The three waited for the next morning until they took to the harbor. The trip took only a while of walking along the shore, going around the giant hole in the middle of the island. With only the wind rustling the tropical trees and the quiet crackling of the smoldering pit, the trip was ominously quiet.
Sigmund noticed something breaking the natural order. A lone concrete road stretched to their side, with a sign gesturing loosely toward their destination. He took a look at the text, finding none of it at all readable. The letters were closer to symbols, foreign as the land he walked.
“Can you read this, Gregori?” He gestured.
Grigori glanced at the letters, his eyes tracing through them left, right, up, and down.
“Yup,” He nodded. “I have no idea what to make of this.”
“Well, does it at least remind you of any language?”
“Closest I could say would be Sumerian. They could be agglutinative logograms.”
“Which means?” Polly tilted her head.
“Annoying,” Grigori retorted. “Not that I can decipher a new language without more examples.”
“Then let’s get going,” She reminded. “We shouldn’t stay in the open for too long.”
“Just a moment,” Grigori took out his notebook. “I’ll write this out.”
The group arrived at the location a bit later, following the road to the buildings. While the piers for the boats were plentiful, the harbor itself held only a few storage buildings of varying sizes and materials. From metal shipping warehouses to more conventional sheds for smaller vessels and storage. The uneasy feeling of similarity was ever-present. It looked like any other pier, with only foreign signs they could not read.
The three investigated the larger ones first, only to find them empty, with skid marks tracing toward the shore in each one. There was no easy way to tell what they contained, though the slight chemical smell tickled their noses.
“Did they load the boats before sinking them?” Sigmund pondered the marks.
“Why didn’t they burn all of this down?” Grigori examined the storage shelves. “Why leave evidence behind?”
“Maybe they aren’t done with this place yet,” Polly said.
“Let’s look around a bit more,” Sigmund suggested. “There could still be something left.”
Surprisingly, the sheds were not looked through in any matter. On the other hand, the materials and items were trivial at best and unrecognizable at worst. From tools to materials, their uses were hard to distinguish, as none of the three were familiar with boats. Having split up, they came back after going through their areas.
“I don’t suppose you found a raft?” Grigori asked.
“No,” Sigmund shook his head.
“Well, me neither. Ready to start chopping trees?”
“I did,” Polly said bluntly.
The two turned to her. “What?”
“Or I think that’s what it is,” Polly shrugged. “Possibly a rubber boat.”
The three met at the shack and spread the rubbery thing on the ground. Pondering it in deep thought, they had but one question.
“Looks like it could fit three people and some more,” Sigmund leaned around it.
“Alright, who’s going to pump it?” Grigori was the first to say it aloud. “Do we have a pump?”
“Not one I could find,” Polly shook her shoulders.
“So who’s going to blow?” Grigori corrected himself.
“My lungs are a bit too rugged for that sort of thing,” Sigmund coughed.
“I have a condition,” Grigori revealed an asthma pipe and took a long breath. What he did not mention was that his asthma was quite mild and nonreactive most of the time.
The attention centered on the silent one, the unfortunate one, the slightly annoyed one.
She took a deep sigh. “Alright, alright, I’ll do it, but you two will have to carry the thing back.”
The three returned to their cavern, where the two men watched with mugs in hand as Polly searched for the plug.
“Should you even be pumping it here?” Grigori asked.
“That won’t be a problem until I find the damn plug.”
“Have you checked the inner side?” Sigmund suggested.
“There’s no telling between inside and outside!” Polly snapped, trashing the thing down to the ground.
“If we get this thing working, how long will it take before we can depart?”
“We’ll need some time to prepare, but It’ll still be a big risk. If something goes wrong, we could lose most of our equipment, and we are screwed if the weather turns bad.” Polly explained.
“No, thank you. Becoming fish bait is not on my bucket list,” Grigori grimaced.
“Do you want to stay here until those aliens come back?” Polly asked with sass nudging her head along.
“I suppose not,” He sighed.
“How much time are we talking about?” Sigmund asked.
