Here Be Dragons: Book 1 of the Emergence Series

Pryce woke from a deep and dreamless sleep, though he did not open his eyes for a few minutes more. Eventually his hunger forced him to get up despite his aching body, though he generally felt quite a bit better than he did yesterday.

Opening his eyes, he saw how brightly the sun shone outside his window and realized he probably slept past noon. Damn.

It wasn’t surprising considering the state he was in, but frustrating nonetheless; he forced himself to get out of bed last night just to determine his latitude, he only needed longitude to determine his approximate position on this island. Practically speaking it wasn’t a critical task; it would take him more than a few days to settle in. His main concern at the moment was whatever creature took the pigs last night.

As it was, he knew nothing but the size and shape of the island, and not his location. At the very least, any task that required that information would only be useful on any expeditions into the island.

He winced as he stretched out his aching muscles, feeling as though he aged a decade recently. He definitely would not be launching any expeditions for at least a few days.

He laid in bed for a few more minutes, but eventually forced himself to climb on deck and take a reading with the sextant in case it wasn’t noon yet. Two readings five minutes apart, and Pryce determined that the sun was indeed setting. He sighed.

Returning to the galley, he brought the batch of stew he had made last night to a delicious boil. This time he slurped up some of the softened vegetables, hoping his body wouldn’t react adversely to the soft foods.

Pryce then took his time savoring his delicious meal while he contemplated his options.

First, he had to bury his crewmates – no way around that. He had food and water to last him a very long time – he should probably do an inventory check soon now that he thought about it. After that…well, whatever he wanted to do, that would require resources, and while the ship had a great stockpile of tools and materials, any long-term plan required exploration.

He would have to exercise extreme caution when doing anything outside the ship, especially with unknown and probably hostile wildlife. Pryce resolved to always bring a firearm with him no matter where he went on the island, even if it was just for a walk on the beach.

Before heading out, he made sure to feed and take care of the livestock; they weren’t in very good condition and needed to be nursed back to proper health. It took quite a bit of work cleaning up the refuse left by several pigs over the course of ten days, but at least there were only two pigs and five chickens now, so any future work would be far less intensive.

In the end he decided on a machete, a canteen of water, a compass, and a rifle with three magazines of six 12 mm bullets. Better safe than sorry.

Pryce let the hatch fall at its slow and steady pace, cogs clunking away rhythmically as he used his free hands to train the rifle at the entryway.

Squinting as his eyes watered and adjusted to the bright sunlight, he lifted his rifle up at the ready; everyone in the crew had been trained in basic utilization of critical equipment, and that included firearm training. Though he was by no means a great shot, he could manage most targets at 30 meters from a standing position.

When he was sure there was nothing on the beach or in the sky, he took a deep breath of relief. The beach looked peaceful enough, the waves calmly lapping on the pristine sand. There was a sparse forest about 50 meters from the shoreline that he could see more clearly now, with the trees getting denser further into the island. The remaining pigs and chickens were gone now, as he’d expected, with no tracks to be seen.

When he had commandeered the ship, he had followed the coast from a great distance in order to locate a river. Thanks to his foresight, there was a river about three hundred meters south of his position.

He grabbed a shovel before going north along the beach, away from the river. He made sure to glance upwards at the sky and sideways towards the forest to keep a lookout for any potential dangers. At a distance of about 100 meters from the ship, he cautiously gathered twigs from the nearby forest to demarcate an outline of the burial site.

Most people didn’t think of sand as something heavy, at least until they tried moving a few cubic meters of it. Given the number of bodies he had to bury, he’d have to move tens of tons of the stuff at the very least. Pryce was a healthy fifty-year-old man, and quite a bit stronger than average, but he was far from fully recovered yet. Still, it wasn’t as if time were much of an issue, and it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

Resolution made, he picked up his shovel.

It was harder than Pryce expected to dig in loose sand. Digging a small hole was easy, but soon he had reached a depth where the sand was starting to be wet and heavy. When Pryce expanded the hole further, he had to stand inside the hole where he constantly lost his footing in the shifting sands, and progress began to slow.

An hour of grueling work later he had a small grave fit for perhaps two or three bodies…which the wind threatened to fill back in.

He sighed, rattling his empty canteen before heading back to the ship to refill the container and to take a break. Bringing several canteens with him this time, he returned to the dig site and was about to resume his work when he noticed something odd.

Pryce could hear plenty of bird calls, but he never saw any, at least not for long. Sometimes he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, but he never saw anything clearly. Looking up he could only see one bird gliding high up in the sky, likely a hawk or something similar.

