I could start by telling you that I was walking through the city only three blocks from the beach, on Juliet Ave. I remember walking towards that cafe, Leo's cafe. It is such a vivid memory. I remember specifically reading the number of the old apartment building the cafe was in. It was in broad, golden lettering, reading, "205 Juliet Avenue."

I took my place at the table in the far corner where I usually sat, watching people that I found interesting. Maybe I was looking for people I would like to meet. It seemed that the right time for me to meet them never came, no matter how long I waited. It didn't seem to be too bad, a feeling that gave me a hardened sense of sonder, staring at these people. It's what I liked to do: daydreaming, at the very least. I dreamt of new lives to intertwine with my own.
The place my story starts is not this corner of the cafe that I happen to visit so often, but the bathroom. It was a small bathroom, with only one toilet and sink. There was nothing special about it, except for the fact that you couldn't open the door the whole way without it bumping into the toilet. As I was washing my hands, I looked into the mirror that was tilted slightly upwards. It drew my attention to the ceiling of the bathroom, which I had never noticed before. There were many times prior to this that I had viewed my own reflection in that bathroom. I'm not sure if I happened to get a couple of inches shorter or if my own attentiveness had improved since the last time I saw myself through that mirror.
The ceiling tiles were striped, four of them. I remember them being about three feet by three feet. What caught my attention was the one tile with opposing stripes, as if it had been turned, or tampered with. It wouldn't have necessarily bothered me, but I decided I would make things a little more interesting, so I decided to take a closer look. I wiped the bottom of my shoes and stood on the toilet seat. I reached my hands up to the ceiling and pressed my hands against the tile. To my surprise, it slipped right out of its place, with only a little pressure, almost causing me to slip. As I regained my balance, I stared deeper into the hole. It was mostly black, except for one, small ribbon of light that seemed as if it were several yards away. I grabbed ahold of the metal framing that held the tiles and hoisted myself into the hole in the ceiling. It didn't feel very sturdy. I felt around and my hand ran into what seemed to be the first rung of a ladder. I grasped tightly to the metal. It was damp and rusty to the touch. I made sure not to slip as I lifted myself further into the dark room. I put the tile back into it's place only because I assumed the person who was here last had intended for this to be a secret.
I continued my incline up the ladder, which was cold, and had a weird smell to it. One that made me light-headed. As I climbed, rung by rung, I could feel my vision becoming more and more blurred. It was a surreal feeling, one that gave me what seemed to be some kind of high. What was happening didn't seem real. I ignored my sense of dreaminess and continued to climb. It seemed like I had been climbing for a while, yet the sliver of light had not gotten any bigger. I stared at it more, and blinked once or twice. After opening my eyes a third time, the light was right in front of my eyes, blinding almost. It was sunlight seeping through what I believed was a hatch. I put my hand up to lift it. It was incredibly heavy and took a good bit of force to open completely.
I stumbled out of the passageway onto a rooftop. As soon as the light hit me, I was no longer light-headed and sprung back into a sense of reality. I looked straight ahead to see a girl standing near the edge of the roof.  She was turned in my direction, and staring directly at me. She must have heard the hatch slam open. The sunlight dripped down her face and I was able to see her brown eyes and curly dark hair, almost like the mane of a lion. I stood the whole way up and noticed that the sun was beginning to set. I don't know how much time had passed climbing up the ladder, but it was nowhere near the time of sunset when I had begun to climb.
I knew when I saw her that it was the perfect time to introduce myself. I walked over to her to greet her, but when I became close enough to smell her, the words escaped my head and I was left with an empty mouth, wide open.
She just stared at me, and I stared back. The only thing there to break the silence was her question:
"What are you doing up here?"
"Uhh, I just kind of ventured out and I ended up here I guess," I responded, unsure of my reply.
"No one really comes up here but me. How did you find it?"
"One of the ceiling tiles in the bathroom wasn't facing the same direction as the others." I didn't know if I should have told her that or not.
"What a simple mistake. Welcome to the roof of Leo's," she replied, with a smile stretching across her face.
I was happy to find that she welcomed me to the space that appeared to belong to her. I turned my attention towards the edge of the building. I looked down at the ground only to find that we were what looked to be seven or eight stories above the ground. The apartment building that the cafe was in was only three stories tall. At least that's how it seemed from street level. I backed away from the edge quickly, startled.
"Yeah, it's pretty crazy how much your perception changes as soon as you crawl through that ceiling," she said.
I nodded, still in amazement of this hypnagogic roof. I couldn't comprehend it.  I turned around and leaned up against the edge of the building. She turned and lifted herself up onto it and sat down.
"What's your name?" She asked me. I was soothed by the vibrations of her voice.
"M-Mason," I answered with a stutter.
"Okay, Mason." she pushed herself off of the wall and walked in front of me. She was very enthusiastic at this moment. "There's this place in the ocean," she pointed into the distance behind me.
I turned and looked in the direction she was pointing.
"You see that area just past the barrier rope? Where it almost seems to be a greenish color?"
I looked further into the distance and saw just what she was talking about.
I nodded. "Yeah, what about it?'
"Have you ever been there?" She seemed serious.
"No, I haven't. I'm not really one to swim," I replied.
"You should sometime. I tend to like it over there." She smiled and looked towards the ground.
I thought of her picturing this place in the ocean.
"What is it, exactly?" I asked.
She looked in my direction, with a smirk on her face that told me that she had something, a secret, that no one else knew about.
"You'll have to go and see," she started. "You'd be surprised."
She turned around and took a few paces. Her hands were intertwined.
"I haven't told anyone else about this place, but you showed up here, so maybe you're special."
She turned and began walking back towards the hatch from which I arose from.
I pushed off the wall and motioned towards her.
"Wait!" I insisted.
She opened the hatch and began crawling inside.
"Who are you?" I called after her.
She looked up at me and smiled again, before submerging into the dark pit.
I wasn't too far behind her, sliding through the hatch. I heard the door slam above me and all light that shone below was diminished. I was suddenly alone, and in one instant, I felt high, dreamlike again. My head spun and I lost grip of the rung my right hand was on. I could feel the insides of my chest lift up as I fell towards what I was unsure of. Falling was overwhelming. The cool air rushed around my body, wrapping me in an algid coat. I lost consciousness in the process.