“A day at least. A few hours to collect and prepare, rest for watching the weather.”
“Then we should probably wait for tomorrow, am I right?”
“Yes. I don’t want to sound like Greg, but going by night would be suicide.”
“I see. Then let’s wait it out.”
The sun eclipsed behind the horizon, welcoming a canvas of stars, unlike anything Sigmund had seen. Where he would have seen the constellations was a new order of blinking lights configured into strangely familiar shapes. Whether it was merely what he saw or a strange fate of the universe, he would not know. What he did get was that the orbit was quite similar to that of Earth’s. Though his clock was out of sync with the local time, it allowed him to count that a day lasted around 24 hours, though it seemed to fluctuate somewhat. While he did not know exactly why, his theory was that the two moons had something to do with it. He had observed their dance each night. The first moon would rise from the west and by the time it started to escape down the horizon the larger one would bounce from the east at a high angle, slowly making its way through the sky until finally receding around noon. Sigmund could see a myth create itself before his eyes. Two dancers, performing a dance where they would only meet for a single moment, a lonely show for the duo. It was also very useful, as even if his clock were to break, he could tell the rough time by their movements.
He would not stay up for long. Sleeping had to be done whenever possible, as it was never good or enough. A cold, damp cave with sleeping bags and only thin, slippery tarps was a pain through and through. There was also the fact that they had to keep guard in case someone or something decided to visit them. Polly took most of the night, switching out after midnight, when Sigmund would take over. As the moon was halfway through its descent, he would brew some coffee and wake Grigori for his watch. With the passing of the moons came dawn, and the three got up to work, tired and aching. Polly had convinced the men that they would prepare and pack their equipment while she would take watch. Sigmund watched as Grigori carefully picked his things before anything else at a pace just fast enough to break a sweat.
“How are you holding up?” He asked, lowering a crate to the ground.
“Just fine,” Grigori folded a tarp into a neat shape.
“Has your stomach settled down?”
“I can keep tabs on my stomach problems by myself, thank you.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Never mind then,” Sigmund cracked his back, standing up. “You just seemed a bit pale.”
Grigori took no notice of the conversation and kept loading grates and bags. Sigmund was not surprised, yet left him nonetheless worried. Grigori would not say anything more than the bare necessities, those too hidden upon layers of sarcasm and cynicism. That did not mean he did not notice his efforts, and after pushing him for days, he was tired of avoiding these attempts.
“I am not a fan of tans,” He said bluntly, continuing his work right after.
Sigmund smiled. Even if it didn’t answer his question, he was still glad to have finally made a breakthrough.
“Remember that you can tell us if anything is bothering you.”
Grigori glanced with doubt. His eyes drew to Sigmund’s fingers, particularly the gold, worn-out ring. “I didn’t know you were married.”
Sigmund looked confused until he followed Grigori’s gaze. “Oh? This? Well… I was.”
“... Sorry for that.”
“No, think nothing of it. Sometimes it’s just hard to… Let go.”
Sigmund’s ears could not pick up what he said, but his eyes saw it well. He could not delve in it for too long, as rapid steps approached from outside. The two dropped what they had in their hands and reached for their weapons.
“Sig!” A familiar voice yelled as a figure rushed in.
“Polly? What’s the matter?”
Polly stopped to catch her breath. “They’re here!”
“The aliens?” Grigori hid his weapon.
“Where?” Sigmund reached for his gun again.
“They appeared at the pier.”
“So they came back for it.” Grigori squinted his eyes. “How many?”
“I saw at least six, but I can’t say for sure that’s it.”
“What were they doing?” Sigmund asked.
“They split up and seemed to look for something,” She turned her head to him. “What do we do?”
Sigmund gripped his cane. “How is the weather?”
“Still fine, but there are some clouds in the distance,” She pointed toward the east.
“Oh hell no. I’m not turning into fish food,” Grigori made every possible gesture for a negative.
“Would you rather be captured by those aliens?” Sigmund asked.
“... No.”
