Alister: The Archives of Edgar Brave, Book 1 by Adam W Schmitz

Author:Adam W Schmitz [Schmitz, Adam W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wit & Ramble Publishing
Published: 2022-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

It wasn’t the sun that woke Elena that morning, but an idea. A splendid idea. A glimpse of normalcy if she could only make it happen.

The system she had created for transforming water into something drinkable, combined with her homemade skillet, had allowed for more interesting food. But that wasn’t what jolted her from slumber.

Sushi. Or something close to it. That was what she would dedicate the day to.

She had seaweed and a reliable way of catching fish. A variety of plant life from the ocean had swept up along the shore the day before, but she couldn’t use that, since flies had already claimed it. She needed something fresh.

Elena waded in the water for an hour before she determined it an unsuitable approach for spotting underwater plant life. There was no good angle, no vantage point, for her to see what she needed.

Rather than tread back to the shore, she waited for the next gentle wave to brush by. As it did, she launched herself from her feet and rode the wave in as far as it would take her, feeling the salty air brush across her cheeks.

Suddenly, a dark figure slid past beneath her legs. She flailed her arms in a panic, losing the pull of the wave.

As she surveyed the water, there was no sign of the creature. She had swum by many animals in her days along the beach, growing more comfortable with them with each passing day. This was different. She had learned to recognize them all, and none had the jet-black tone of this figure.

She recalled a similar feeling on her first night there. Among the various sounds haunting the coast that night was a gurgling from the water. She could explain most of everything she heard at night, but she had found no solution for the gurgling water. Could this dark figure in the water be it?

She gathered her composure and left the water. No longer enthusiastic about swimming along the waves, she settled on a pile of seaweed that had recently collected along the rocks.

She pulled off leaves, washed them in clean water, and toasted them in her skillet.

They tasted glorious.

Three dozen leaves she toasted and collected into piles. Some she wrapped in fish, though they were too brittle to wrap completely, resulting more in a sandwich than a roll. The others she saved for a snack. They reminded her of kale chips, with an odd aftertaste. Alien kale chips.

She would still need to eat for fuel and not comfort, but this wonderful meal gave her a welcome break from the sickening repetition of the same food with each tick of her cave calendar.

That night, as she sat perched along her rock, enjoying the sunset in the distance, she felt her heart beat harder at the sight of a vague shadow wisp across the water, just below the surface, in the light of dusk.

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