilion beach; we are about the age of twenty-eight. We both purchased our own summer house on the Vermilion shoreline, when something very, very strange took place. Ash and I were walking on the beach near sunset, and I saw a young girl sitting alone in a lifeguard chair. She was smiling at me, and I began to get very upset, because there was no question in my mind that it was the same girl. It was Nicole. I could have never forgotten that face. Only she hadn't aged a day.
It was about thirteen to fourteen years later, but she was still young as a teenager. I wanted to approach her, but I felt very strange and frightened. I had no way to process or comprehend what I was seeing. In the meantime, she just kept staring at me as I continued down the beach with my husband. Over the next month, I thought more and more about the experience, though I never again encountered Nicole at the beach. Still, my fascination grew; on some deep level, I began to realize that Nicole was a ghost.
Finally, I started studying more historical things about Vermilion than my own city of Cerulean! I checked out old maps, and deeds and more interesting things that I found.
I had become very curious about the barren knoll Nicole had taken me to many years earlier to show 'her house.' It took a while, but after doing some research and talking to the local old-timers, I learned that there had been a small house on that knoll between 1976 and 1997. The house had been owned by a couple who lost the home in the hurricane of 1997. The couple had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters was killed in 1997 during the hurricane, when the house was inundated with water. She drowned. She was fifteen at the time. Her name was Nicole.
When I had first met her in 2000, then, my summer childhood friend had already been dead for three years. You should always treasure anyone's friendship if they offer it; it's a precious thing everyone should have. I just wish I still had Nicole's…
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Hope you all know that this story was based a true one…just be on the lookout for your friend's sake, because you never know…Anyway, I hope you all liked it!