1000 words, ~5 minute read
Recommended listening while you read: Semolina by Slow Meadows
Day 4 on the island, afternoon
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I tried making a direct beeline out of the forest, rather than following the original walk, turn, walk, turn path the sky arrows had directed me in. I thought I’d save time. Halfway along, the ground got craggy, and the underbrush became so thick I had to Tetris my body through the tight spaces between branches. Every step was a hassle.
“So, you do know what you’re doing...” I shouted upward, contorting through the last gap between two trees.
Back at the beach, I reconsidered heading back to camp. I had a lot of daylight. I had a decent stockpile to get me through today. Maybe I’d have lunch with a harmless jellyfish...
I slipped off my makeshift driftwood clogs. The sand was warm. The breeze was soothing. I walked into the shallows and let the water cool me off. In the slackwater, that brief moment between tide coming in and tide going out, it was glass around my feet. I could see every grain of sand beneath the surface as clear as if there was no ocean at all. I dawdled my way toward the cliff where I’d seen the creature yesterday.
When I arrived at the top of the rise, I scanned the beach below. No one down there.
“More hardtack for me, I guess...”
I found a shady area of the clifftop, off to one side, near the tree-line. I pulled out the leather wrap and rolled it out on the rocks, reached into my pack for a water bottle and a hardtack seed pod smash sandwich, and set them out on the leather. Fancy tech aside, it made for a quality picnic blanket.
I ate my lunch and tinkered with the UI some more. I’d missed it previously, but the seventh symbol did react when I touched it. The symbol was four rectangles with a zigzagging dotted line across them. I had assumed, like most of the later symbols, that it wouldn’t do anything yet. A broad smile filled my face as I savagely chewed my hardtack.
All it showed currently was a big circle, with a small dot near its bottom right edge. It took me a moment, but then it clicked. This was a map. This was the island. The dot was me!
I could zoom in and out by pressing my hands against the leather and sliding them apart or together. I zoomed toward the little dot, but no landmarks appeared. I wondered what good knowing my vague position on the island was. Then I noticed a small, squiggly-line icon in the opposite corner.
“Noooo,” I said, grinning deeper.
I tapped the pencil and swiped my finger across the map. A thin line of indentation followed it, and with an ever so slight delay, it filled with inky blackness. I could draw.
“Nooooo!” I said aloud again, laughing.
{Cartography +1}
“Ha!”
I closed the map and pulled up the Stats display. My Cartography skill ticked up a point. This was fun. I might be having fun! I was on the precipice of starvation and likely an immeasurable number of other potential ways to die, but, numbers ticking up though... On balance, I was having fun... I gestured my hands and navigated back to the map display.
I could sketch, I could erase, I could fold up the leather and nothing smudged. This was going to free up an entire corner of my shelter. I couldn’t wait to get home to transfer my crude drawing in the sand onto this new map. Being able to zoom and move around meant I could get as detailed as I wanted.
Before heading back, I got lost in my excitement and sketched the gorge. I doodled an unnecessarily detailed sketch of the massive jellyfish creature standing in the valley between two tall cliffs. It was difficult to gauge just how much space the gorge should occupy on the full circle area of the island. Without a reference of exactly how big the entire island was, there was no way to know.
I needed to explore more.
I needed to walk the perimeter of the island.
The afternoon heat had already burned off. The sun had fallen halfway into the horizon. No time today.
I made a plan to head home, gather, transfer my sand map, and take one more look at all these stats. Tomorrow, I’d see how far I could get around the island.
I scanned the beach down in the gulch once more, to be sure the creature hadn’t emerged, but it was nowhere to be found. I packed up my fancy new nano-leather-ma-jig, and headed out.
Homeward.
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Thanks for reading.
Author Notes
Writing a serial every other week, planting seeds of intrigue as you go, is an interesting exercise in surprising yourself.
I have a loose plan of where this story is going, but the nitty-gritty details are something I often bounce between while out on afternoon brainstorming walks. There’s the sky messages. (Who is behind them? How do they work?) There are the jellyfish creatures. (Why are they the only other creature Marlowe has seen? What are they?) There is the new U.I. (What can it do? Who put it here?) There’s the rest of the island. (Where IS Marlowe? Is there more to this place than the beach?). And there is the ongoing struggle for survival.
All of those questions have answers, and I’m finding that when I sit down to write, the fun part is arguing with myself about which answers to reveal each week. I hope it’s as fun to read as it is to write.
If you’re new here, you can actually help decide which answers come first by voting daily on my website. If you’re a regular over there and have an idea for a story beat to add to the voting, comment below and I’ll try to work it in!
See you in the comments below.
Been looking forward to this all week. Good to see your hero having a happy moment despite all the hardships.