For almost three months I dreamed of seeing another human being.

Of hearing the voice of another.

Two days with Baba made me wish I was back at my camp, with only the wolverine for company.

It was not as if Baba was a bad man. Far from it. He was friendly, calm, and fatherly. He was also a great outdoorsman, and taught me more in two days than I learned on my own in eighty days prior.

The issue was, that he was infuriatingly annoying, in a way that bordered on not-quite condescension, not-quite smugness, but sincere and patient mentorship that nevertheless made me want to chuck a spear at him. The worst part is if I did, he would likely catch it the spear mid-flight, and then not even have the decency to be angry, just disappointed at my poor spear-throwing skills.

“Patience, Jack,” he said with his warm baritone. He insisted on teaching me how to spear fish with a trident. Of course, I explained to him that I had a perfectly serviceable fishing rod back at the camp, but that I also had magic duplicators that could endlessly copy food, and such skill was unnecessary.

To that, I begrudgingly admit, he made a reasonable counterpoint that I cannot depend on the duplicators keeping me alive and should learn a variety of hunting techniques.

Which was why I was standing with a trident poised to strike, knees deep in torturously cold water, on the break of the dawn of the third day with him, pretending to be a spear-wielding statue and waiting for a fish to swim by.

“I am patient, Baba. I just don’t see how getting hypothermia, or pneumonia, or I dunno, rheumatism from this endeavor will make me a better hunter.”

“You are already quite decent at throwing spears. I'm confident you will learn the tricks of spearfishing in no time, and then would never go hungry as long as you have a sharp stick, na so?” As usual, he turned every issue into a rhetorical question that I could not argue against without sounding like a petulant fool.

“Easy for you to say, Baba. You’re sitting on the shore, wrapped in a seal fur coat, like a caveman fashionista. Meanwhile, I'm slowly turning into a statue of Poseidon, with no fish in sight.”

Of course reality conspired to prove Baba right. Just when I finished speaking, a large bream emerged from the depths and swam perilously close to the spot under my trident.

I waited until the last possible moment and struck. The strike was not perfect, but one of the prongs caught the fish on its side, tearing it open. It flopped in panic and tried to swim away, forcing me to stab at it again and again, unable to hit it.

Desperate, I lunged at my prey and dove into the cold water, trying to grab it in a hug before it would flee.

I emerged victorious, bream in hand, only for it to slip my grasp.

I reacted instinctively, and before the fish would hit the water, I punted it with a football kick, sending it into the bushes.

“Interesting technique, Jack, “ said Baba, raising, and shaking droplets of water off his waterproof fur coat. “And a nice catch too. Let's find it before the water-dogs do.”

I sighed and followed him. About the only thing that broke Baba’s poise of reasonable authority was his fear and hatred of the otters. I explained to him that they were pretty much harmless if not provoked, and how I made friends with them.

To him, I was the unreasonable one, mingling with dangerous predators. He treated all the fauna around as both a potential danger and a resource, nothing more. When I told him I not only befriended the otters but released and fed a wolverine I caught in my snares, he was speechless for once.

He knew all about the dangers of our river’s shores. He saw a prowling wolverine once, though his was four-legged unlike mine. On day months ago, he saw tracks of the damn terror birds, and heard their calls. He spent the next four days after that barricaded in his cave. He had killed a boar just as I did, though he did it without sustaining any injuries, and he chose not to eat its meat. Not just because it was impious for him to eat pork, but because these things are supposedly full of worms and parasites that can infect a human being. I did not know if that was true, but decided not to test it.

He also killed several other predators encroaching on his territory. He had been menaced by a pack of hyenas who came by his cave, but it turned out his sling was powerful enough to kill two of them and dissuade the rest. He sent their corpses downriver because the smell was unbearable.

Finally, he also showed me a kayak he made out of branches and a giant spotted pelt. He still had a terrifying skull that once belonged to the pelt’s owner.

“One of my first kills here. A predator seal, trice my size. ” He put the skull in my hands. It was heavy, and its teeth were as long as my thumbs. “It attacked me when I went to hunt the penguins. It took a dozen javelins to kill it.”

“It truly is the land of monsters, even if I'm not convinced it’s Hell,” I saw him try to argue and added, “Even the penguins here look terrifying. You really wanted to hunt those?”

“I was both desperate and overconfident. Tryin' da not dey that anymore.” He slipped in and out of his peculiar Pidgin when he was excited. “They taste vile, and their meat smells as bad as their droppings.”

“You should try a terror bird once. When I killed one, it made for a helluva big roast.” I boasted.

