Chapter 1
The Stranger
Alianna strolled down to the shoreline of the sandy beach, letting the gentle breeze sweep her hair around as she took in a deep breath.
She adored living by the sea. The wind, the salty air, the sand between her toes – she felt at one with the world, and with herself.
That might just be because she was away from the hustle and bustle of busy streets and her day job, but she enjoyed it nevertheless.
The mid-morning sun shone brightly, causing the ocean to sparkle like a diamond under a light.
The sea was flat today. Calm and beckoning.
So far, the beach had been fairly quiet, with no other people around that she had seen.
It was a mild morning, and she contemplated going out into the sea a little way, even just for a paddle.
As she stared out at the ocean, there came an impatient barking from beside her.
“Hang on, Shadow,” she breathed, looking down at the dog staring up at her.
His dark fur was wet, and sand clung to him from where he had jumped into the water and then immediately rolled around on the shore afterwards.
It didn’t bother her. If she were a dog, she’d do the exact same thing.
Heck, she was human, and maybe she’d do it anyway.
Alianna scanned the sand for a rock that was good enough to bend down and throw into the water.
She was particular about the rocks she enjoyed throwing.
Not too big, not too small, not too rough.
Smooth, round, and flat were the best kind.
Sometimes, at low tide, they glinted up at her like gemstones, coated in salt water from the last wave to wash over them.
She leaned down and selected a stone that fitted perfectly in her hand.
Closing her fingers around it, she found that the stone was warm from where the sun had been on it only moments ago.
Pulling her arm back behind her, she launched it across the beach and into the sea.
Shadow, delighted, went bounding along after it.
Continuing along the soft sand, Alianna moved down to the waves that were gently tickling the shore.
She had already kicked her sandals aside and was now slowly walking into the sea.
It was a warm and crystal-clear day today.
She looked down at the sand under the waves, now hitching up her skirt as she proceeded up to her knees, looking at rocks, seaweed, and seeing if she could spot any little hermit crabs or fish in the gentle swells.
“I wish I’d worn a swimsuit,” she muttered to herself, pulling her skirt up a little more to her mid-thighs.
She was dressed for a summer’s day, wearing a thin shirt of delicate blue that skimmed down her collar bones and clung to her curves.
Leaving a little more to the mind’s eye, her flowing white skirt would have sat just below her knees, had she not been hoisting it up to expose her tanned legs, which had gained their colour from spending so much time right here on this beach.
The breeze picked up slightly, and she found her chestnut brown hair being whipped into her face.
Moving out of the water and dropping her skirt, Alianna retrieved her hair tie from her wrist and scooped her hair, which fell down just beyond her collar bones, into a loose ponytail.
Securing it behind her, she looked out across the sand, where Shadow should have reappeared nearby by now – most likely digging a hole.
“Shadow!”
Where was he?
She glanced left and right, not spotting her dog anywhere.
“Damn,” she whispered, calling out loudly, “Shadow! Where are you, boy?”
As if in response, there came a barking from much further along the beach.
“Shit,” said Alianna, not realising how far down he had gone. She scooped up her sandals and proceeded to jog along the water’s edge, kicking wet sand and water up the back of her skirt as she went. In the distance, she spotted Shadow, running in circles around something on the floor and barking.
Not something – someone.
“I’m so - ” she started, beginning an apology as she approached the stranger. Alianna slowed to a halt.
She realised the man was lying face down on the sand. Her heart stopped in her chest for a moment. He was unresponsive to Shadow barking at him.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Hello?” she said quickly, scanning him. His clothes, which consisted of a tight-fitting, dark coloured pair of trousers and a slim-cut dark blue shirt of a silken material, weren’t ripped or damaged at all. Wet, but not damaged. Like he’d just fallen asleep here.
“Sir? Can you hear me?”
Alianna bent down and tried to peer at the man’s face.
She placed her hands underneath him, grunting, and rolled him over.
He was handsome – strikingly handsome, in fact - with defined features and a strong jaw line.
Stubble coated the bottom half of his face, but he was well-groomed.
His dark hair flopped across his forehead, damp with seawater.
Sand crusted his eyebrows and his cheeks.
He looked to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties at most.
“Sir?”
His eyes remained closed.
She grabbed her phone out of her bag, fumbling with the zip as she went. She looked at his chest. It was moving. Breathing. Good.
Alianna hammered the keys of her phone with her fingers and waited a moment until the emergency call handler was on the other end.
“I need a paramedic, now. I’m on West Beach, and there’s a man. He was just lying on the sand. He’s not conscious, but he’s breathing. My dog found him.”
The call handler asked her to stay with him and advised her that an ambulance was on its way.
“Ok. Should I do anything? Should I check to see if he has ID?”
As she asked, she was already gently feeling his pockets. She gasped and dropped her phone as his hand darted upwards, grabbing her wrist tightly.
She tried to pull back against his grip, but he was strong. Too strong for a man who was unconscious on the sand. She looked at his face.
“Sir, please – ”
She stopped as the most unique pair of blue eyes stared back at her. His face was unchanged, but he looked straight at her. A stare like one she had never experienced. She pulled her hand back against his vice-like grip, and he let go.
“Ma’am, are you there?” came a voice from her now discarded mobile phone, which lay upturned on the sand. “Is he awake? The emergency vehicle is nearly with you.”
