***
The waves of the sea, whether gentle or fierce, carried the ring to and fro. Because of its small size, no larger than a fish's head, the fish would constantly peck at it, hoping for a meal. But when it didn't taste good, they would give up and swim away. The ring faced many threats on its journey. Sometimes it would get caught in the trash of the sea, spending years entangled within it. Other times it would nest under hot or cold sands on various shores, only to return to the embrace of the water once again.
The ring knew little of this new world, other than how fiercely its sharks hunted for fish. There were times when the ring would see, from a dangerously close distance, how the sharks' teeth sank into the soft flesh of small, innocent fish.
In all the years it had spent adventuring through the oceans and seas, it hadn't seen even a hundredth of what a human adventurer would. If it could speak, it probably would have mastered the language of the fish as well.
Now, after about a hundred years of exploring the depths of seas and oceans, it once again burrowed beneath the warm, comfortable sands of a European shore. There weren't many people there. Some men and women in brightly colored shorts and various bikinis were swimming in the water or playing volleyball on the beach. The sand was so smooth and clean that none of them even wore sandals. Each grain sparkled in the sunlight. Despite it being a beach, there were no crabs in sight.
Farther from the shore, between the sea and the forest behind it, stood long iron watchtowers. People in spotted green uniforms—which must have been hot in that summer weather—were standing with sniper rifles and holding binoculars. It seemed they were tasked with guarding the people on the beach, who were completely unaware of anything, enjoying themselves and laughing loudly.
However, one of them, instead of watching the area around the beach, especially the forest full of large, leafy trees, was leering at the bottoms and chests of young women under twenty, a smirk on his lips.
On the other side of the beach, unlike most people, a teenage boy with hairless, smooth legs—not so strange for a boy just entering puberty—wore old sneakers that sank into the soft sand.
The sand got in through the small openings and cracks in the fabric of his shoes, giving the boy a rough feeling. It was as if he were walking barefoot on a carpet made of sandpaper. Still, he had no choice but to endure it. From his appearance and the keen expression on his face, it was clear he hadn't come to the beach for fun.
He held a long, white device that beeped constantly. He dragged it back and forth across the beach's sands. Every so often, the device would begin to beep furiously, causing the teenager to quickly quiet it and pull a small hand shovel from his backpack.
His backpack, like his shoes, looked dirty and worn. Yet, thanks to its good quality, it was able to hold a variety of metal, cloth, and plastic objects, making it a decent carrier for the young boy. It could even hold a bottle for him in a yellow-colored pocket on the side. However, the teenager had chosen to keep his water bottle inside one of the backpack's compartments, rather than exposing it to the hot summer air.
With the gray shovel in his hand, he began digging through the sand. It only took a moment for him to hit something metal. He didn't even need the shovel to find it.
When he brushed away a small amount of the sand covering it, he saw the barrel of a gun, which was almost completely rusted. A small fear came over him, and he quickly hid it under the sand again. He glanced calmly, and seemingly coolly, at the nearby watchtowers, then grabbed his device and started searching again. The questions of who the gun belonged to and what it was doing there were fleeting thoughts that he quickly shook from his mind.
It wasn't long before the device beeped again. This time he didn't use the shovel. He began digging in that small area with his hand until a crab suddenly gripped his fingers tightly with its claw. The teenager yelped and backed away. The crab was still stuck to two of his fingers. From its small size, it was clear that it was just a baby, one of those mischievous, jack-of-all-trades little ones.
With his other hand, he placed two of his fingers between the crab's claws to pry them apart by force.
Once the crab fell, the teenager moved it away to let it find its way back to the sea. His fingers were a little wounded and bleeding, but it seemed superficial.
Besides that, his hands, like his bag and shoes, were dirty and dusty. There were several black smudges under his nails that even he couldn't bear to look at. Still, he had to continue his work with such hands.
He went back to the small hole he had dug a moment ago. He dug a little more until he found a can of fish, whose writing he could barely make out. "Atlas Canned Fish, without chemical preservatives." Only a '6' was legible from the production date, and a four-digit number from the expiration date: 2164.
The teenager was disappointed when he realized what trouble he had gone through for a can of tuna. He tossed the can into the transparent layer of seawater that was constantly sliding over the beach sand. Then, after years of being a prisoner, the can entered the clear water of the sea and moved beyond the dry land.
The boy let out a sigh of disappointment. He looked ahead. More than the men and boys his age who were playing with or without their shirts on, he found himself staring at the girls, most of whom had tight bikinis and slender or fit bodies. With every movement they made, something stirred within the teenage boy, something he was ashamed to feel. As he tried to avert his gaze from a teenage girl with a blue bra, the exact same color as her hair, he picked up his device and turned around. He took a few steps away from the thin layer of seawater. After a few steps back, he turned his device back on and began searching for objects under the sand once more.
The stinging in his finger was still there, bothering him. He kept licking the spot with his tongue, holding the slight trickle of blood from the torn skin in his mouth before spitting it out.
