Fine silvery sand jumped into Michael Salazar’s shoes as he trudged up the path to civilization, but he did not notice. Seagulls swarmed overhead, and sandpipers ran companionably alongside the forlorn professor. He reached the top of the dunes and estimated a 3 mile walk to civilization. After emptying his shoes from sand, Michael remembered his cellphone in his back pocket. To his amazement, he had full signal and battery life even after being submerged in ocean water.
His colleague Kaitlyn was still on assigned speed dial. The phone rang several times, then disconnected. Michael frantically kept trying to redial but had no success. Finally, he gave up on calling her for rescue and resumed putting one foot in front of the other. When his cell phone rang, it shocked him, and he tripped over a scattering of rocks in his path. He put his hands down in time to save from face planting, but severely pierced his left hand on a very sharp object sticking out of the silvery sand. At first, Michael thought it was a metal fragment of construction material. He was forced to wrap his hand in his shirt to staunch the bleeding. Then he yanked the offending object out of the sand and caught his breath.
Michael knew it was pure silver. He knew she was a water deity but not specifically which.
