~1,150 words, ~5 minute read
Recommended listening while you read: Shoreline by Inola
Day 1 on the island
[ +1 C AR TOG R A P HY ]
“Cartography?”
“I stood a log on end...”
Despite my confusion, I got a little shot of motivation. The letters faded away. Points. Points had always worked for me. Why was the sky doling them out? Again, I gave my head a shake, pinched myself, but the beach remained, and I remained alone, toes dug firmly into the warm sand.
“Nothing to do but explore a bit...”
I figured the lush forest was the easiest place to get lost, or eaten. So, it was either left or right down the beach. I flipped my flat rock to decide. Speckle side up. Which meant left, westward... maybe?!
The walk down the beach was long. I abandoned my one remaining boot quickly. It wasn’t helping me anyway, so long as I stuck to the beach. I checked over my shoulder often, gauging how far I’d gone from the upturned driftwood. The tide must have been coming in. The sand within its reach would turn dark, then lighten again as the water soaked down underneath. Each spreading wave crept a little closer as I went.
I rounded the edge of the beach, and the flora obscured my line-of-sight back to my landmark. Around the bend, the beach continued to spread out as far as I could see. I committed to go just a little further before turning back.
The sun; I took a moment to feel it on my eyelids. The water; I wanted so badly to drink.
I scanned the horizon for anything else I could use to situate myself. It all, mostly, looked the same to me. Beautiful, painfully beautiful. Turquoise and green grew everywhere. The palm trees bent and curled around themselves in strange ways. Cruelly, they seemed to harbour no coconuts. Monstera leaves were big enough to climb on. They drooped down low, gently scraping patterns into the sand.
In the far distance, way out in the water, there was something large and white jutting out of the waves. It looked like there might be a few bright things sticking up, but it was hard to make out from this distance. It would be a long swim out to see it up close, well past where the beach would drop off into deep water. However, it was another landmark I could use to situate myself. Mental note: ocean pokey things to the west.
Another massive something dropped out of the sky.
Only a single block this time, not words. I squinted against the sun and watched as it fell, a cube, about a meter or two in every dimension. It was a simplistic pictograph of something. Before I could make out what it was meant to depict, it disappeared behind the tops of the trees. I heard it crash into the foliage somewhere in the dense forest.
Shit. I looked down at my bare feet. If this was anything like the earlier messages, I only had a moment before it dissipated. No time to think it through, I darted into the underbrush.
Luckily, the symbol was easy to find against the lush greenery surrounding it. I spotted it within the first thirty seconds of scampering through the heavy foliage. It wasn’t until I realized that the symbol had fallen out of the sky upside down that I could make any sense of it. Turning my head awkwardly, I saw a crudely drawn backpack. I took a few steps closer, being more careful of my bare feet.
As expected, the massive, mysterious icon collapsed into a fine white dust, this time floating upward in the breeze. As it did, behind where it had stood, was an actual backpack. The icon was a hint to get me here, so that I’d find this.
An old, leather rucksack. It had one large flap that extended up from the back and folded over the entire front, protecting the contents from the elements. The sides were lined with little leather hoops, pockets, and straps that you could hang tools from or tuck smaller items into. Then, there was the stark glowing circle embedded in the thick, leather flap. It was sewn in. The top rim protruded an inch or so above the leather. As I circled the pack, the illuminated cylinder didn’t seem to adhere to the light & shadow of the world around it. It pulsed softly with the rhythm of a sleeping person’s breath.
“Is this for me?” I asked the treetops.
The ocean sighed behind me. I looked around again, shrugged, grabbed the pack, and slung it onto my shoulders. Immediately, I heard a soft release of pressure. There was a faint crackle, a subtle scent of burning and a brief shimmer in the air. I felt the circle pulse brightly behind my head, sensed it in my peripheral. Then, a flash of light from behind my shoulders, and smaller block text floated up, off to the left of my field of vision.
{System Online}
“Heard that before. You have something to do with the alphabet meteors?!”
Again, I reached out to touch the words. This time, letters moved to the back of my hand as I grabbed at them, magnified slightly over those that still hung in the air beyond my reach. These words were projections. My hand was the closer canvas. I waved it slowly, back and forth through the air, deforming each letter of the message. The breeze picked up and the text wobbled slightly before fading away.
I walked gingerly as I headed back to the beach, tip-toeing to make sure I didn’t step on any sharp rocks or strange bugs. Oddly, I didn’t see or hear any bugs. No bugs, no coconuts, fair deal. The backpack weighed next to nothing, but it made ducking between trees and bushes a little clumsy.
Once back to the beach, I beelined back toward my driftwood statue. The wind was a little stronger along this shore. I wanted to have a better look at this bag and maybe think about food & water. A less windward, more sheltered stretch of beach seemed like the better place to do both. I retraced what foot prints hadn’t been washed away by the incoming tide.
As I got close to the driftwood log, another hiss, crackle, glimmer and glow. More small white text floated up in front of me.
{+1 Athletics}
Alright. Getting my steps in... The text stuck in place, floating in the air as I walked by, then it faded away.
I dropped the rucksack at the base of the driftwood and unclipped the leather cover. It peeled back, showing even more loops and clips on its underside. Inside, the bag was just one large compartment. Empty.
I opened the backpack wider and stuck my hand inside. I could feel something at the bottom. I pulled it out. It was a brick of something wrapped in bright red paper with the word “HARDTACK“ written on it. How had I not seen that when I’d looked in? I reached in again, felt around, and then pulled out a heavy, green, thick bottle of water. Again, how had I not seen it? I reached once more. There was another bottle, and then a third. That seemed to be all that was in the bag.
I was hungry. And very thirsty. The backpack would wait while I had a small ration of mysterious water and hardtack bread...
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