“Then, do you have any better ideas?”
“... No.”
“You don’t suppose we could communicate with them? Establish contact?” Polly asked.
“If they came here to seek for survivors, we would have seen a lot more effort to, I don’t know, find them?” Grigori explained.
“I agree. We don’t have enough information about their intentions.”
“Then there is no other way,” Polly had to agree.
“Fuck.” Grigori slammed his fist to the table.
“We must hurry,” Sigmund took the lead. “I will ready the raft. Polly, start carrying the equipment. Take what you can,” He pointed his cane at her.
“Right,” Polly went to work.
“Grigori, you will take watch. Warn Polly and return to the raft if something comes up,” He turned the cane to him.
Grigori hesitantly nodded.
Sigmund hurried toward the shore, where he looked for a tree with a mark high up on it. He searched the bush nearby and took out the raft from below the cover of the leaves. He took it to the water, holding it steady while putting together the telescopic oars. Polly arrived shortly after, carrying a crate of supplies and a bag of clothes. She threw them to the raft, where Sigmund would loop a rope through the various iron rings of the raft and around the equipment, tightening it taut and finishing the thing with a marine knot. He did the same to the other side, trying to keep up the balance. Not many runs later, both the wares and the space needed for them began to end. With just the smallest gaps for the three left, their escape was nigh ready, safe for one thing.
“Go fetch Gregori,” Sigmund asked, barely holding the raft still. It had to be moved to the water before it would get stuck in the sand.
“I already told him. He should be coming,” Polly stepped into the water. “Pass me the oars.”
Sigmund did as asked, keeping his worried gaze on the forest edge.
“What’s taking him so long?” He asked himself. “Could you go check on him, Polly?”
“I’m not risking my life for that guy.”
“I won’t leave without him.”
“Then I will,” Polly gripped the oars.
“Let’s wait just a little while longer.”
“We can’t stay in the open forever, Sig.”
“Just a moment. Please, Polly.”
Polly couldn’t say no to those eyes, yet she had to fight her instincts to stay still. She did not have to do it for long, as a high-pitched scream emanated from the woods.
“An enemy?” Polly took out her gun.
“Wait!” Sigmund saw something rush toward them, rustling the underbrush.
Grigori ran the fastest he had ever done in his life with his exhausted breaths leaving as the most horrid screech and jumped out of the jungle onto the slushy sand.
“Shut up! You will blow our cover!” Polly shouted back.
“We need to get out of here, now!” Grigori managed to announce as his pace slowed down in the sand.
“What is it?!”
“Just go!” His health started to catch up with him.
The two pushed the raft further into the water, shuffling onto it with great difficulty. The waves pushed the boat back to shore, yet with Grigori’s great leap on board, it floated back to the ocean. The two swiftly put on life jackets as Polly started rowing, making a fast pace toward the coast in the distance. They originally had prepared one for each, but Polly found hers punctured due to an unfortunate manufacturing error.
Grigori whimpered and wheezed on top of the grates as if had run a marathon. His breath was gone, and his skin had even less color than usual. The rattle in his eyes seemed more than the shock of sudden exercise.
“Did you see something?” Sigmund asked.
It took a while for Grigori to collect himself, mumbling to himself in another language. Sigmund had no choice but to wait for him to relax on top of the crates. With Polly’s impressive rowing speed, the island had reduced to the size that one could cover it with the palm of their hand. It took Grigori until around halfway to the shore before he could utter as much as a word.
“They did something. Impossible colors,” He huffed. “Koldovstvo.”
“Colors?” Sigmund tried to imagine what it could mean.
He did not have to rely on his imagination. Suddenly, the ocean turned into a splashing rainbow. A blinding prism of light erupted from the island, engulfing it in its myriad of colors. Sigmund squirmed blindly on the bottom of the raft, having caught a mere glimpse of it. Polly was fortunate enough to have faced the explosion, only catching its reflection in the water. She prepared for the blast wave and covered her ears, yet nothing came. Not even a wave. She saw the light recede and the waters turn back to blue. Her curiosity overcame her senses and she looked over to check. Nothing, only waves splashing about. The island was gone, replaced with water, as if there was nothing there to begin with.