~

I woke up in my own bedroom. A bedroom in an apartment just blocks away from Leo's cafe. As I sat up, my head pounded and my vision went blurry for a moment. Other than that, I felt fine. I gave myself a minute to decide whether the rooftop of Leo's was a dream or not. It wasn't at all clear to me what the verdict was, so I went with what I wanted to believe.
I stood up and paced through my room as the thought of this girl pondered my head. She left me with only an image in my head. Not even confirmation of her legitimacy. The thought in my head was sweet though, a soft and calming topic to rest my head on. I came to my senses as the morning went on. I slid a new shirt on my back along with a pair of sneakers on my feet, but I didn't bother to change my pants.
I made my way towards the cafe again, much like I did the last time. Except this time, I didn't take the time to sit in the corner of the room, but went straight to the bathroom instead. Staring up at the ceiling, the tiles were all in line. I stood on the toilet seat again to press on the tiles. One slipped right up and a cold breeze immediately flew out, giving me chills all down my body. I pulled myself into the gap.
The process of making it to the roof was no different than it was last time. It was still damp, dark, and mind-bending. My head spun in circles on the way up. It still seemed like hours that I spent in there. I made sure to grasp onto each rung completely, to avoid falling. I couldn't see them, but I was sure my knuckles were bright white.
The roof, once again was covered by a deep orange, painted by the sun itself. I had begun my ascent in the late morning, but it was now evening. Sunset. I looked over to where I saw her last time. No one was there. The whole rooftop was empty. I made my way to where we had conversed, leaning over the edge again. I was discouraged by my failure to find her. I leaned forward on the wall, looking to the ocean. I looked at the green patch, floating in the same place it was before. It was at that instant that I decided to go to this spot in the ocean. I clung to the possibility of her being there.
Slowly, I came down the ladder back to the bathroom of the cafe. I walked outside into the humid evening. The street lights illuminated everything as soon as I stepped outside the cafe. They shone over the road perpendicular to Juliet Avenue. The path to the beach was a straight shot, down the road. I walked directly in the center; no cars interrupted my journey.
The sand was warm on my toes. As the sun set, the lifeguards left their stands and walked in the opposite direction as me. The sun was almost completely gone by now, leaving a chromatic sea shaped by the warm and dry hands of the light rays. The water was thick, yet warm at the touch. The boundary rope stretched out thirty or forty yards. Just beyond that was my destination, now a deep green. As I reached water that surpassed my waist, I began to swim, burying my head in the burly waters.
It was nice, swimming again. Despite my slight fear of drowning, I liked it. I continued, slipping under the barrier. I made it to the spot in the water she had told me of. I stayed there, treading for a short while. Nothing seemed special about the spot at all. Nothing was different about the water, nor did I feel out of the ordinary. I grew tired of treading, and my head began to slip into the water. As my ears bobbed in and out of the water, the noises of the outside world disappeared. I straightened my body and submerged completely.
Under the water, I heard a faint noise. As I listened closer, I could recognize it as a song, a song that seemed to have a pleasant hum to it. The water became colder as I fell deeper into the green waters. The colder it was, the louder the music was. I opened my eyes and at first was startled by the salt stinging my eyes. Once they adjusted, I noticed that even this deep into the water, it was still a noticeable green. I looked around at my surroundings and saw her, right beside me.
Her eyes were wide open, staring directly at me. It was at this moment that I felt more lucid than I ever had. Everything made sense, no matter how indescribable these recent events of my life were. All I could see was her face, glowing in the water, her brown eyes sparkling more than the water itself was. She floated right in front of me, with a slight smile. Everything surrounding us seemed to glow, illuminating her complexion for me to fully admire. A chill ran through my body, yet it was not from the cooling water.
I couldn't tell how long we were there for and I didn't have the urge to breath. Time appeared to have stopped in that moment, everything moving slowly. The water dropped in temperature and with it the music grew louder. We could have been fifty feet deep by that time. She took my hand and swam upward towards the surface of the ocean. The music faded slowly. We reached the top and with our heads out of the water, a cool breeze blew across our faces. It was completely dark by then, a resplendent sky filled with an infinite amount of stars stretched before our eyes. Cold air filled my lungs as I inhaled heavily.
"Pretty incredible right?" her voice was louder than the surrounding noise and made my heart beat just a little bit faster.
"Amazing," I said back to her.
"How do you feel right now?" She asked me.
"I feel so," I paused, "blissful."
She smiled at me, water drops dripping from her hair. We treaded in the water, the cold breeze kept me awake through the alluring night. How mysterious.

