Terrible Friend

1

Albert sat up. He was on the beach, the cool breeze off the waves blew into his face. Filling his nostrils with the scents of salt and seaweed. He looked out across the water, reveling in the momentary silence and calm inside his head. He knew it would be short lived, but he was determined to enjoy it for as long as he could. He recalled the events of the night before and stretched and cursed under his breath.

He looked around, taking in the emptiness and serenity of the public beach. The deep purple of the starless sky above him and the lights of the hotels on around him told him it was very early. He had arrived her just a few hours ago and was pondering why he was awake so early in a place that he could usually sleep so soundly.

This was the only place in the last 38 years that would silence the cacophony of voices in his head and rest peacefully. Something about the vast number of stars above him and the waves crashing in the darkness would lull them to a dull roar, and he could sleep. He was rarely awake before 9am on this beach. Usually aroused by an aggressively spiked beach ball rolling gently into his shoulder or poked at with a stick by some youngsters checking to see if they had indeed found a dead body on the beach, this morning, there were neither. Just him, the sky, and the waves spilling gently onto the shore 10 feet from his toes.

The first voices started mumbling in his head. He sighed. The silence never lasted long once his eyes were open. He started every morning with a quick prayer that one day he wouldn't be bothered by them anymore. To date, no satisfactory answer had come.

<Why are we awake so early Al> The loudest voice rang through his head.

Albert ignored it. It was more of a rhetorical question anyway. No answer would suffice and Albert just wasn't ready to deal with the barrage of questions that Jax would inundate him with this early in the day.

He took a deep breath, crossed his fingers behind his head, laid back in the sand, and exhaled slowly as the chorus of voices sang out inside his headspace.

This was the chaos, the resonance of what seemed like a thousand voices, all speaking at the same time, but never saying anything he could make out.

Whispers with lingering esses, moans and groans, bickering and cackling laughter would ring in the back of his head. He could force himself to ignore that part.

Jax, however, would not, be ignored. <Al! Why are we up so early?>

Albert, plagued by the question himself, sat up and took another look around. There were no people about, no sea birds cackling above him, so he really didn't have an answer. He shifted his weight and laid back. He found the culprit.

A sharp point was jabbing him in the side. He reached under himself and pulled out a chunk of metal. He held his hand out in front of him as he sat up and examined the object in his hand.

A heavy silver chain spilled from his hand and dangled. Sparkling gently as it swung side to side. In the palm of his hand was a large claw-like hand that clung with all its might to a large dark green stone. He examined it gently. The chain looked old and like it had been both pounded with a hammer and chiseled out of a block of silver. The hand that held the stone looked like it had been poured and then scraped with a pick to create the intricate details of 3 sharp talons. "It might have been this?" He listened for a response from Jax.

There wasn't one. He noticed a strange buzzing sensation in his head. Like clippers were being run up the back of his scalp, but on the inside. The racket that had been blaring just a moment ago was hushed. He turned his hand over and let the necklace slip back onto the sand.