“Ah, shi–choo." A cloud of purple sand hazed over Latori in response to his violent allergies. "Man, I’m kind of an idiot sometimes. Don’t do that again, Latori,” He sniffled in response to the glowdose pollen, turning his nose up as he set the bottled luminescent flowers beside his handcrafted chair. Reaching for his bobonut drink, Latori sat in front of the seaside cave he lived out of and gazed out at the void in the ocean’s night horizon.
The otherwise black sky was dyed a midnight blue by the full moon. He dug his toes into the sand, allowing the grains to gently graze against his skin. The light from the grotto behind him blended in with the purple sand; it made for a beautiful backdrop. Latori was still awaiting the night that a ship would pass by so that he could impress some people with the view of his home.
Latori laughed to himself and sighed contentedly. Life was good, at least it was for now. Even if something happens in the near future, this moment, here and now, was good. It wasn’t always like this, though.
Latori remembered that when he first arrived in this world as a terrified, cold, anxious amnesiac. He was so overwhelmed that he almost wanted to lie down on the ground, give up, and die.
***
“AHHHHHHHHHH,” He dropped twenty feet into the ocean after spawning in the air. Had Latori fallen into any shallower part of the water, he would have broken his legs. He fumbled around, gasping for air, exhibiting one of the saddest excuses for swimming that one could ever do unintentionally.
“Help, someone help, please!” Latori cried, lacking the knowledge that no one was remotely close to him.
After about ten seconds, his right foot hit the sand underneath him, realization hitting him as he stood straight up. The gentle waves escorted him forward to the shore, as if they took pity on his pathetic pleas.
The boy stumbled towards the shore. He was on a beach, one with lavender sand and trees that resembled palm trees, but bearing blue fruit instead of coconuts. The afternoon sun turned the sand into an island-sized grill for his feet. He rushed back onto the shoreline before he could be turned into a crispy snack, but after his toe pads screamed at him for sweet release.
Latori pulled off his drenched mint green sweater and bleached jeans to stop them from weighing him down and overheating him. He scruffed up his verdant green hair to get anything out of it that might have floated in there.
Where was he? The last thing he remembered was that he was walking across the street to go to class. Wait, class? What’s that? Not a thing came to mind. All he could remember was his name and basic knowledge to live and conduct himself in a socially acceptable way.
Right now, he was lost and confused; scared. He also needed to take a shit.
He felt humiliated even though there wasn’t a witness in sight. Tears splashed. They made small, indiscernible ripples in the shoreline water as Latori released the build up from his bowels into a hole he shoveled with his feet. He took pieces of soggy notebook paper from his backpack, throwing his drenched laptop from his bag to the side. During the wiping process, the layers of paper ripped and he could feel his hand caked in something that was warm and chunky. More tears filled the water. Pitiable shaking was visible in his shadow and sobbing soon drowned out the noise of nearby waves.
“I don’t know what to do… Anyone, please…” Latori pleaded to a divine being whose existence he would always question late at night during his block of time that he dedicated to his anxious, existential thoughts.
Latori went to the first comfortable-looking patch of sand and let himself fall flat onto it. Closing his eyes, he let the sound of waves wash away his other thoughts. He did his best to pretend that he didn’t exist. Emotionally exhausted, he easily slipped into a dream. In his dream, he was in a bed and he was eating what he recognized as a dish that someone dear to him would make for the both of them. He smiled as he hugged his backpack in his sleep.
The sun was nearly down by the time Latori had awoken. His head was pounding and he had sand stuck to the entire left side of his body. Everything felt icky and gross, like the feeling of just finishing a long hike then sleeping in a hot tent. Even his mouth tasted like salt, an unbrushed tongue, and sand. He wasn’t sure if something unfortunate would happen to him in the middle of the night if he slept by the shoreline, so he decided that he needed a new place to keep resting.
A hundred feet away was a cave. It looked welcoming enough. Trees and shrubs grew on the sides. It sat uphill on a small bluff━the cave's personal shield against the clawing waves. Latori picked up his backpack, busted laptop, and saltwater-soaked clothes before making his way to the entrance.
Lilac rocks comprised the body of the cave. Its mouth was the height and width of four house doors lined side-by-side upright. The cave looked dignified, yet lonely, as if waiting for someone to make it their home.
“Haa... guh... Please... God... why...” Latori whimpered as he staggered his way towards the cave. The dragging of his feet shoveled sand into his shoes. As he stumbled in the cave’s general direction, he closed his eyes and whimpered like an injured pug, with all the respiratory problems and ugliness. Because of his haphazardness, he tripped over a stone that deviously concealed itself under a thin layer of sand. He recovered his balance before falling, but his morale was already six feet under.
