Hands of Fate - Survivors of Flight AA214

Chapter 5

Bianca - Day 2 of Landing

Intense throbbing pain emanated throughout various parts of my body. My head was pounding. My back ached from sleeping in an awkward position. My legs were sore from all the walking I did yesterday. I stretched and got up, but it made the hammer in my head clang even louder against my skull. Dizziness followed, then lightheadedness. I needed some water; my mouth felt as dry as cotton.

A man was sleeping a meter away from me, his broad shoulders and back facing me. He had his arms crossed while he shivered in his sleep, his black baseball cap resting in front of his face. I took off the blue hoodie I borrowed from him and blanketed him with it, then immediately regretted it as I felt a chill run through my body. He’s asleep; he won’t miss the thing, I thought as I reached back, rescinded my kind gesture, and pulled the hoodie over my body once again.

Slate had covered me like a canopy, the stones of his body stretching to make a makeshift cover for us. When Slate noticed me walking away from the makeshift resting place, he quickly wound back down to his wide and snowman-like form and followed. Was it up all night? Do golems even need sleep? I suppose I should be grateful he provided shelter, but he could have been doing something productive or even entertaining himself while I was asleep.

A young boy in a red baseball cap and green army shirt came over. Determination was written on his face while he briefly acknowledged me, “Good morning, Bianca.”

“Morn! I’m sorry I didn’t get your name last night, cutie,” I said, smiling.

“I’m Cass. That’s Orion, but me and Dad call him Rye,” Cass answered, pointing to his sleeping brother.

Cass was a bit too chipper for my liking given the fact that we were stranded in the middle of nowhere. My impression of the young boy was that he was taking it rather well, considering the mess we were in. It seemed like an adventure for him. At least he has his brother with him. I might never get to see my family again. Don't think about that, Bianca. The young man emptied one of his cargo pants pockets and out dropped a jet black rock which he started beating with another rock. His poor little hands were cut up, and I gasped.

“What are you doing? Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself, sweetie,” I said.

“I’m making a knife,” Cass chirped and continued smashing away at the rock. “Rye has one. He must have made it while we were asleep. I want one too.”

Cass picked up the knife lying next to the campfire, next to discarded crab carcasses and a flat rock lying on top of a dead crab. To call it a knife was a bit of a stretch. It was just a piece of rock stuck to a wood branch held together with some string.

“Just borrow his, you don’t have to cut yourself up making that thing,” I said, examining the knife and pointing the handle at the young boy, waiting for him to grab it.

“No way. Rye always gets mad if I borrow his stuff. Besides, this is so cool. I want to learn how to make it. It’s like Minecraft.” Cass’s eyes lit up in determination.

“Except in Minecraft, you don’t get hurt. I’ll tell you what, why don’t I have Slate here make it for you?”

Cass immediately stopped what he was doing, and his eyes widened. A huge smile lit up his face, and he yelped, “Cool! He can make stuff?”

“Slate is a builder golem. My builder golem,” I said with pride, putting my hands on my hips. I felt like a god among a fanboy as Cass’ bright eyes shone with respect for me, no doubt.

I pulled out my Stockpile card and designated the area around the campfire where they had gathered firewood and Cass had dropped his rocks. I brought out my Build card, stared at Orion’s knife as a reference, and then nodded. I threw the temporary Knife work order card down, and Slate began gathering the rock, stick, and vines needed to replicate the item. All the while, Cass stared in awe and kept shouting “awesome” and “cool,” following the golem like a puppy dog as it worked on the knife.

Slate hammered the rocks together and sharpened both ends. After he smashed a blunter end of the black rock into the handle-sized branch, splitting the end and lodging the rock into the branch. The builder golem then tied plant vines and various other plant fibers like a cast around the rock and branch. I was surprised at how quickly it finished and checked the card that was produced.

Obsidian Knife

Quality D

“Hey... how come you had no problem making that but spent forever making that chair?” I asked Slate.

Slate had no response to my question. I pulled out the card of the Chair that was technically still in progress and no progress had been made since I left the cave, the hourglass on the work order completely frozen. Slate must have stopped working on it after I called for him yesterday. I tapped on the card to discard it. Probably more important things to worry about than my butt right now.

“Can I really, really have this?” Cass asked, holding the knife like it was Excalibur itself.

“Just don’t hurt anyone or yourself with it, okay, sweetie,” I said.

Cass nodded furiously and then started using it to trace lines in a broad leaf, testing the sharpness. The young boy then skewered the crab under the rock with the knife and started roasting it over the open fire. Strange but cute.

