6 – Crabs on the Beach

The discussion was a quick one. Our priority right now was securing food and a safe place to sleep. It hadn’t been long enough to determine whether or not there was a day-night cycle, but that didn’t change where we would sleep. If the sun was to remain forever overhead, then we would just place a tarp over the boat to block it out.

I brought up the creatures I sensed, the ones lying in ambush.

“What was that?” Kornos asked, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

I shifted nervously. “What was what?”

He grinned, sensing weakness. “Don’t tell me, you’re scared of what we might find?”

“No!” I retorted indignantly. Oops. I felt heat rush to my face.

“Vincent, the boy who pummeled an adult unconscious, stole a boat, and sailed through a storm into a place of great danger, is afraid of… turtles?” He paused, gauging my reaction. “Crabs? Ah, there it is. What’s not to love about crabs? They’re tasty, practically a delicacy! Is it the claws?” he teased, which made me squirm. “The shells?”

“Stop!”

“The legs?” He was chuckling by this point, the bastard.

“No! I’m not afraid of crabs!” I squawked. Welp, there went any dignity I had left. Then I had the kind of idea only a barnacle-brained teenager – an oxymoron – could come up with.

I hopped off the boat, Kornos trailing behind me with a knowing grin plastered on his face, and strode right up to one of the presences. I drew my cutlass awkwardly, not being used to the weapon, and stabbed down at the spot. Well, tried to, anyways. The moment I stepped into the stab, the sand exploded, and out shot a rust-colored claw the size of a cat that snapped around my ankle. I screamed as it clamped down, a crack accompanying an immense bolt of pain that lanced through my lower body. My blade barely scrapped its carapace, having accomplished nothing but enraging it further.

Kornos dashed forwards and drew his own blade. He reached the crab’s side and brought his cutlass down with great force, severing the limb at the joint where the carapace was thinner.

I scrambled back, tears running down my face, earlier embarrassment forgotten. Oh, gods, it hurts! I took a look, and saw that it was bent at an unnatural angle, and partially crushed. The skin was already turning purple, and every small motion brought fresh waves of pain as bones and muscle scraped against each other.

Kornos danced around the anomalous crab with ease, taking advantage of every opportunity to get in more stabs and slashes. I watched him, mesmerized. Could I be like that? I wondered. My thaumaturgy had stalled; without new thaums to experiment with or new problems to apply them to, I had the time, energy, and focus to work on my combat skills, which were, admittedly, non-existent.

I broke from my daydreaming when Kornos prodded my injured limb. Which hurt. A lot. “Dammit, Ko! Don’t poke it!” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“Just checking it,” he replied, still examining it. After a few minutes of that, he stood up and said to me, “Good news. The bone’s not broken, just a small fracture and heavily bruised.” He removed his healing earring and handed it to me, and said, “You should be back to normal in a day if you wear this, and get proper rest.”

“Huh? A day?” the words tumble out as I absentmindedly put on the piece of jewelry, only realizing after I had stuck the needle through my earlobe that I hadn’t actually gotten a piercing before. The pain barely even registered through the throbbing in my foot.

Kornos must have misinterpreted my response because he said, “I know, I know. It ain’t fun to sit on your butt for an entire day like that, but you’ll just have to put up with it. You’re lucky it wasn’t a fracture, or worse, a break. That would have taken about a week to heal the former, and several for the latter.”

“Ko…” I trailed off.

“Hm?”

“Your perspective is not normal, at all. Weird, some might say,” I managed a chuckle, despite the pain.

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He barked a laugh and slaped my back, the movement jostled my ankle and triggered yet another flash of pain that made me hiss.

“Ah, sorry. It’s just, I’m glad to see you’re not mad at me,” he said.

What was that supposed to mean? He must’ve spotted the confusion on my face, because he added, “Well, I thought you’d blame me for getting you hurt.”

“Ko… you’re a dumbass. Of course I wouldn’t blame you. I let myself get worked up then did something so stupid, even a drowned dolphin could tell you it was dangerous. If I had to be mad about anything, I would admit that I wish you had tried to stop me,” I shrugged. “But, that’s just salt in the wake.”

“Salt in the wake, alright.” He stood up and with his help, I dragged myself back towards the boat. He hauled me up and over the edge, and I carefully sat myself down on the deck and made myself as comfortable as possible. “Sit tight, I’ll get us some fixings.”

