You head out to explore south along the coastline. It is quite a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. You decided since there are no shells or anything else in the sand to go barefoot. On occasion to cool down you take a short walk in the water before marching back up the sand bank to dry off again.
There appears to be no wildlife on this side of the beach. You would sometimes stop to look around and listen for anything out of the ordinary. All you end up hearing however is the rumbling crackle of the waves hitting the sand and rolling back out into the sea again.
You noticed it must be getting close to low tide. As the water lines have been receding for quite some time from the shoreline. You were hoping this would leave uncovered something that the water ended up dragging up onto the beach. There was however just more sand.
After a few hours of walking, you decided to break for lunch. While it takes little time to eat a food cube you needed a break from walking anyways. You found a nice flat piece of dry sand and sat down to eat and take a look around.
A short time later you decide to dig a rather large hole. The beach on this side is so pristine you wonder if there is something buried and lost deep down below. You however just keep coming up with more sand. All the same white sand as clean as ever. Nothing even from the ocean waters where lost in it.
While there appears to be no one else here you decided to cover up the hole the best you could. It’s good to do so out of manners. Who knows if you end up having to travel back during the night you would also not want to fall into your pit.
After a couple more hours of walking along the beach. You stop again to take a good look around. This is when you notice there seems to be a trail leading into the woods. This pops out as being quite unnatural as there should not have been anything to cause a trail in the woods in the first place.
There is however no mistaking it. There appear to be trees and branches missing from a path. The grass has been worn down to just sand as there is a winding trail cut into the woods. You could explore the trail or keep walking.
After giving it some thought you decide to keep walking. Perhaps another day you will check the woods for anything of use. For now, though you are just combing the beach which gives you quite a far view of the surrounding area.
Quite a lot more walking you find nothing else of interest. With it starting to get rather late into the afternoon you decided it’s time to turn around and get back before it is too dark to see anything.
It was perhaps wiser to turn back sooner. After a while, the night sky starts to cloud up somewhat as the dipped into the ocean. Once it became dark you had other choice but to hope you will spot the lights from your spaceship at some point. Assuming you don’t get turned around and end up going the correct way.
Thankfully your wristwatch has a light that is turned on. It seemed to realize you were in a dark and unwanted situation. While it helped a little bit. You are out in a wide-open area. It did however light the path in front of you enough to keep following the coastline.
A few hours later you start to see the lights from your spaceship. You use that as a final guiding point to reach back to camp. By then you are quite exhausted and ready to call it a night.
Before doing so you have a final food cube for the day and head into the emergency shelter for some much-needed rest. You wish you had discovered more instead of coming back so empty-handed.
Information
Content is written by @Enjar of @Enjargames. AI artwork was created using Playgroundai.
If you wish to support this project further many of the AI-generated artworks will be up for sale on NFT Showroom in the Ice Planet gallery once they have been minted and released.