“Good job, Slate, another satisfied customer,” I said, patting the golem on its arm. “Now forget about that chair. We need an actual shelter and...”

I rubbed my stomach.

“Maybe an outhouse too. But shelter first, okay.” I patted the golem and nodded my head. It gave a solemn nod of acknowledgment back.

“Bianca...” Cass said, tugging on my shirt. The young boy's eyes were filled with worry and his tiny hands were gripping tightly onto his new knife.

“Yes?”

“There’s someone on the beach,” Cass said, pointing. I followed his finger and saw the body of a young man washed up on the beach maybe a football field length away from our fire, lying face down.

“Oh god, wake up your brother,” I cried. “I’m gonna do some CPR, god, please be alive.”

I sprinted toward the figure, and before I could get there, he pushed himself up with his hands and brushed sand from his grey sweatpants---a slightly chubby man in his twenties standing over six feet upright. The stranger brushed the sand out of his dirty blonde hair and spat out some sand. The front of his flannel and sweatpants, where he was lying, was marred with wet sand but the back of his clothes was dry as a bone. The castaway squinted his eyes and looked around before spotting me. Then he saw the golem standing next to me and screamed.

His high-pitched wailing clanged against my head like nails on a chalkboard, my sickness still haunting me from yesterday. Do I have to explain to every new person I meet that I have a magic golem? What’s so strange about that? When Slate just stood there, not doing anything, and Cass and his older brother Orion came over, acknowledging the golem and not reacting strangely to it, the new arrival calmed down and did a double-take, trying to puzzle out the situation.

“Why... wait...” the man asked. “That rock thing is moving, am I the only one not seeing it?”

“This is Slate, and it belongs to me. I mean like... I don’t own him or anything; he’s not a slave, but he’s my, uh, let’s say assistant,” I explained, brushing my hair back.

“What? What are you talking about?” the stranger asked.

“If he thinks that’s strange, check this out.” Orion pulled his magic cards out of his palms and started juggling them in front of him.

“Hey, cut that out!” I said, shooing Orion and trying to get him to put a stop to scaring the new guy. Orion shrugged with a wicked grin, his sunken eyes winking.

The stranger gawked at the two of us slack-jawed and then gave another look at our magic golem. His eyes widened. “Are you telling me... we... ISEKAI???”

“What are you talking about?” I said, not knowing what that word meant.

“We died in that plane crash, and now we are truck-kun’d here! Oh man, I can’t wait to do magic and get my class!” The man’s horror turned to amazement and then to anticipation. What a weirdo.

“Oh, he’s one of those,” Orion sighed, his hands on his forehead.

“You watch anime?” Cass asked, the young boy was also a huge fan of it from the looks of it.

“Oh, totally, dude. Awesome, so you already captured a rock-type Pokémon? Where do you get Pokéballs?” the stranger turned to me.

“Let’s start with introductions first, Ash Ketchum,” Orion said. “I’m Orion, this is Cass, and this is, um...”

Orion looked to Cass, expecting his younger brother to help him out and fill in the blanks.

“Wait... wait a minute. I was half sick yesterday and remember giving you my name. It’s Bianca. OR-I-ON,” I said.

“Sorry, I’m more of a face kind of guy. I’m not really great with names.” He shrugged.

“I’m Alex. Alex Ryder. Seat 11C.”

“7A and 7B,” Orion nodded and pointed at him and his brother.

“Alex, did you wash up now? How did you survive the swim? What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked trying to get a grasp of this strange situation and why we all just magically appear on shores at random times.

“I don’t remember swimming. I was on the plane, and we experienced turbulence. I was in the aisle but remembered seeing lights flashing outside the window. The next thing I knew, I blacked out and woke up on this beach,” Alex recounted with his hand on his chin.

“Same, but... we got here yesterday...” I said. I stared at Orion for some support. It looked like a light bulb flashed in his head, and Orion’s eyes flooded with dread.

“Oh man, you guys leveled up before me. I gotta catch up. Where’s the monsters at? How do you find a weapon?” Alex asked.

“I don’t have any cards yet,” Cass frowned, tugging on his brother’s shirt, who looked like a deer in the headlights. “Rye, teach me how to level up too.”

“Orion, what’s wrong?” I asked him.

Orion lifted his baseball cap to get a better look, scanning both sides of the beach. A frown creased his pale face, and sweat ran down his dark brown hair. “I think... we have to prepare for more people to come.”

“What? How many more people?” I asked.

“Maybe... at least two more today and then... everyone on the plane eventually,” Orion answered grimly.