“Jack, you told me that story two times already. As I recall, it was the water-dogs that killed the bird, and you only helped. I hope that victory did not go to your head. I would not want you to act foolish if you encounter another one of those birds.” Baba sounded reasonable as always, without a hint of derision in his voice, and yet…

“Alright, you got a point. I know I'm not a badass hunter, nor am I pretending to be,” I sighed. “But I had a few scraps that I survived, and I'm proud of it!”

“A little bit of healthy pride is a good thing I suppose,” he said. We retrieved the bream out of the thickets. It was big and fat, though I knew the species was so full of fishbones that eating it would feel like munching on a pincushion.

Still, food was food.

“Was it good?” he asked. “The bird of terror? Don't tell me it tasted like chicken. It's a common saying, but seldom true.”

I looked up at him, stopping my work of butchering the fish. “Nah. It was tough, stringy, and tasted like old boots. The best I can say is that it was definitely nutritious. Lots of protein.” I finished with the fish, letting Baba examine the resulting filet critically. He did not comment, but winced in a way I learned to read as begrudging acceptance of something not meeting his standards. I could not tell if this was a Nigerian thing, or just his personal tick.

“Eh, chop dey chop,” he said with a shrug.

Food is food? I wasn't sure if he meant my filet was better than nothing, or commenting on the bird meat.

He took the fish off my hands and tied it to the smoking rack. It was already heavy with stiff, dried chunks.

Baba did not believe in leaving survival to chance. He stacked on all resources, especially food. In fact, he put me to work within an hour of our meeting, and we had been fishing, making nets, baskets, spears, and rope all day long, and even after dark, with only a seal-fat candle for illumination.

The only moments when he was not working, were when he prayed. I expected that as a Muslim, he would pray several times a day, and do all the complex bowing and kneeling I saw on television. But it turned out, either my idea of Islamic practice was wrong, or he was particularly liberal with it. All he did was bow and engage in a quiet conversation with his God. I could not understand a word, but it sounded less like a prayer, and more like having a quick chat with a therapist.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

When asked about it, he explained that since he believes himself already dead and stuck in an afterlife of sorts, it does not seem logical to stick to traditional salah, which was meant for the living to perform. Instead, he would simply tell Allah what he plans to do that day, thank Him for his continued existence, apologize for his sins, and ask for guidance.

“Does your God ever respond?” I asked. I did not want to aggravate Baba, but his insistence on a spiritual explanation for our situation grated at me.

“This is not how it works, Jack,” he explained patiently, keeping his eyes on the net he was repairing. ”Allah is not a customer service.”

“I did not mean to…”

“You did, and I don’t mind. You Oyibos are accustomed to easy solutions to difficult problems.” He examined the net, and folded it for storage. “My faith does not work like that. The Merciful God already equipped me with everything I need to find my own answers. I have the Verses, and I have this-” he tapped his head. “Everything that the Quran does not answer, I can use my brain to understan’ if I try hard enough. Allah doesn’t answer questions, grant wishes, or need my apologies. But I think it is me who needs to say those things aloud, to make sense of the world, of my mind, and of my heart.”

“So, you basically talk to yourself?” I smirked.

“Yes!” he nodded enthusiastically. “Words are straighter than the thoughts that make them, abi? This is why we have the Quran in the first place. Human thoughts can run in circles, but when you say them out loud, or write them down, they stay put, and you can build your life upon them.”

“”So how do you know that Allah even exists? Maybe it’s just you, talking to yourself, in a completely godless universe.”

Baba did not seem offended, or even caught off-guard.

“Dis may dey so. Very possible.” he actually smiled excitedly, as if a theological debate was what he needed all along. “But tell me Jack, can you prove God does not exist?”

“You can’t prove non-existence… but God is such an absurd idea, it would require good evidence to be plausible…” Such debates were never my cup of tea, but as a lifelong atheist in Poland, I had this kind of conversation with Catholics plenty of times.

“Is God more absurd than this?” he gestured at the world around us. “Than being sent naked to a land full of monsters? A place where even the land itself looks crazy and contradicts science?” he pointed at the nearby cliff, which jutted incongruously out of swampland where it had no business existing.

“You got a point Baba. But just because all of this is absurd, does not mean we should accept an equally absurd explanation. God and Afterlife does not explain this, it just replaces one mystery with another.” I saw him focus on my words, as if coming with a decision.

“You are correct. I will not try to convert you. Allah loves you unconditionally anyway. But consider this, even if my faith is nothing but illusion or madness, what does your heart gain from rejecting it?”

“The truth?” I ventured.

“And what truth that is? That the world is empty of meaning, and our fate is hopeless?”

I had no answer to that. For one, I did not want to truly hurt Baba’s feelings. I sensed his faith shielded him from the heartbreak of being separated from his family, a luxury I did not have. But another reason was that I truly wished there was a divine force guiding us, because there was one thing we would really need a godly miracle for.