“God, the ocean, my notebook-turned-toilet paper, and now nature itself has turned against me.”
Defeated, Latori dropped to his knees and sobbed. After about ten minutes, he regained his composure and miraculously made his way into the cave.
He was met with a homeless hermit’s quiet beachside paradise. The interior of the cave was shaped like a dome with one lone entrance.
In the dark, at the very back of the cave, fresh water from a nearby river flowed into the pool-sized body of water that sat in the middle of the cave. The pond was connected to small tunnels underground where it eventually leaked into the ocean. As he walked in, Latori noticed the only other opening in the cave was on the ceiling, directly above the body of water. Greenery canopied over it, preventing most things besides the thin rays of sunlight that shone through. Sand replaced soil deeper into the seaside cave. Bushes with yellow, raspberry-like fruit grew in the back.
Latori sprinted to the miniature waterfall towards the end of the dome and stripped. He showered, cleaned his clothes of sand, and quenched his thirst using the freshwater source that flowed in.
“Ahhh… much better.”
He went from whimpering to smiling contentedly within seconds.
“Oooh, what are these?”
Without a second thought, Latori plucked one of the yellow berries from a nearby bush and tossed the berries into his mouth. He popped them against the roof of his mouth and swallowed.
“Mmm, tastes like cinnamon.”
Whether it was his yearning to die or blatant stupidity that caused him to eat wild berries of questionable safety, it was almost a miracle that someone like this had lived to the age of twenty.
“I guess I can stay here for a while.”
After airing his clothes out as best as he could, Latori curled up in a corner of the grotto for the night and went to sleep, shivering, damp, but somewhat hopeful.
***
“It’s so cold…” Latori woke up to the prelude of sunrise. The sky was still a dark purple but it was growing lighter by the minute. He couldn’t stop chattering his teeth, and he couldn’t go back to sleep since he already rested ten hours on the sand earlier. He decided to walk outside on a whim, only to be pelted by a giant gust of wind.
“AHHH. COLD,” the boy yelped and scrambled back into the cavern.
“I guess I have to get food today, huh? I don’t want to waste all the yummy, convenient, cinnamon berries. Fishing seems like the most logical option, but I’ve never fished before, and I don’t have a fishing pole. Wait, is that really my best option then? Maybe there are other berries around here that I can eat.”
After the sun was well into the sky, Latori made his way out to find a better source of food. Not long after, he came across a berry bush similar to the one in the cave but with red berries instead of yellow.
“Looks like this will be easier than I expected hehe,” Latori giggled and extended his arm to grab the berry.
The bush didn’t seem to take too kindly to that. The “bush” extended its flesh-like branches to wrap around Latori’s arm and lifted itself up to reveal lamprey-like jaws. Its yellow and black teeth formed a circle that lined a crimson mouth. It attempted to tug the boy closer. The latter screamed loud enough to hurt his esophagus. Thankfully, the “bush” wasn’t very strong and he was able to pull away easily after prying its tendrils from his arm. Latori ran as fast as he could back to the cave and huddled into the fetal position. He cried to himself for the rest of the day as he fed on his cinnamon-tasting berries.
***
“Okay, today is a new day. Maybe I should try fishing.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
One bad day couldn't stop him from further attempting to establish a primary source of protein. If it could, how would he hope to survive out here? With no prior experience, Latori thought of how he could make do. Using the remnants of a makeshift staircase found at the side of the cave, he made his way to the forest that sat atop of his abode. The boy shivered and tip-toed with cartoonish diligence as he passed any bush that had red berries. Such bushes were surprisingly common, and he wondered if some were authentic berry bushes while others were imposters hidden among them. He found the sharpest edged and straightest stick he could use as a spear.
“This should do.”
The river that fed the freshwater into his cave wasn’t far from where he was. He made his way to the direction of where he could hear running water. What he found was water like liquid glass caressing a bed of tiny pebbles underneath it. In the gentle flow, Latori spotted several fish that resembled catfish, but varied from void black to a heavenly white. Latori unceremoniously started taking stabs at the white ones since they were more visible against the rocks.
The fish darted away, their bodies forming a circular gap around wherever Latori stabbed. At the speed he jabbed his stick forward, there was almost no chance that his poor excuse for a spear would hit any of the fish. Though his memory was gone, his body remained the same. A college student whose free time was dedicated to eating out every day with friends then going home and playing hours of video games was not going to pull Olympic level precision out of his ass within a day, much less a few minutes.
