Up
Nikolai and I had some words. Then something else happened...but I'm getting ahead of things.
Apparently his crazy glove-weapon has recharged. All we've done the last day or two (or at least sun cycles--which I suspect are actually something like 14 hours rather than 24) are eat and sleep. There's some relatively nutritious but not delicious fruits on one bush here, and there's a small amount of dew every morning that we can collect enough to drink. Nik's gone 'native' a few times to catch some fish, but he has much more of a taste for them than I do. In this whole time, he's left the gauntlet off, sitting in the sun. I really don't know what kind of energy it requires, though obviously if a fiery trash incinerator can recharge it within a few seconds, a great ball of fusion energy in the sky could probably help, just a little. So he told me it's ready to go.
Here's the thing, though. He wanted to just make another break right here and get off the gods-damned island. I refused to allow him to, not wanting to leave more damage in our wake than we already have. Sure, we ended up in the Factory's waste dump by accident (and who puts a switch to start the disposal on the inside of the disposal?), but we probably cracked the entire place in half when we left.
We argued about it last night, around a small fire he'd managed to make to cook the fish.
"But longtime stuck here, otherwise!" Nik protested. "Can't you swim?"
I pointed towards the horizon. "Not that far, Nik. Look, you might be of an aquatic species, but my kind are more used to jungle! I've been in water before, but not ocean. I can't do distances. And we have nothing to build a raft with here," I added unnecessarily. There were a lot of small shrubs and bushes, but only a few scraggly trees, and we had nothing to chop them down with even if they might possibly have made a good raft--which they wouldn't have.
Nik looked longingly at his glove, back on his hand for now. He was a bit too dependent on his technology, I realized, preferring to use it over more natural solutions. I had the sudden thought that, without me, he might just plunge headlong across all the Broken Lands, shattering them into smaller pieces as he went. I shivered, despite the sun. His face changed momentarily, and then he asked, in a slightly more petulant tone, "I don't suppose you have any better ideas, then?"
I was trying to avoid that question, but I had to be honest. "No, Nik, I don't. But causing more breaks is out of the question...it's harmful to... uh..." I realized I'd never actually tried to explain my faith to him before, so anything I might say about broken gods to someone of science (however dubious that science was) would sound utterly ridiculous. I settled on a compromise. "It's against my faith."
Nik looked puzzled, and was about to roll his eyes at this, when we were both interrupted. As we'd been arguing, a wind had picked up out on the sea. This would have been nothing to worry about normally, as it just made the ocean louder--except that the wind wasn't touching the island at all. I was too worked up to think about it, at the time, until the ground starting shaking as well. Sand shifted and doused our beach fire, but before the light went out, I saw that the tide had gone out. Way out.
I jumped to my feet, shouting to Nik, "We have to get to high ground! NOW!" I had never seen a killer wave before, but I'd read about them in a traveler's report before. All the water sucked away from a shoreline, only to return as a massive wall to sweep clean the entire land. We both ran to 'high ground' which consisted of of a small hill in the middle, stumbling over low bushes and one of the three trees in the dark. The one time I looked behind me on the way, I saw a black wall cutting off the stars on the entire horizon, wider than I could see.
When Nik and I got to the highest ground possible, we stared out across the other side of the island--the stars were vanishing there as well. Looking around where the ocean met the sky, all the stars around were going away. The water, beyond rational belief, was rising up on all sides...or the island was sinking into a hole in the ocean, I couldn't tell which. At that point the ground was shaking so much we had to sit down and huddle close to each other, certain that the surrounding wave was about to crash down and wash us away.
The wave didn't fall, though. All the rest of the stars went out, except for a small hole just above us, which was eventually closed. We sat and watched for more than an hour, completely in the dark (literally) about what was going on. The ground kept rumbling underneath, and the roaring of the ocean was loud enough to drown out any conversation. I kept expecting rain to fall on our heads, but if this was a storm, the island was somehow protected from it. This went on the rest of the short night, though at some point we must have slept, curled up against the tree.
