Shoreline Stories (part 1)

For all the people telling you that life starts after college, the six-hour car trip to Sunset Harbor was incredibly uneventful. The most interesting thing that happened on the entire trip was an Orc bumming a dollar off of you to buy some beef jerky in a convenience store and offering to take you back to her house. You declined and hurried back to your car before she got any more pissed and/or horny.

But now you’re in Sunset Harbor, and you’re standing outside the house you’re renting a room in. And it’s exactly what you’d think of if somebody told you to imagine a stereotypical beach house. Faded blue paint, a small metal anchor on the front lawn, a flag with a picture of a sailboat, and a sculpture of a pineapple on the porch (for whatever reason). The house is even right down the street from the beach.

Well, no point in putting off meeting the person who’ll be your housemate for the foreseeable future. Time to knock.

As you step onto the porch, you note that the knocker is a small copper octopus holding an anchor between its tentacles. Whoever owns this place sure loves the ocean. Or maybe they’re just doing it to make the town look appealing to the tourists. Either way, it’s kind of a pretty house.

You lift back the knocker and give a sharp knock on the door, and a voice calls out from inside the house “Be there in a second!”

A few seconds pass before an odd noise starts approaching the door from the other side. Almost like… slithering?

The door opens, you see that the person at the door has ocean-blue tentacles, and you’re suddenly hit by the realization that your housemate is a monster girl, something that she neglected to write in the Craigslist post.

A scylla, to be precise. Or is she a kraken? Aren’t krakens the pale and sticky ones? She’s not pale, and probably not sticky, so you’re assuming she’s a scylla.

Anyways, she’s rather pretty. Her tentacles are the same shade of blue as her house, and her black hair has navy blue and copper green highlights that match the rest of the house’s color. She’s also wearing a skirt above her tentacles, and a t-shirt with a picture of a pelican on it.

“Hey, you must be the guy renting my guest room. Welcome to Sunset Harbor, buddy. I’m Maria. It’s Anon, right?”

“Um, yeah. Nice to meet you, Maria.”

“Come on in, I’ll give you the grand tour. You may as well see where you’re gonna be living before you pay, right?”

“May as well.”

As you walk in, you notice a few keyboards on stands in the corner. Maria glances at them and waves a tentacle towards them.

“Don’t mind the mess, I was practicing earlier today and I still need to put them away. You into music?” she says nonchalantly.

“I like listening to music. Haven’t really played any music except for recorder when I was like 9.”

“Well, we all have to start somewhere. If you ever want piano lessons, let me know. Your room is right in here.”

Across from the keyboards is a wooden door with palm trees painted on it. A brass bell, the kind you’d see on an old galleon, hangs next to it.

“Sorry about all the ocean stuff. Most of it is from my great-aunt. She lived in a sunken ship and liked sending me gifts. The bell was one of them. And so was the anchor out front. Actually most of the little decorations are stuff she sent me.”

You tell Maria that you don’t mind at all, and she smiles.

“That’s good. If you don’t like the ocean, you’d be miserable here in Sunset Harbor. Beach town and all. Anyways, you have your own bathroom, and if you don’t like the bed, there’s a hammock in the closet that you can rig up. You can get settled in and I’ll head out and get subs or something for an early dinner.”

You try to protest, but she waves you aside.

“Don’t worry, man, I’ve got dinner. I mean, you’re paying rent, aren’t you? Subs here aren’t too expensive and I can cover it. You can unpack while I walk down. What kind do you want?”

A few minutes later, Maria’s off getting dinner, and you’ve unloaded your suitcase into an old dresser that looks like it’s straight off of the Titanic. Your room seems to be pretty nice and cozy, and the bed is comfortable enough that you won’t need the hammock. The window gives you a nice view of the beach, too.

As you look out on the sun and watch a few pelicans diving for fish, it hits you how beautiful Sunset Harbor really is.

Maria was right. It is a good thing that you like the ocean. But even if you hated water and sand, you’d probably still find yourself enjoying the view.