But that didn’t discourage him, at least not at first. After about an hour, his arms and legs were tired. He ended up sitting criss-crossed near the pond. At this point, he was just poking wherever the fish were swimming in the river to watch them scatter so that he could at least have some form of amusement.
“This sucks,” Latori sighed and made his way back to his new home. On the way back, he slammed his spear atop multiple red berry bushes.
“AHHH, I’M SORRY.”
One of the bushes he smacked hissed and started scurrying towards him. Latori sprinted back. You’d think by some miracle that he had indeed cultivated a burst of athleticism.
Once more, he ate his yellow berries and cried himself to sleep that night.
***
Over the course of the next few weeks, Latori practiced his spearfishing every day for four hours a day. When he wasn’t occupying himself with that, he would walk around the beach and explore it in hopes of finding anything interesting. Most of the time, it would just be seaweed and shells. He started a shell collection near his regular sleeping spot in the cave.
His main diet currently consisted of dead bugs and the yellow berries in the cave. This alone was able to give him determination to master the art of spearfishing. He was able to figure out what worked and what didn’t work in his thrusting form by gauging the speed and force of each thrust. And after about a month and a half…
“YES. HELL YES. I GOT ONE.” A thick, white catfish lay at the bloody end of Latori’s new makeshift spear. It flopped around before eventually going limp.
“Okay now to eat my first good mea-” There was one problem. How was he going to prepare this fish? It wasn’t like he had a way to start a fire.
“Ah…” Latori sighed.
“Guess it’ll be my first attempt at homemade sashimi.”
***
For most of the next day and some of the day after, Latori sat above his poop hole in the forest. He cursed his past self for trying to prepare raw fish without the proper knowledge.
Back to bugs and berries it was.
***
While foraging along the shoreline, Latori came across a gold chain with a meticulously carved red stone at the end of it. The stone was warm to the touch, and it seemed to levitate after Latori put the necklace on.
“Whoa.”
As Latori walked around the beach more, he noticed that his new piece of jewelry would float in a particular direction. He followed the necklace’s guidance. The pendant seemed to glow brighter the closer he got to his destination. After following the stone’s signal for about an hour, it grew to the brightness of a firefly. Latori noticed that it seemed heavier. In reality, the necklace was tugging downwards toward the patch of sand that he was standing on.
“I guess there must be something under here.”
Latori got on his knees and began digging with his hands. He heard a booming voice in his head midway through digging.
“YOUNG ONE. DO YOU DARE TAKE UP THE MANTLE AS MY WIELDER? ARE YOU PREPARED FOR A PACT UNTIL DEATH DO US PART?”
“AHH, what the hell?! Where is that voice coming from?”
“CONTINUE DIGGING AND YOU SHALL SEE.”
Latori hesitantly kept digging. Part of him was scared, but the curiosity overruled his fear, though something in his heart told him there was nothing to be afraid of.
“What is this, some kind of anime?” Latori was met with the hilt of a sword at the bottom of the pit he dug up.
“NO, I AM NOT ANNIE MAY. MY NAME IS EXCALIBURN, THE DIVINE SWORD.”
“Excali–You’ve got to be joking. What kind of name is that?”
“DON’T MOCK ME.”
Latori touched the handle, but quickly pulled away as he felt his whole body burn as if on fire. After a few seconds, it subsided.
“OW. What the hell- Okay, on second thought, I’m going to keep you buried. That hurt. Also, ‘UNTIL DEATH DO US PART’? What, are you trying to marry me, you weird ass sword?”
“IT IS TOO LATE. THE PACT HAS BEEN SEALED. OUR SOULS OUR BOUND TOGETHER NOW.”
“Is that what the burning was? Ugh, fine. You’re the first company I’ve had since I dropped onto this beach. I guess I’ll take you home.”
Latori gripped Excaliburn’s handle and started pulling him from the sand.
“OH… IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAVE BEEN HELD.”
“Okay, you know what? I’m done. I think I’m leaving you here.”
“NO, PLEASE. YOU CANNOT, ANYWAY. A STRONG FORCE WILL PULL US TOGETHER SHOULD YOU TRAVEL TOO FAR FROM ME.”
Latori sighed and yanked Excaliburn out before making his way back home.
***
“THE FACT THAT I WAS ABLE TO COMMUNICATE YOU TELEPATHICALLY PROVES THAT YOU WERE DESTINED TO BE MY NEW PARTNER.”