In the morning, the ocean was gone.
Apparently his crazy glove-weapon has recharged. All we've done the last day or two (or at least sun cycles--which I suspect are actually something like 14 hours rather than 24) are eat and sleep. There's some relatively nutritious but not delicious fruits on one bush here, and there's a small amount of dew every morning that we can collect enough to drink. Nik's gone 'native' a few times to catch some fish, but he has much more of a taste for them than I do. In this whole time, he's left the gauntlet off, sitting in the sun. I really don't know what kind of energy it requires, though obviously if a fiery trash incinerator can recharge it within a few seconds, a great ball of fusion energy in the sky could probably help, just a little. So he told me it's ready to go.
Here's the thing, though. He wanted to just make another break right here and get off the gods-damned island. I refused to allow him to, not wanting to leave more damage in our wake than we already have. Sure, we ended up in the Factory's waste dump by accident (and who puts a switch to start the disposal on the inside of the disposal?), but we probably cracked the entire place in half when we left.
We argued about it last night, around a small fire he'd managed to make to cook the fish.
"But longtime stuck here, otherwise!" Nik protested. "Can't you swim?"
I pointed towards the horizon. "Not that far, Nik. Look, you might be of an aquatic species, but my kind are more used to jungle! I've been in water before, but not ocean. I can't do distances. And we have nothing to build a raft with here," I added unnecessarily. There were a lot of small shrubs and bushes, but only a few scraggly trees, and we had nothing to chop them down with even if they might possibly have made a good raft--which they wouldn't have.
Nik looked longingly at his glove, back on his hand for now. He was a bit too dependent on his technology, I realized, preferring to use it over more natural solutions. I had the sudden thought that, without me, he might just plunge headlong across all the Broken Lands, shattering them into smaller pieces as he went. I shivered, despite the sun. His face changed momentarily, and then he asked, in a slightly more petulant tone, "I don't suppose you have any better ideas, then?"
I was trying to avoid that question, but I had to be honest. "No, Nik, I don't. But causing more breaks is out of the question...it's harmful to... uh..." I realized I'd never actually tried to explain my faith to him before, so anything I might say about broken gods to someone of science (however dubious that science was) would sound utterly ridiculous. I settled on a compromise. "It's against my faith."
Nik looked puzzled, and was about to roll his eyes at this, when we were both interrupted. As we'd been arguing, a wind had picked up out on the sea. This would have been nothing to worry about normally, as it just made the ocean louder--except that the wind wasn't touching the island at all. I was too worked up to think about it, at the time, until the ground starting shaking as well. Sand shifted and doused our beach fire, but before the light went out, I saw that the tide had gone out. Way out.
I jumped to my feet, shouting to Nik, "We have to get to high ground! NOW!" I had never seen a killer wave before, but I'd read about them in a traveler's report before. All the water sucked away from a shoreline, only to return as a massive wall to sweep clean the entire land. We both ran to 'high ground' which consisted of of a small hill in the middle, stumbling over low bushes and one of the three trees in the dark. The one time I looked behind me on the way, I saw a black wall cutting off the stars on the entire horizon, wider than I could see.
When Nik and I got to the highest ground possible, we stared out across the other side of the island--the stars were vanishing there as well. Looking around where the ocean met the sky, all the stars around were going away. The water, beyond rational belief, was rising up on all sides...or the island was sinking into a hole in the ocean, I couldn't tell which. At that point the ground was shaking so much we had to sit down and huddle close to each other, certain that the surrounding wave was about to crash down and wash us away.
The wave didn't fall, though. All the rest of the stars went out, except for a small hole just above us, which was eventually closed. We sat and watched for more than an hour, completely in the dark (literally) about what was going on. The ground kept rumbling underneath, and the roaring of the ocean was loud enough to drown out any conversation. I kept expecting rain to fall on our heads, but if this was a storm, the island was somehow protected from it. This went on the rest of the short night, though at some point we must have slept, curled up against the tree.
In the morning, the ocean was gone.