There’s almost nothing, for as far as you can see.
You’ve pulled yourself from the gnashing tide and now stand dripping, content in the coarseness of the sand. You breathe heavy, wind on your back, barely free of bleary eyes. You scoff at each wave that gnaws your ankles, try to trudge out of it before it can pull you back in. You slurp blood from your cut lip… or is it from the drip in your head… You can’t tell, but you know you don’t want to feel the bite of those rocks again.
A little further and you crest a small, tweedy dune. Its hardy grass lashes you, tries to grip to the salt on your skin, irritates. You stomp it down, carve a path. Now you’re on softer grass, punctuated by sharp stones that grow and grow until you’ve reached gravel. It hurts when the stones cut your feet, but you’re too numb to care. You drip a trail.
Soon, you approach something blisteringly white. Ancient carvings, manmade constellation. Roadlines. You trace them in both directions with your gaze. Nothing. You’re still breathing heavy, still dripping. Dying.
And yet you could be so close to being on the other side of it.
You look left, then right, then left, then right again, until you’ve forgotten the meaning of direction. And then you pick one, and you walk until that loses meaning too.