Polly could not believe her eyes. There was no way to hide an island. There had to be a trick. Yet, she did not have time to figure it out. The clouds in the distance were catching up to the boat. The skies turned dark, and the wind started to howl. Larger and larger waves shook the boat, almost knocking it over. Polly tried to take control and row toward the shore, yet the currents were too strong. They were drifting aimlessly in the raging storm.
“What is happening?” Sigmund climbed up blindly.
“Hold still!” Polly shouted.
Sigmund had barely enough time to react as he lost his balance on the slippery rubber and fell off into the turbulent tides.
“Sigmund!” Polly cried out, abandoning the oars to try and get his hand.
Yet, it was too late. Sigmund disappeared into the waves, choking on the water with every breath he tried to yell. Polly could only watch him drift away and away from her sight. Grigori on the other hand seemed to have lost consciousness, possibly by hitting his head on the crates. Polly struggled to find a way to survive herself, yet she could not abandon him.
A shadow crept up behind her. She turned and saw a wave towering over her. With no moment to spare, she gripped the ropes and Grigori’s body. The water crashed down on the float, tumbling it around over and under. Polly could hardly keep her grip as she held her breath. Yet, not even she could withstand such a storm. Her grip loosened, and even with all her might, her fingers could not hold any longer. Grigori disappeared into the dark waters, just like Sigmund. Not to fall to the same fate, she wrapped her arms around the ropes, tying herself to the craft itself. Gasping for air in those small moments she surfaced, Polly barely kept herself conscious through the ordeal. The rushing water rendered her deaf and blind, shaking her around with no sense of up or down. The storm seemed to take forever, yet slowly she found herself trashed by smaller and smaller waves. She waited until the boat floated neatly on top of the water in the warm orange hue of the setting sun. Although she fought valiantly against it, her fatigue overcame her, and she fell asleep with the weight of her guilt on her chest.
With his old joints aching, his ears still ringing and a burning sensation in his eyes, Sigmund tried his best to regain his senses and figure out his surroundings. A hissing pile of sand trickled down next to him, and a crackling bonfire echoed around with its flame dancing on the stone ceiling. He found himself somewhere new and unknown. Coughing up seawater, he tried to lift himself from the ground, yet lacked the power needed for it. His body refused to move, only his red-shot eyes could dart around at his brown and gray surroundings. The dry air tickled his lungs through his chapped lips, with the salty seawater drying his mouth. With his unrelenting wheezing keeping him short of breath, Sigmund ravaged through his pockets for his asthma pipe and took a long breath of it, somewhat stabilizing his condition.
An unknown sound reached his water-filled ears. He turned to face its way, only to find a hooded figure sitting next to him, watching over the fire. Wrapped in a long white cloth covering it from head to toe, the thing watched him with glimmering eyes. After murmuring something more, Sigmund realized that it was speaking to him. The words had no meaning he could decipher, but fortunately, they did not seem like the aliens they had encountered before. Yet, it was not human either. The sounds it made sounded off, even for another language. They had an animalistic growl to them, vibrating its throat like a drum. One of the hands took support of the oddly shaped head obscured by the hood. It had similar skin to humans, yet loose with many folds and wrinkles. It reminded Sigmund of his grandmother, or rather the one from Red Riding Hood. On its wrists, it wore many thin bronze bracelets on each hand. The fingers themselves were an oddity on another level. Webbed, with huge calluses on the palm side, they looked like that of a lizard, yet lacking scales. Each finger had an extra joint in the tips that bent backward over the previous one, with the sharp, curved nails of a beast. Sigmund was now sure of it. Whatever kind of creature it was, the fact that it had not killed him despite its clear aptitude for it meant it had no ill intentions, at least for now. Yet with his companions nowhere to be found, he pondered if he was merely kept as provisions for later. With that in mind, he subtly searched the insides of his jacket for his gun.