Third Campaigner Challenge - My Entry

I have entered the 3rd Campaigner Challenge hosted by Rachael at Rach Writes... The contest guideless are as follows:

Write a blog post in 300 words or less, excluding the title. The post can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should show:

• that it’s morning, 

• that a man or a woman (or both) is at the beach

• that the MC (main character) is bored

• that something stinks behind where he/she is sitting

• that something surprising happens.

Just for fun, see if you can involve all five senses AND include these random words: "synbatec," "wastopaneer," and "tacise."   (NB. these words are completely made up and are not intended to have any meaning other than the one you give them).

And here is my entry! I don't expect anything to happen, but it was a fun and creative exercise. Thanks Rach.

BONES

Keo knew it was morning because his watch told him so. It beeped six times, indicating the exact hour. She would be here in half an hour. Thirty minutes. Eighteen hundred seconds. Keo liked numbers. 

Beneath his bare toes the sand shifted and sucked. He stood at the edge of the surf, gazing out across the dark, restless waves. The air tasted bitter and stale, like potato chips left out at a picnic. There was a hint of something else in the stirring wind, something darker. Something synbatec.

Folding his skinny legs with their faint dusting of black hair beneath him Keo sat and began to count the bones sticking out of the sand. The surf had picked them clean and rubbed them smooth. He wanted to free them from their sand prison, to collect them and piece them back together one at a time, but that would be Tacise and so he left them untouched.

He smelled her before he saw her. Her scent was of lavender and rot, a familiar perfume that Keo had grown accustomed to over the years. Sometimes it was white oleander, sometimes cinnamon or pine trees, but the rot always lurked just under the surface. Try as they might, the Wastopaneer’s could never wash all the rot away.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked, standing and turning to face the girl. She was thin and pale, with wide blue eyes and purple lips that trembled.

“What happened to the sun?” she whispered, gazing up into the dark sky.

“There is no sun here.”

“Oh.”

“If you hold my hand it will be easier,” he said kindly.

Wordlessly the girl stepped forward and clasped his extended hand. She gripped it tightly, wrapping her fingers around his until her knuckles shone white, and together they walked into the waves.