Swish, swish, swish. The sound of the gentle morning waves echo in my ear. I walk down the Cape Cod beach, pale sand cushioning my feet. Duffy, my black lab, skips in front of me. The sun leaves white spots of reflection on his dark coat. Sand flies behind him as he runs toward the turquoise water. While my dog swims under the morning sun, I place my striped towel on the sand, preparing a comfortable spot to drink my tea. No one else is here, since it is only seven forty-five in the morning, but the warm, dewy air keeps me company. I could have sat there forever.
  My tranquility is interrupted by the loud barks of my dog. He lets out loud yelps as he looks at the sky. I tell him to quiet down, but his barking doesn’t cease. Of course, he is as stubborn as usual.  I follow his line of sight into the sky. At first, I see nothing out of the ordinary as my eyes travel the perimeter of visible sky, but then I see a minute, black mass. I do a double-take and realize that this is not my eyes playing tricks on me. There is a black orb in the center of the horizon. It is so dark that my eyes can barely recognize that i am looking at a physical entity, not into a vast hole of nothingness. I watch it get larger and closer to the beach. The sky seems to indent inward toward this mass, as if it is being sucked into it. I then realize that the sky is not the only thing being vacuumed into this dark spot.
“Duffy come!” I frantically scream. “Here, boy!”
Just like earlier, Duffy just replies with more obstinance.
Ocean water ascends to the sky while Duffy continues to fearfully bark. After a few more shouts, Duffy finally stops barking, but only because he was beginning to lift off the ground. His paws were only mere inches off the ground, yet that was enough to send me into full panic.  My mind was spinning. Do I save my dog, or do I save myself? I don’t even have time to fully think this out, when impulse takes over, making me run towards my doomed dog. In a few seconds, I am right at Duffy’s side. I reach for his collar, but I am unable to see anything. This dark mass has become the size of a school bus, and feels as if it will pull my arm out of its socket. It is becoming increasingly monstrous by the second. Hysterically, I move my hands side to side in an effort to find something tangible.
After what feels like hours, I grab on to a collar. I pull with as much force as humanly possible, saving Duffy from the grasp of the black hole.
We run from that sphere of death, through wind and debris. Particles of sand fly at my face, hindering my ability to see even more than before. I sprint blindly in the darkness, for the black hole acts as an obstruction of the sun’s light. Duffy follows as we desperately avoid our own peril, he has finally understood that my demands are in his best interest.
My feet and my whole body grow tired, but I continue to run. I have inhaled enough sand to make my own personal beach in my lungs. Tears well up in my eyes when I think about how close the end is. Graduating high school, going to college, getting a job, all of these major life events I will never get to experience. However, I forget about all of those things when I realize I never got to say goodbye to my parents or my friends and family. Loneliness is all I feel.
Duffy and I have ran almost a mile. I can’t do this anymore. My body is too weak. I see my dog tire as well. His steps begin to slow, just as mine have. I finally take the chance to look behind me, and realize that all of our efforts are in vain. Darkness has sucked up everything behind us, and we are nothing more than a few feet from this vacuum on steroids.  There is no chance of survival. When I see my feet start to lift of the ground, I know that my fight to get back on the group will be in vain, so I succumb to this black hole and let myself go. A single tear falls from my eye as we are lifted into the darkness, so black it could be mistaken for oblivion.