Chapter 8
Even waiting until he was calmer, Oskar felt woozy when he began walking again.
When’s the last time I ate? Maybe that’s it.
He forced himself to finish the last third of his first waterskin and immediately felt better. There was no point in being careful with water if he passed out and died to exposure.
He looked down as Penny cautiously looked back at him with only her head poking out of the sand.
“Penny, your entire planet is like Australia on steroids.” She didn’t seem amused. “I’m funny, you just missed the reference.”
His leisurely pace quickened after that encounter, despite still feeling a little clumsy walking on the sand. The desert was dangerous, but everything told him he’d not likely survive a night without some kind of shelter. All the livings thing he had encountered so far could kill him, apart from the bugs, and even those were probably more dangerous than they appeared.
Around the time the smaller blue sun dipped below the top of the dune, the purple hued sky began to give way to a deeper blue. He carefully made his way to the top of the dune and was surprised to feel the wind was much cooler. Not cold by any means, but the steady wind still cooled him off as he stared off into the distance. The wind mixed with the still hot sand below felt great on his sweat drenched body.
No sign of mind-bending horrors, just an almost cloudless deep blue sky that went on forever. The horizon was tinged with crimson and dark violet, but it was fading into that dark, smooth blue even as he watched. It reminded him of looking out over a vast lake during a full moon. He looked down at the streamers of sand blowing off the top of the dune, and ran his fingers through them, interrupting their flow.
He was deep in thought, enjoying the rare moment of peace. As strange as this all was, he finally felt like he was breaking out of his “survival cycle.” Oskar sat on top of the dune for a time, looking out at the sky. The expanse was still bright enough to see despite the setting suns, and so he sat and watched, listening and feeling the steady wind.
He wondered what Erik was doing and hoped he was safe from whoever had hurt him so badly.
Penny poked her head up out of the sand and nudged Oskar’s hand, bringing him out of his reverie. He couldn’t help but smile as she looked up at him with her earnest eyes, more brown than gold in the low lighting, but something else caught his attention.
A small light flickered ahead, and Oskar’s pulse quickened. He’d spent all day looking for shelter and safety, but he’d apparently not had enough faith in finding that shelter to consider what he might be walking into when he found it. He didn’t have anything to trade, but he was down to his last waterskin and was seriously beginning to feel the pangs of hunger.
Maybe I should have eaten a few of the bugs Penny offered, he thought with a smile, but he was nowhere near that desperate yet. It wasn’t the thought of bugs that bothered him as much as the fear of getting sick from eating something not suitable for human consumption. He was going to have to make his way towards the light. If the night’s unknown dangers didn’t kill him, tomorrow’s sun would.
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The sweat was taking its toll on the liner that he wore under his prosthetic, making his limb feel slippery and less secure in the prosthetic. He made his way down the slope and sat down in the sand to dry it- and his stump, with his long-john shirt, but couldn’t waste the water to clean it properly.
Careful not to get sand in the liner, he put it, and the prosthetic, back on. He bounced up and down gently to make sure it was secure before moving on.
He carefully made his way the last half mile or so toward the light- and hopefully food, water, and shelter. He kept his spear upright, using it for a walking stick and trying to be as obvious as possible so that whoever the light belonged to wasn’t spooked by his arrival.
Penny moved slowly away from him, obviously nervous about approaching the light and whoever might be there, but was nervously glancing back for his approval. He mentally gave her permission to hide if she wanted, and it worked; she happily dove into the sand with a whispered kwinn of thanks. He moved closer until he heard grating laughter- like the sound of gravel under a car tire- and he paused to listen.
The moment he stopped, he felt a sharp poke on his spine. A voice behind him that matched the grating laughter ahead said, “You got water? You bring trouble? Friends? You bring gift? For me? For we?”
I’m such an idiot.
Not sure exactly how to reply and unsettled by his inability to sense the creature behind him, he simply said, “I’ve barely enough water to drink, and nothing else of value.”
He hoped they didn’t have a way of identifying his spear as anything outside the ordinary, and he hoped he hadn’t unintentionally broken a cultural norm by not having a gift or any extra water, but the voice behind him seemed excited as he said, “Then you the gift, for we, for we.”
With a poke in the back, he walked, keeping his movements slow and steady, trying to gather information and not appear a threat. He didn’t feel Penny anywhere, and he hoped she stayed safe and out of trouble until he could figure out how to get out of this mess. This wasn’t looking like it was going to be a “help out around the farm for a free meal and cot” kind of visit. This was more like a “take everything you own and leave you for that huge mega condor zombie bird when we’re done with you” kind of visit. Perhaps even an "eat you" visit.
Oskar steeled himself for what lay ahead. He’d seen some things, to use the old cliche. He had experience with stressful situations that he didn’t really want to think about right now. Besides, he was in a brand-new stressful situation.
New world, new me.
Oskar felt like it was a bad idea to try to catch a glance at who was behind him. Besides, he was about to see what he was dealing with when he followed the sand valley around the bend in another twenty steps or so. He kept his focus on not falling and getting himself stabbed by being clumsy. His Goggles adjusted quickly to the light, but he still had some difficulty understanding what was in front of him.
He stared as a bulky creature that looked much like an upright crocodile glared at him across from a glowing lantern. It was dressed in worn, dark leather armor that stood out against its large, bright blue scales. A helmet sat nearby with what appeared to be a visor on it. He wondered if their eye protection also served as a PUB interface. The creature seemed to smirk at Oskar as he blinked, waiting on his PUB to tell him what in the crap he was looking at. Apparently, the PUB was speechless too, but gave him another red high threat indicator.
Is everything except adolescent animals a high threat to me?
If they'd wanted him dead, he'd be dead. What bothered him the most was knowing that if something happened to him here, no one would ever know he'd died.
Oskar knew how much he'd isolated himself back home, moving from place to place and changing his phone number so his Marine buddies would have trouble tracking him down.
So I wouldn't have to lie to them and tell them I was doing fine.
Now, though, he felt like an idiot for avoiding people who obviously loved him.
Well... I got what I asked for. It's just me and Penny now.
A heavy hand pulled Oskar's spear out of his hand and tossed it aside.
“You pink. Stupid. I hear you splashy splashy,” the voice rumbled behind him as the croc-thing reached in Oskar’s makeshift pack, pulled out his mostly full waterskin, and tossed it to the big guy in the center with the thick blue scales.
Note to self: splashy splashy bad.