“Yes, yes, he’s just – ” she stopped again and looked back at his face, heart racing as she scooped her phone off the ground. His eyes were closed. His face was again slack, as if that had not happened at all. “He was. I think he was. I don’t know. He grabbed my arm, but now he’s…”
As she drawled off, not finishing her sentence, she heard sirens on the nearby access road, closest to where they were.
She stood up and waved, leashing Shadow as she went, as the two paramedics ran towards them with their medical kits slung over their backs.
The man lay on the sand, motionless, chest softly rising and falling as if he were asleep.
***************
Alianna had a lot of plans for her day off work today, but sitting in the hospital while being interviewed by police about a mysterious man she found on the beach was not one of them.
“And you’re certain there was nobody else in the area with this man?” the officer asked her as he skimmed over the notes he had taken.
“As I said, it was just my dog and me, going for our morning walk,” Alianna explained for the third time, “he wasn’t moving, there was nobody else around, I was standing in the sea when Shadow found him and started barking. Are there any missing people that match his description?”
“No,” muttered the officer. He’d written down details about the man’s features – with the man himself now in a hospital bed in the next room, and doctors buzzing around him, making observations about his health.
The police had described him as being about six feet and two inches tall (although it was hard to say for sure with him lying down), with black hair, Caucasian, light blue eyes, wearing dark clothing.
He had no identification that they could find, and she certainly hadn’t seen any on the beach.
She thought about the description of his eyes – light blue.
They weren’t wrong, but there was something about them.
They were a sort of pastel, with a depth to them that she hadn’t seen in a person before.
Almost unearthly. But then, everything had happened so quickly. Maybe they were just glazed over.
“We have everything we need here for now. Thank you for your time, ma’am.
If you remember anything else or want to add anything, you know how to contact us.
” The police officer closed his notepad, tucked it into his pocket, and gave a short nod before walking away with his partner and rounding the corridor, out of sight.
What to do now? She couldn’t just…go. Was this man alright?
Alianna stood outside his hospital room, pacing in front of the chair she had been sitting on. A doctor appeared in the doorway to her left, exiting his room, and gave her a kind smile.
“You’re the woman who found him, aren’t you? Are you a friend of his?”
“No,” she said shortly, “I’m not, but…is he okay?”
“Well,” started the doctor, folding his arms and leaning back against the wall behind them.
“We can’t find any signs of injury. His observations are all normal.
Brilliant, in fact, for somebody who isn’t conscious.
So, we aren’t sure exactly what has caused him to be in his current state.
We might know more when he wakes up, but right now we have no immediate concerns. ”
She shuffled on her feet, unsure what to say and still not able to bring herself to leave.
The doctor sensed her unease. “You can go and see him, if you’d like to. I’ll bring you a hot drink, and something to eat. You must be hungry by now.”
Alianna smiled at the doctor’s warmth and his perceptiveness. That, or he had heard her stomach rumbling. “I’d like that. Thank you. Anything you can find is fine, but a cup of tea would be great.”
“A cup of tea, coming up. I might even be able to manage a biscuit to go with that.”
Alianna nodded her thanks as she peered around the doorway into the man’s room.
He was linked up to a machine monitoring his heart rate, which, as the doctor had said, seemed fine, if the beeping of the monitor was anything to go by.
She knew absolutely nothing about medicine, but she’d heard these things on television before.
She stepped towards his bed and studied his face, now free of sand and salt.
He was stunning. A sort of ethereal handsomeness that stole her breath.
His hair had dried, flecks of sand still visible, and shone under the artificial lighting of the room.
She looked down at his clothes. He’d been changed out of his attire and was now wearing a hospital gown.
His wristband merely said ‘name unknown’.
Alianna breathed a heavy sigh and sat down next to his bed, not really sure what she was doing here. There was a knock on the open door, and the doctor returned.
“It’s not the best, but it’s food,” he said, placing a tray down on the table in the corner of the room.
“A cheese sandwich, a cup of tea, and one of my own personal digestive biscuits. You are welcome,” he finished, giving her a coy smile.
“We will be nearby if you need anything else, but if his state changes, let us know.”
Alianna thanked the doctor again as he exited the room. She hastily shoved the digestive biscuit into her mouth, barely pausing to take a bite, letting out a quiet groan of relief at finally getting her hands on something to eat.
Alianna jumped as she heard a noise – a voice – to her left.
She looked at the man, still lying in his hospital bed, eyes now open and looking straight at her.
“Oh, my goodness, sir, it’s good that you’re awake.
I’m Alianna – Ali. I found you on the beach, and you weren’t conscious,” she garbled, speaking quickly as she stood from her chair, brushing biscuit crumbs onto the floor.
“The doctors have said you’re alright, they can’t find any injuries, but maybe you can tell them what happened to you? I’ll go to get them now.”
He said something again, made some sort of noise. She couldn’t understand him.
“Can you say that again? I’m having trouble hearing you.”
He made the noise one more time. More of a string of noises, now.
“Hang on. I’ll get the doctors. Maybe they can help us.”
Alianna left the room, and she heard the man sigh as she did so.
“Doctor? Hello? He’s awake, I think he might be trying to speak, but his vocal cords are damaged or something?” Her voice echoed down the hallway as she called for the doctor. Unable to see one anywhere, she went in search of somebody to help.