He walked along the beach, so early in the morning that the sun had not yet peaked over the horizon. The sand was warm between his toes, and the cool tide splashed against his heels with every step.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his foot as he took another step. He quickly raised his foot from the pain of the burning sand rubbing into his wound. As he fell and sat back, examining his foot, he looked to see most of a broken coke bottle half buried in the sand.

A rage burned in him as he stared at the piece of trash, and he decided to pick it up and throw it away. He reached down, and his fingers brushed against the glass.

A lifetime of abuse and neglect flashed before his eyes. The child starved in his bedroom, the dark and loneliness creeping closer, her head tucked into her knees.

He saw the arguments of drunken parents, the rage that was taken out on the girl.

He saw the father sneaking into her room at night, smelling of whiskey, weeping quietly as he approached her small form in the bed.

He saw the attempt to put it all behind, the spur-of-the-moment vacation.

He saw the dead eyes of the quiet girl.

He saw the couple sitting on the beach in the early hours of the morning, saw the tide splash against their toes.

He saw the girl smash the end of the coke bottle and embed it in their necks.

He saw the sudden riptide whisk their bodies into deeper waters.

He saw the girl wander into the waves to join her parents, a dark figure holding her hand, guiding her.

He stumbled back from the bottle, a small scream escaping his lips. A long shadow stretched over him as he sat weeping in the sand, the silhouette of the dark figure reaching out to him.

He saw.