Edge of Twilight

It was one of those days when the air just felt weird, you know? Like something was gonna happen, but you weren't sure if you should be excited or get the heck out of wherever you were.\ \ Ethan Moore felt it the second he locked the door of the small classroom where he taught art at the local community college. Something was in the wind, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was because he'd been wanting a change, something more than just explaining brush techniques to students that may as well have been looking for an easy elective.\ \ Trudging back to his one-bedroom cottage by the rocky coastline, Ethan brushed against something unusual sticking out of his mailbox. A heavy rectangular package, wrapped in plain brown paper with no return address.\ \ Three hours later, he sat staring at the cracked thing lying on his kitchen table: an old medallion glinting in the fading light, revealing intricate symbols. Along with it, an unsigned note, sketched in messy block letters: "The cliffs remember what you've forgotten."\ \ "What the hell?" Ethan muttered to himself, holding the medallion like it was going to bite him.\ \ Curiosity might've killed a few cats, but Ethan always figured he'd be alright as long as he took things slow. So he did what anyone would do: hit the library.\ \ Under the soft hum of fluorescent lights, Ethan dove into old newspapers and town records, uncovering stories that seemed to surround that very spot where rocky cliffs met the ocean. A woman had disappeared purportedly from those cliffs years back. Missing, they said, but they all suspected something more grisly.\ \ Ethan's eyes couldn't help but find the medallion each time he glanced over. There was something about the way the worn metal glinted that reminded him of things he'd buried deep — memories blurred with time until they were just feelings.\ \ Just then, it hit him — high school. How could he have forgotten? He remembered days on the cliffs with Brad, who loved to dare impossible climbs and kept talking of "cursed treasures."\ \ Swarmed with a mix of nostalgia and dread, Ethan ventured out the next day. The air, for what it was worth, felt lighter, more open, as if some weight he carried was ebbing away.\ \ Walking along the ragged path, it crept back, that unease built into the sea air. He was halfway there when someone shouted his name from a distance. Abigail, the town's innkeeper, waved as she caught up breathless, her red hair swirling around her like seaweed gilding into blurred flashes.\ \ "Hey stranger, funny bumping into you here," she said, forcing a smile, and he wondered how much energy she was hiding behind those eyes.\ \ "You ever see anything like this?" Ethan asked. As soon as the medallion caught her eye, Abigail took a step back and the air felt like it had dropped a degree.\ \ "Good God, that's Judith's. Everyone knows of her in town. I haven't seen that since —," she murmured, trailing off. Her caution made him clam up. "Brad mentioned it once, right before he disappeared."\ \ Now this was news. Ethan thought Brad had traveled west for better prospects, but his name lingered like a mantra over the cliffs. Everything partner to partner in snatches and whispers folks hush when strangers are listening.\ \ The puzzle pieces kept tumbling into an image he thought he'd never see, but only sort of did, though it seemed to shudder under ever-changing angles. No good thing could come by playing double agent within his own instincts, but he slid deeper.\ \ For weeks Ethan pieced together connections — friends he'd long forgotten, acquaintances with winks like half-promises, dealings over liquor-soaked promises solid in daylight only until the waves claimed them back. Somehow everything tied to the medallion — tied to Judith and Brad more deeply than he imagined.\ \ Pushing on felt like peeling away layers of his own skin. Each night, the winds whispered louder. Letters at the cliff marked secrets — wavering etchings they'd left there trying to make everything last.\ \ Then suddenly, silence. Letters gone, medallion lost, Brad's true fate lied deeper. The illusion of mishaps and everyday mights unveiled own truth even Ethan couldn't quite grasp.\ \ "Ethan, are you sure about this?" Abigail's voice cut through ocean chants around the cliffs where they now stood, bracing against winds they couldn't see yet swept behind their heels.\ \ He sighed, shaking head — some agreement more than resolve. Holding her gaze as long scar clinged to older games.\ \ It could only be heard fleeting if unseen nearly, timeless, as forgotten markers closed for time being — until that man chased down echoes in calming dimples of twilight, steeling themselves for slow dance destiny bound.\ \ Although with no final curtain as horizons would guide to futures unforeseen — closing days washed upon hopes softly silent rumbling depths.