Clara stared at the shoreline, a hand on her hip, watching the glitches in the deep blue line at the horizon. She squinted, making sure it wasn't a trick of the eye.
The ocean was pixelating.
Huh.
There was a squelching sound behind her.
"What are you doing, Clara?"
Clara burst into laughter at the sight of Ashley.
He had unsuccessfully attempted to remove the octopus, giving him the time of his life, until it finally retreated into the water. Ashley was covered from head to toe in ink.
She wondered if the monster had also been enjoying itself. Inking was a sign of distress in cephalopods, but things seemed a little backward in this place!
"Yeah, yeah," he said, acknowledging that he desperately needed to splash off.
Clara had a gut-wrenching feeling that Ashley would fall right through when he dunked into the water, into some strange off-the-grid space he couldn't escape.
She hated those places in games. It always terrified her when she accidentally found a bug in the game or went out of bounds, when she found some area that she wasn't supposed to see.
Clara had a distinct memory of a game glitching once during an underwater level, gasping as she was caught in a blacked-out void instead of swimming, her character falling forever.
Something about it made her race to turn off her console.
Clara sighed in relief when Ashley buoyed back up seconds later, cleaner now, exposing the red suction cup marks laced all over his pale skin.
She huffed, a laugh.
That ain't washing off.
Ashley sat down cross-legged, the water crashing slowly against his torso. He was clearly exhausted after the ordeal with the octopus.
Meanwhile, Clara felt as though she were slowly coming out of a sexual haze. She blushed furiously as she remembered what she did to him.
Did she apologize? Had she been cognizant enough to tell right from wrong? She felt that she needed to say something regardless.
"Hey, um, Ash?"
Ashley turned.
"Sorry about earlier, you know, when I-"