“Okay, well, if you can just send messages to my brain, can you do it a bit quieter please? I feel like I’m about to have an aneurysm.”
“Apologies, partner. Is this more suitable?”
“Yeah, that’s a lot more like it. You don’t have to call me, partner, by the way. Makes me feel a bit icky still because of how weird you were earlier.”
“Will do, Latori.”
Despite its bulkiness, Excaliburn felt as light as one of Latori’s makeshift spears. He swung the divine, glowing maroon blade with lackadaisical strokes. The longsword’s golden, grooved hilt felt strongly familiar in Latori’s hands. It was as if he wielded the blade for a millenia in a past life, or as if this sword was always destined to be in his hands.
“Hyah! Take that, fiend!”
Unseen monsters fell to their knees as the noble Latori effortlessly swung his new sword.
“Latori, I am not a toy.”
“Hm.. How about I just call you Ex? It’s a lot cooler than ‘Excaliburn’.”
“Excaliburn is the name bestowed upon me by the holy blacksmith-”
“Yeah, Ex does sound nice. We’ll stick with that.”
“... Okay…”
An awkward silence ensued due to Latori’s lack of social awareness. Still a ways back from the grotto, he decided to make more small talk.
“Can you do anything cool, like light on fire?”
“Bend your knees slightly. Transfer your weight evenly, and take a deep breath. Now try to channel heat throughout your body.”
Latori followed Excaliburn’s instructions.
“Now, SWING!!”
A bright blaze soared from the blade. The flames roared like lions. Excaliburn glowed scarlet. The effective range of the blade grew by about half due to the steady flow of fire flying across the sword.
“Whoa… I can finally cook fish now…”
“I never thought I would miss being buried so soon.”
***
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I AM NOT A SKEWER FOR MEALS. CEASE THIS AT ONCE, LATORI.”
“Haha, what the hell? It's so much easier to carry fish now. Who knew that a magical sword would feel so light in your hands? Woo, weird catfish, here we come tonight!”
***
“I see, so you have no memory of anything before waking up on this beach.”
“Yeah, it sucks, but I can’t really do much about it. Recently, I’ve just been too busy trying to survive that I don’t really mope too much over it. I mean, I remember what things are, how to talk, who I am, and more. But I don’t remember where I was before, my family, my friends, or anything else. Isn’t that weird? Aren’t those things deeply rooted and interwoven with other knowledge and how you see the world?”
“Not much a sword would know about that.”
“True.”
“Although a soul has allowed me to grow sentimental over time, especially towards previous partners I have had. I have a feeling that I was not always a sword as well.”
“Interesting, interesting. How about you help me light this baby up before you get all existential on me?”
Latori threw another piece of wood into the fire pit he created. He assumed his fire stance and swung Ex to light up all the pit. After, he loosened his grip and took a deep breath, allowing the flames to vanish.
“Finally, warmth. No matter how many times I did it, sleeping in the cold never grew any easier. Thanks, Ex.”
“There is no need for thanks. We are soulbound now.”
“So what does that mean, anyway?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. We have a natural inclination to help each other survive now. We share a bond as deep as one born from blood. We also now share each others’ strengths and amplify them.”
“Ha.. I don’t really know what strengths I have to share.”
“I can sense that fortune always tends to favor you in the end. That in itself is a strength.”
“Really? Doesn’t feel like I’m particularly lucky, but I guess I did find this necklace that ended up leading me to you.”
“That stone you have detects magical items and gravitates towards them. It should prove useful in the future as well. Hold onto it.”
Latori skewered the three fish he caught onto a large stick. He then hovered the kabob over the fire. Using his free hand, he drank water from a bowl-shaped stone that he came across a few days ago. He was originally going to cook the fish using Excaliburn, but Excaliburn heavily objected and gave a spiel about honor and shame. Something like that.
***
“Those fish… They were so good… As far as I know, this is the best day of my life,” Latori was laying on the dirt as if he was making a snow angel.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to start building a better place for me to sleep. Yeah… A hut! With a floor.. And a mat to sleep on! Maybe even a pillow of leaves. Ex, we’re going to do big things together.”
“I agree.”
Excaliburn and Latori’s idea of “big things” laid on opposite sides of a spectrum. While the latter fantasized about a beachside paradise, the former knew there would be a time where Latori would have to leave this place and pursue a greater purpose than that of a mere beach bum. For now, Excaliburn let the boy get lost in his humble dreams.
“Man, the food options are limitless now–even that atrocity disguised as a berry bush better watch out for my sword and stomach. Hehe. G’night, Ex.”
“Good night, Latori.”