I sighed to myself and let the tension built up over the day fade as best as I could manage.

***

Vincent stopped me before I could get too far and threw me his thaumatic wristband. I thanked him before slipping it on. He really does do great work, I thought to myself.

Whistling a half-remembered tune, I moseyed on over to the nearest still-buried creature. I drew my blade, holding it at the ready. Hefting a rock I picked up from around the tree line in my left hand, I hucked it at the mound of sand and prepared to strike. Just as expected, the moment the rock hit the ground, sand exploded out around a large claw. My aim true, I sliced off the appendage in one clean, deft motion, and followed it with another towards its remaining one. Unfortunately, I hit nothing but air, and so I stepped to the side and avoided the follow up lunge of the then enraged crab.

My blood began to pump harder as the thrill of battle washed over me. Violence could be both brutal and elegant. A dance of carnage, or a clashing of expertise. Trading blows with an oversized crab, though, was just me having a bit of fun at its expense. While I didn’t play around with it – it wasn’t polite to play with your food, I did allow myself to revel in the moment.

If anyone asked, I would insist that I was not a battle-junkie, no matter what they claimed. Nope. Absolutely not.

Anyways.

The crab soon succumbed to my assault; the fight only lasted a minute at most. I dragged it back towards the first corpse, piling them together for later processing.

In that manner, I cleared out several more spots, all without having taken even a glancing blow. Several times, I caught Vincent peeking over the lip of the Whizzing Arrow, studying my fights. Good, every bit of experience he could get would help greatly. I planned to teach him the basics once he recovered, and the look on his face told me he would accept the training without a thought.

My father had taught me much about survival. Both practical lessons and ones that involved a lot of talking that I really hadn’t cared for in the slightest. Relevant to the situation was the knowledge and experience of how to get as much out of a kill as possible. For crabs, the trick was to crack the carapace in certain spots to avoid damaging the meat or making a mess of the insides. Thankfully, the crab was the same as what I was used to, except for the fact that it was several times larger than normal.

Once everything useful was extracted, I asked Vincent for his fire starter and the iron skewers we had purchased on our way out of Niu. When he handed them over, he asked for help getting to where the fire would be, and I obliged. Poor lad. I did feel guilty over my role in his injury, but not that guilty. He would get over it quickly, and the experience would teach him to be a bit more clear headed before heading into danger. A lesson I had to learn the agonizing, painful way. Dad was not cruel, but he did treat cruelty as one method for tempering mettle. Couldn’t say how well it worked, but it was what it was.

I went out to the forest to collect tinder for the fire. I had half an armload when all of the sudden the world went dark. Well, mostly. My night vision earning kicked in a moment later, the world gained a bit of contrast. I could see enough to make my way without tripping over roots or smacking into trees, but finer details were a no-go.

At the same moment the lights went out, I heard a yelp, Vincent, clearly, and I sprinted back to the boat. Turned out, he was fine, just surprised. Maybe it was an overreaction, but Anomalies were not to be taken lightly. Rules and common sense no longer applied to reality, and danger could appear at any moment. The shift from night to day could mean a whole new set of dangers, including nocturnal predators. Until we knew it was safe, we needed to stay together. Safety in numbers, and all that.

I didn’t bother to hide my approach, in fact, I called out to Vincent, “I’m over here, heading your way. Seems like there is a night to this place, just a bit more sudden than we thought.”

I heard him snort. “No kidding. What kind of whirlpool’s wreck is this place? Flying rocks, a hole bigger than your dad’s ego,” he said, which caused me bark a laugh, “-and now a sun that decides to turn itself off in an instant?”

“Sounds like an average Anomaly to me, Vin.”

He waved a hand dismissively, “Yeah, whatever. It’s just a lot to deal with all at once. Nothing makes sense, and everything wants to kill us.”

This was true. Vincent was feeling storm-tossed, both figuratively and literally, and rightly so. I let him vent his frustrations.

“Anyways,” he continued, “did you get that firewood?”

I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me, so I said, “Yeah, and I’ll have to get more.”

He shifted nervously a bit. I realized he must have felt particularly vulnerable, what with his battered ankle and him being left blind in the dark without his thaumatic wristband. To ease his worries, I told him I would do a sweep of the area to make sure nothing else would creep up on him. He thanked me, and I did just as I said. Nothing new popped up, so I went to collect the firewood and returned unmolested.