“Yo, dudes, I told you! Is this place is fuckin’ perfect, or is this place fuckin’ perfect!?”
The big blond bro with the perfect full-body tan, a candy-apple red longboard slung over his shoulder, and zero thoughts whatsoever running through his head was the first on the beach. His two companions followed at a distance and looked approvingly at the pristine landscape, one jotting down notes and taking pictures nonstop.
“Damn, you weren’t kidding, Dyl… And you’re serious? Nobody knows about this beach?” the young man with the camera asked. Unlike his friend, he was rather pale, a hoodie pulled up over his dark black hair as he squinted into the sun trying to find his next perfect shot. “I mean, I don’t wanna say I don’t believe you, but this place is barely half an hour from town. Someone has to know about it.”
“Give us a break, Alec, you know we do our research. Plus, just look at that white sand,” the last of the trio spoke up brightly. His smooth, Asian complexion had turned the color of creamy tea in the noon sun and his dark brown eyes twinkled brightly as he surveyed the site. “Not a footprint or a beer can in sight. Nobody’s been here for decades. This beach is, by the law of the jungle at least, all ours.”
“Vince’s right, Alec!” Dylan, the blond, piped up helpfully. “It was, like, right there in the university library, just waiting to be found! The rights got given over to the uni for some kinda anthropaleograpical study, and when they didn’t find anything cool here, they just sorta left it alone…”
“...Well, which was it? Anthopology? Paleontology? Geography?” Alec sighed, putting his camera and notebook away in his bag. He saw the look in Dylan’s eyes that he knew all to well, the ‘those words are too long’ look that meant the airheaded blond was probably just thinking about surfing. “...Fuck’s sake, how did you even get into university, anyway?”
“Same way we’re gonna throw the biggest, wildest, most fucking unforgettable beach party of the century, you fucking dork,” Vince said. “And that way is, ‘get the himbo’s family to finance it for us’.
The three friends/partners in crime were silent for a moment before bursting into laughter and giving each other a high five, eager to get all the preparations ready for the upcoming summer solstice beach party they’d been planning for weeks now. They gazed out over their party ground, taking in the supreme natural beauty that would soon be crawling with drunk, horny college students.
The spot, Paw’s Point as it had come to be known in the late 19th century, was a long, wide peninsula jutting out from the nearby woodlands. It took its name from the unique rock formation at its farthest point which, if viewed from the proper angle, the proper height, and with the proper amount of imagination, looked uncannily like the paw of a wolf stretching out into the water.
“I gotta admit, though, you two idiots struck gold here,” Alec said as he let the cool ocean breeze blow through his hair. “Calm ocean on one side, perfect waves for surfing on the other. Miles of white sand. And even some woods off in the distance, just in case someone wants to sneak off for a little ‘fun’. Earth, wind, water… and we can add the bonfire, just to square things up…”
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As it turns out, the three young men weren’t the only people to notice Paw’s Point’s natural abundance. The native people of the region had, for thousands of years prior, gathered at the point to participate in their own solstice rituals which (much like the party being planned in the present) often involved copious drink and food, dancing long into the night, and the occasional sexual experimentation.
But for the most part, the rituals were intended to draw upon Paw’s Point’s truly unique feature, its status as a gathering point for the flow of tremendous amounts of natural energies. These energies passed along the leylines of the surrounding countryside, attuning themselves to the natural world before practically gushing out at Paw’s Point. The energy, while invisible to the naked eye, was indeed quite powerful in the right hands and very unpredictable in the wrong ones. In the old times, shamans would draw upon the unique attunement of energy to ensure bountiful hunts, glimpse into the past or the future, or even transform themselves or others in the forms of animals. However, the energy would only flow for the duration of the solstice,
However, the shamans were long gone, and their rituals had not been held for hundreds of years. Paw’s Point was, on the surface, a calm and placid paradise of a beach. But bubbling beneath its peaceful surface was a torrent of intense natural energy that had been building up a proper outlet. And, with or without a shaman to wisely guide it, it was going to be coming out when the proper conditions were met.
When the sun is at its highest point, and the fire, water, earth, and wind are brought together as one.
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On the morning of June 20th, Alec, Vince, and Dylan crammed themselves into Dylan’s truck, its bed loaded with food and drink while hauling a trailer full of everything else they could possibly need to throw the most unforgettable beach party anyone had ever heard of. Word had spread throughout the campus, undoubtedly reaching more ears than it probably should have, but what was a out-of-control, possibly illegal party without a bit of danger? One way or another, no matter who showed up, this party would be going from noon until sunrise.
“Dudes… I got a good feeling about this one,” Dylan laughed as their truck pulled into the wooded clearing leading up to the beachfront. “It’s gonna be fuckin’ wild, and you can quote me on that!”