The hot summer sun danced overhead. The air had become so warm that every sound of a wave crashing against the sand tempted him to dive headfirst into the water without even taking off his clothes. But when he remembered the work he had to do—the artifacts he had to collect—he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to push those thoughts away.
He struggled to find his water bottle among the tools piled up in his backpack.
Amid the clutter, there was a small pickaxe, nylon bags, nano-gloves that he didn't believe in wearing, a brush and a cleaning brush that looked a bit dusty, a hammer and pliers, and a single-lens camera.
Among all of these, there were also miscellaneous objects inside a nylon bag, whose nature was not clearly visible because they were beneath the other metal objects.
He didn't need any of those things right now. He pulled the bottle out from among the pliers. Only about half a handful of water was left inside. When he drank it all at once, he frowned, feeling a little sick from how warm it was. He tossed the empty bottle back into the bag and zipped it shut.
Then he held his device near the sand to get it beeping again. With every step he took, the device kept beeping softly. It took almost two minutes for the continuous, loud beep to replace his frown with an expression of surprise as he stared at the spot.
The location was closer than any he had searched before to one of the watchtowers on the east side of the beach. He sat down, and just as he was about to dig into the sand with his hands, he remembered the crab and quickly decided to pull the shovel from his bag. But he couldn't find it. He looked around, and there was no sign of the shovel. He remembered that when he'd been caught by the crab, he had forgotten to put it back in his backpack. He seemed worried that he had lost it. He searched his bag for another digging tool. He absolutely didn't want to dig into the beach with his hands again, so in place of the shovel he had lost, he used a pickaxe, whose worn-out appearance showed it had worked like an obedient slave for years.
He gently pushed the head of the pickaxe into the sand, pushing the grains aside. He did this carefully, so as not to strike the object beneath the sand. Artifacts are delicate and old, so this caution was a requirement of the job.
Only a few moments passed before a loud siren blared from the speakers installed all along the beach. The same guard who had been leering at the teenage girls from the watchtower now, with a microphone in his hands, said in a nervous and shaky voice, "Evacuate the beach! Evacuate the beach. A group of zombies is heading towards the shore."
It wasn't long before the calm, pleasant atmosphere among the people turned into terror and panic. Men and women fled in whatever clothes they were wearing, or not wearing. They scooped up their children onto their shoulders or into their arms, paying no attention to their belongings.
Among the trees of the forest, the zombies were walking slowly and patiently. They were unbalanced, constantly swaying from side to side. Their heads and bodies were covered in claw marks, gashes, and blood. Some even had parts of the flesh torn from their faces, revealing their skulls.
What was surprising among them were the shorter zombies, who had fewer wounds on their faces than the others. Most of them were completely naked, walking through the forest. But they suddenly increased their speed. They could smell a pleasant scent from the beach—something that promised them a fresh meal.
Upon hearing the announcement and seeing the panicked crowd flee, the teenage boy put the pickaxe aside and, against his will, began digging at the spot on the beach he had started on. Moments later, he reached a ring with a blue gem set in rusted metal. He didn't even have time to look at it carefully or put it in a nylon bag. He quickly put the ring in his pocket and slung his backpack over his shoulders.
After he had walked a few steps away from the beach, he remembered he had left the pickaxe behind. He hurried back to get it. He didn't even bother putting it back in his bag and just held it in his hand. He walked away a few more steps and stopped again. He looked back. He approached the water and began searching for the same hole he had dug before.
It was at that moment that the small group of zombies entered the beach. There were seven of them: six men and one child, all of them carefully scanning the entire beach for any signs of a living creature. But the people were far away now, and perhaps no longer in danger. Still, one of the zombies noticed the teenage boy. When it saw him standing by the water, hiding something behind his back and staring at it, it lunged toward him with quick steps. It fell a few times on the sand, as if walking on it was harder for them than for a normal person.
The teenage boy knew the threat before him all too well. They were the walking dead, and if they bit a human or if their blood touched your skin, in less than a day you would turn into a savage creature that threatened humanity. So he ran with all his might, putting distance between himself and them.
To get off the beach, there were stone stairs at certain points, and fortunately, one wasn't far from him. Suddenly, the loud sound of a gunshot rang out. This sound made the zombies even more frantic. They themselves were confused about the source of the sound until they looked up and saw the guards on the watchtowers aiming long sniper rifles at them.
"Motherfucker..."
The sound of another gunshot made the teenage boy flinch. Despite his distance from the towers, the sheer volume of the shot made him duck his head and instinctively shrug his shoulders every time he heard it.
The bullet went straight into the brain of the walking dead. It seemed things were under control. Even though there were only six of them, they had managed to ruin the fun and happiness of at least fifty people.
The teenage boy climbed the stone steps and reached the top of the beach. It seemed he was safe for now. He held the device and the pickaxe and walked more slowly. He stopped and placed his backpack on a flat rock. He first put the pickaxe inside the bag and then the antique gun he had found under the sand.