Were the birds avoiding predators by taking shelter in the trees? Well, at least a predator that hunts small birds shouldn’t prove too much of a threat to a human, unless it was a type of creature that hunted in flocks…

Pryce shook his head and decided to hold off on borrowing trouble for now, no use in speculation when he had so little information to begin with.

He picked up his shovel and returned to his arduous task, sliding down into the sand pit. But as he hit the ground his back muscles spasmed, causing him to yelp in pain as he tumbled down and landed face down in the wet sand.

Pryce would’ve been embarrassed at such a display, but his fall had knocked the rest of the sand free, and the countless grains of sand tumbled onto him while he was helpless to resist – his legs had been pinned in the few seconds he spent recovering from the muscle spasm. He somehow managed to fall facing up, but even the slightest movement caused his back to scream in pain even as sand covered more and more of his body, eventually slowing to a stop at his shoulders.

Fortunately, Pryce could still breathe, though with some difficulty, and each breath threatened to free yet more sand to pile upon his body.

Some part of his panicked mind pointed out the irony of this pit being his grave when he intended it for his crewmates, but most of it was focusing on the perilous situation he was in. He knew he had to take slow, steady breaths. Too quickly and he ran the risk of burying himself further, which would be a death sentence.

He tried to push the sand off his chest with his hands, but that caused more sand to take its place. At that moment his brain decided it was a great idea to remind him that excessive vibration or aeration could cause sand to act more as a liquid, a process known as fluidization. He remembered being fascinated by the phenomenon when he learned it all those decades ago.

Not particularly helpful.

How could he get out of this situation? He’d heard of people getting trapped under sand before – why didn’t he remember that before he started digging? Sometimes the trapped individuals would be rescued before they died, but he never heard about what one should do to get out of it. Waiting around for someone to come to his rescue was obviously not an option at the moment.

At least he wasn’t too badly trapped, if there was any more weight, he wouldn’t be able to expand his lungs at all –

“Got it,” Pryce rasped breathlessly. He was already exhausted from his earlier labor, and the suffocating weight was rapidly draining his stamina. He realized that he could still breathe, so his lungs could still expand and contract, which meant that when he breathed out there was space – space for him to move. He took a deep breath, expanding his torso as far as he could, then exhaled steadily while contorting his body like a worm.

He slid a few centimeters – it worked! A bit more sand fell, but it was nothing, he took another deep breath, repeating his step but twisting in the opposite direction.

He slid even further this time! His breathing sped up involuntarily, lungs desperate for more air, but he forced it to slow as he repeated the steps over and over like a worm until he could push himself up. Now that most of the pile of sand had collapsed, it was easy to get out of what had just nearly been a death-trap mere moments ago. Even so, he panted as he half-stumbled, half-crawled his way out. He was wet and absolutely coated in sand all over his body with the exception of his face.

He panted for a few more moments, then straightened.

Something moved.

Pryce wasn’t sure what, but something big in the forest moved. He stood there motionless for a few moments, trying to see it again. When he didn’t, he cautiously made his way over to the rifle laying a few meters away, then snatched it up. He held the rifle at the ready for another few moments, slowly advancing when nothing happened.

He stopped a few meters from the nearest tree of the forest and scanned his surroundings for signs of any animals. Seeing no immediate threats, he knelt down and pushed aside a plant that resembled a fern to reveal…tracks.

Approximately 30 centimeters in length, 15 centimeters in width, and with two long digits ending in large talons. The tracks led from the trees in an arc, then back into the forest.

Pryce quickly retreated to the open beach; his stomach lurched as he realized how closely he had skirted death from two sources. Judging from the size and depth of the prints, the creature was larger and heavier than human, and no herbivore he had ever seen would have talons like that...

Based on how it had not immediately attacked him, it was likely at least somewhat intelligent. Plenty of predators would avoid unusual creatures…at least at first. He had seen from the tracks that they were bipedal, so the closest analogue he knew of would be a massive, carnivorous turkey – a dinosaur, he realized with horror, or something like one.

Pryce walked backwards towards the ship, his eyes never leaving the treeline as he wondered what could be watching him at this very moment.

That night, he made sure to seal the hatch shut.

Pryce forgot to brush the sand clinging to his skin and clothes out on the beach, so he’d done his best to brush it off in the cargo hold…without much success.

He felt much better after he finished eating, though the deep-seated bitterness of defeat still lingered in his heart. Forget exploring the island and establishing a base, he had failed in digging a simple grave. With his belly full he dragged himself back to his new room, too tired to make broth for tomorrow, and collapsed onto his hammock to fall into a fitful and dreamless sleep.