“Speaking of hope Baba. When we met, I asked you about the other survivors. You eluded my question.”

His face immediately dropped into morose concentration. He stood up and began to examine his hunting spears.

“I did not hear the human scream you told me about. I truly did not.” He tied an extra knot of tong to secure a bone blade to the shaft. “Believe me, if I had seen any humans on the river, I would try to rescue them.”

“Well, you took me for a demon at first, and refused to meet,” I countered.

“And you contacted me using fire signals and came on a white-sailed boat wearing silk robes. Forgive me for not recognizing you as a fellow human being, who I would assume, would come naked and in distress like I did.”

I looked down at my so-called robes. My layered shirts and pants were tattered and stained with river silt. I looked less like a silk-clad demon, and more like the Michelin Man if he fell on hard times.

“I believe you. But this does not change the fact that there are other people here, likely no more than a few kilometers away, and they are almost certainly in danger. Can’t your God intervene on their behalf?”

He shook his head with a sad sigh. “Allah either set their fate so they would survive, or not. It is not for us to decide.” I wanted to interject but he waved it away. “You want to go and search for them, I sabi. I would too.”

“So why don’t we-”

“Because they are dead, Jack.” he answered with anger rising in his throat.” Listen. I know this land better than you do. I dey here longer you do, I traveled across and along dis river.” He clutched the spear with a tight grip, as if he could squeeze words out of it, then set it gently aside.

“You and I have been blessed. You found your duplicators. I found this cave, and made it my shelter. Otherwise, we would both have died here, and our souls would depart, to only God knows where. The people you speak of, they cried in fear of mortal danger. And then you haven’t found them for three days. And then you spent three more days with me. Even if they survived what menaced them back then, they spent that many days cold, wet, alone, thirsty, and hungry. And at the mercy of monsters.”

It was my turn to get pissed.

”Aren't you the one preaching hope? Shouldn’t you be convincing me that, I dunno, Allah surely showed them mercy? Is it not our moral duty to search for them?”

“All good questions. And here is mine. Are you willing to sacrifice your life looking for them?”

I stopped. I assumed the two of us made for a formidable enough team to fend off whatever this place threw at us. But if Baba had doubts about it, how could I not?

He continued. “Heroism is one thing. Throwing your life away to save someone else is another. Trust me I know, this is how I ended up here.” He hesitated, but I did not stop him. I sensed he wanted to say more, and he did.

Listening to Baba’s story, of his life and supposed death made me reevaluate again my opinion of him. I knew the man was tough, and suspected he had a rough life, but holy shit, I did not expect what he told me. I let him finish, even when his eyes teared up, and he choked for words.

“There is something you need to know,” I said.

He looked up.

“I found the boy that was crushed by the fallen tree.”

His face fell, hearing his nightmare confirmed. I continued.

”I… I think he did not suffer. The tree must have crushed him instantly. And given how all of us feel disoriented when we appear in this world, he probably did not know he was dying.”

Baba sat down, suddenly looking smaller and much older than the unstoppable giant I took him for. “Did you…”

“Yes, I buried him as much as I was able. I let the river take his body. I did not know any funeral prayers, but I said a few words to mark his departure.” I did not want to say that a scavenger ate most of the boy’s remains, or that I briefly used a shard of his femur as a needle. Baba did not need to hear that.

“Is it the place? Your duplicators, are they where the boy died?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I never want to go near it.” He said with finality that offered no discussion.

That caught me off-guard. I always assumed that if I found any survivors I would immediately bring them to my camp. I never considered they would refuse. I wanted to argue that this was idiotic of him, but one look at his saddened face which was already sagged and grooved with age and sorrow, made me shut up.

We sat like this, quiet for a while. Baba fiddled with the smoker, and handed me a piece of dried herring. We ate in silence, each mulling over dark questions in their own mind.

“Understood. I would not try to force you to go with me, even if I could. But I am not staying with you either. Capable as you are, I think the duplicators offer me a better chance of survival than your company.”

He did not speak up, only nodded in agreement.

“I'm going back. I will resupply and go out to search for these people. I will not give up on them, until I find them alive, or at least their corpses.”

He grabbed my shoulder.

“Jack, I cannot let you. You will not survive in the woods, let alone the swamps or the seaside. God already buttered our bread once after we landed in dis place, He will not do so forever. Don' tempt fate.”

I clasped his shoulder as well.

“I maybe suck as an outdoorsman, but I'm not a fool. I will stick to the river, and go back and forth until I find them. They could not have swam upriver against the current, and I doubt they would be stupid enough to go deeper into the woods. If they are alive, they cannot be far away from the shore.”

“They could have ended up washed out into the bay or even open sea.”

“Maybe. But who knows, maybe they are excellent swimmers?”