~

I woke up back in my bed again. This time I was not to wait around. As I took the first few breaths of my morning, I pulled a shirt over my head which shook salt and sand out of my hair. I wasn't hungry at all, even though I hadn't since before all this started happening. I made my way out of my apartment once again, headed towards the cafe. From all that had happened to me recently, I'd programmed my brain to not have any expectations for anything. The world, a curious being, fiddling with the image of reality.

~

I pushed on the latch and soaked in the sunlight that shone on me from the roof. I had entered the bathroom mid-morning, yet I approached the magic of the top of the building during a beautiful sunset. A concept I didn't bother tampering with. I looked in all directions, and she was not there. Not sitting on the edge, or staring off into the ocean, or running down the hatch avoiding my questions. She was gone.
Again, I ventured to the beach. The sun was falling fast and a cool, evening chill came in contact with my body. I emerged into the water, swimming faster than I did yesterday. For some reason, things seemed odd at this time. I felt uneasy with every move I made. Crossing the barrier rope, I swam into the green oasis, immediately sinking myself into the water. The song, still unknown to me, played again and was faint in the distance. I opened my eyes and only saw green. A deep green as far as my eyes could see. It was a relaxing sight, although she was not there with me. The music soothed me as it rang in my ears.
I could feel the water becoming colder as the music echoed in my head, louder and louder by the second. My eyes grew heavy and began to close, shutting out the deep shade of green from my sight. I was sinking, and this time with no one to pull me back up. I was relaxed, and felt content with closing my eyes. As my sight went black and the music now pounding in my head, I felt my body collide with what I believe was the bottom of the ocean. A bed upon which to lay my head.
I felt a hand on my chest, warm fingertips on my collarbone. It was difficult to pull my eyes open, but when I did, I saw her. She sat at the bottom of the ocean along with me. Her eyes were glowing and she spoke.
"I'm happy to see you here."
I inhaled immensely, yet my lungs did not fill with water.
This brings me to the moment we are in right now. I am sitting at the bottom of the ocean, my eyes wide open gazing at an open field of green. Her warmth is cast upon me, a yin to the yang that is the cold ocean floor. An abstruse series of events has brought me here, a place in which I could never imagine myself to be. My mind and vision were filled with an extensive amount of beauty and I couldn't help but smile.