This ongoing work in progress is entirely a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed within are entirely fictional and any resemblance to people, living or dead is coincidental.
No part of the work may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author.
Copyright Ion Fyr 2022
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Descent was tremendously easier than the days-long trudge upwards. Pool was not disappointed, in fact, he had achieved what he had come to do–document the leviathans in their native habitat. Until now, society had sufficed with tales spewed by illiterate survivors of surface shipwrecks and the rare carcass washed up on some distant beach.
Perhaps he would publish his insights in a scientific journal. Pool would ask the advice of the Baroness when they met again–she and her airship were to fetch him from the island when he signaled. She was technically-minded and a genius of engineering. She would know the route.
Pool’s descent did not trace his steps back down. Caught up with the anticipation of documenting his quarry, he had not bothered to note his route up the mountain. Now, facing the other direction, heading east, he quickly lost his route; the stony ground had lichen, which preserved his prints for a while, but these were quickly lost. Still, he knew which way was east and which way was south and could still see the grey, pebbled shore below.
His trek down, and the need to traverse a cleft, artfully embracing a tall waterfall casting iridescent rainbows on its clouds of mist, required that he climb twenty meters up, head upstream for another hundred to safely cross, then descend on the other side, completely threw him off the path.
Pool lost sight of the ocean to the south as he descended. He did not consider this too important: all of the mountain streams would eventually find their way to the sea, and this was an island, that given enough endurance, he could circumnavigate in a week, he estimated, then corrected his calculation to two weeks.
With his mind occupied by calculations of island radii, circumferences and walking speed and things pertaining to the diet of kilometer long oceanic mammals–What do they eat other than surface ships and fishermen? Sharks?–Pool tripped over a large white rock and fell in a hole.
The hole was wholly unexpected, and his foot having caught the edge of the rock, and with his hands occupied with the damned lean-to poles and his pack, Pool plunged face-first, watching with fleeting horror as the hard ground approached his face.
It was all he could do to toss the poles to the side. His hands had tried to stop his fall, but had only really been splayed out.
Pool’s face smashed into a fortunately flat rock surface, narrowly missing various dangerously protruding points and knobs.
The moments following were a blur. He rolled over at some point and pushed himself into a sitting position, pushing off his hat–the brim had bent down and covered his eyes, but the forehead band had imprinted itself into his forehead; a delicate touch revealed a bloody abrasion. This was confirmed by tattered skin fragments and speckles of blood on the inside of his hat.
With his eyes closed, Pool ran his tongue around the inside of his teeth. They all seemed to be there. His chin was raw and scraped, as were his palms.
Opening his eyes he looked around, his eyes falling quickly to the red on his shirt.
Drops of blood had appeared on his belly, too much to have come from his forehead or chin.
As bent his head forward and looked down at his shirt, suddenly more drops appeared. Aghast at the drops destroying his shirt, he nearly fainted at the appearance of a steady stream of gushing blood pouring from his nose.
Pool touched his nose and his index and middle finger came away sticky with his own blood, which he could soon taste on his lip, oozing through his mustache.
He turned his head, too quickly perhaps, to find his pack, thinking that he had some surface reflective enough to take account of the damage. As he turned, a stream of blood sprayed out speckling his jacket’s left sleeve and the surrounding rocks.
Gods! What a pickle!
#sci-fi #science fiction #fantasy #fiction #writing #time travel
Ion Fyr 