I could hear the ocean. I could smell it too. The salty breeze caressed my cheek and I sought to find a path through the trees, anything to get to the water. I had to get to the beach; some strange force that I could not even begin to comprehend tugged on my limbs, made my heart start to pound. My feet found sand and I began to run. I had to find IT, though I had no idea what IT was. I felt that if I could not find this mysterious somthing that seemed to call to my soul, then a part of me would be completely crushed, pulverized, washed away by the ocean that called to me. Something compelled me to sit by the water's edge and I sat, letting the tide wash against my toes. A particularly strong gust of ocean air lifted my hair from my shoulders, blowing it around my face. The sun began to gently burn my skin and I felt completely content, forgetting the urgency I had so recently felt. Gulls called out in friendly greeting above me, the waves rippled into shore gently, the sand was warm and soft against my bare legs. Without realizing what I was doing, I laid back in the soft beige sand. I could not say how much time passed, but I was startled at the touch of something cold against my ankle. There, in the crystal blue water, a delicate silver chain floated. I reached to pick it up and wondered at how such an object had appeared on this beach. Nothing resembling a boat floated on the horizon. Even if a ship had lost its cargo, I did't care. This necklace wasn't what I was searching for. Something shiny caught my eye to my left. A copper bracelet was stuck in the sand. I reached for it but the bracelet got swallowed up in the masses of multi-colored jewellry that began to swim around me. It was dizzying, the vast array of color and types of jewellry that sifted through my fingers. IT was here, I could feel it. My hands pawed through the rings and necklaces, bangles and chokers, earrings and pins. I saw it! A flash of silver, a sparkle of color. My fingers seized on it and the other pieces of jewellry disappeared. A thin band of silver sat on my palm, the band a little bit tarnished. In the center of the ring, a gem that I had never seen sparkled in the sunlight. It was faceted like a diamond, and clear, but it also shone different colors, reds and greens and blues, like an opal. A diamond-opal clash. It was what I had been searching for, what had drawn me to the beach. I moved to slip the ring onto my left hand when...

I woke up.