Dylan decided to walk down the beach to take a look at the place his mother insisted they stay the summer. He had tried to protest, but to no avail. His mother rented the small beach cabin for the whole summer.

    Dylan was surprised to see that the beach was deserted. It was just after seven o’clock in the evening, so the beach should have been teeming with people. It wasn’t until he reached the end of the beach that he saw other people.

    The seven girls all looked vastly different from one another. The girl who was closest to Dylan was built like a supermodel, tall and skinny. She had skin the color of teakwood, and straight black hair. The girl next to her was more handsome than beautiful, with wavy red hair framing her square jaw and freckles splattered across her prominent nose and cheekbones. The next two were the most similar of all of the girls; they both had pale skin, blonde hair the color of straw, and high, arching eyebrows. Sitting next to them was a short girl with dark curly hair, wide eyes, and plump lips. The penultimate girl in the group had dark cocoa-colored skin and short, frizzy hair. The girl who was positioned the farthest away from Dylan was the strangest looking of the group, with a small frame and wide hips, and tan skin with a close-shaven head. All seven of the girls turned and looked at Dylan when they heard his approaching footsteps.

    “Oh! Uh, sorry. I - I didn’t mean to interrupt you guys,” Dylan stuttered.

    “Oh, you didn’t interrupt anything,” one of the blonde girls said. “We were just hanging out. Why don’t you join us?”

    “Yeah, okay,” Dylan responded nervously. He sat down near the girls, who stared at him as if they were scientists examining a test subject.

    “What’s your name?” the other blonde girl asked.

    “Oh, I’m Dylan. Dylan Sanders,” he said.

    “Nice to meet you, Dylan Sanders,” the tall, dark skinned girl replied before introducing herself and the others. “My name is Adriana, and these are my sisters, Doris, Marissa, Muriel, Morgan, Hali, and Coral.” Doris was the girl with the red hair and Marissa and Muriel were the blondes. The girl with the wide eyes and curly hair was Morgan. The other dark skinned girl was Hali, leaving Coral to be the strange looking one.

    Dylan was going to say that they couldn’t be sisters because they didn’t have anything in common, but the stopped himself when he saw the only similarity the girls shared. All seven of them had eyes that were the same eerie shade of grey-blue. Before he could get his bearings, one of the girls asked him a question.

    “So, Dylan, what brings you to our sleepy little town of Lorelei?” Doris asked.

    “Oh, my mother. She rented a house on the beach for the whole summer,” Dylan answered.

    “Just your mother? What about your father?” Coral questioned nosily.

    “He, um, he - he died,” Dylan stuttered. He look around nervously, not wanting to meet the eyes of any of the girls.

    “Wow, really? How’d that happen?” Coral asked, oblivious to both the dirty looks her sisters were giving her and Dylan’s discomfort.

    “I’m sorry, I - I gotta go,” Dylan said before racing off down the beach.

    “God, Coral! Why do you have to be so nosy? You’ve scared him off!” Hali yelled.

    “I was just curious, there’s no need to get mad at me,” Coral muttered. "Besides, he'll come back. They always come back."

    Dylan pushed through the door and entered the small beach house he and his mother, Joy, were staying at. He tried to hide the fact that he was crying, but that was the first thing his mother noticed when she looked up from the newspaper she was reading.

    "Dylan? Dylan, honey, what's wrong?" she asked. She put the newspaper down and stood up, reaching out toward her son. He turned and rejected the comforting gesture.

    "I'm fine, mom. Seriously," Dylan said.

    "Really Dylan? You don't look fine," Joy remarked. "Come sit down and explain to me what happened." She motioned to the small, pink couch she had previously been sitting on. With a sigh, Dylan realized he would not win the argument and sat down next to his mother. There was a brief moment of silence before he started speaking.

    "Well, when I went for a walk on the beach, I met these girls. They were pretty strange," Dylan began.

    "How were they strange?" Joy interrupted.

    "They insisted they were sisters, but there's no way they could've been related. They didn't have the same - or even similar - skin color, hair color, or body type. The only thing they had in common was their eye color," Dylan explained.

    "Well, maybe they're just really close friends and like to refer to themselves as sisters," Joy suggested.

    "Yeah, maybe," Dylan said, a little doubtful. "Anyway, they invited me to join them, so I did. But then the one girl kept asking me questions, and dad came up, and I just - I just had to get away from there."

    "Oh, honey, I'm sorry. I know you don't like talking about your father."

    "You know what mom, I think I'm just going to go to sleep."

    "Are you sure? It's only 8:15. you could watch Jeopardy with me, I have it on the DVR."

    "No, mom, I'm just going to sleep."

    "Alright, sweetie, good night."

    Dylan went up the stairs to his bedroom. He sat on the bed and looked at the picture that was on the bedside table. It was a picture of him and his father at a campsite. It had been taken years before, only three days before Dylan's father died.