As he sat quietly around the small fire he had created from branches and dry moss that had been lying around in the cave so conveniently. He said to himself “nicely done”, finding such a nice shelter. He stretched his hands out towards the fire, feeling its warmth wrapping around his hands and warming the blood inside, which in turn flowed throughout his body, giving him a tingling sensation. It almost seemed peaceful, as he leaned back and looked towards the entrance of the cave. The rain was pouring down outside, accompanied by the occasional lightning flash followed by loud thunder. There was a certain tranquility in the air. After a while his attention turned towards his clothes, he was never going to warm up with these wet clothes on. First he took of his boots, they were old workers boots, they looked like they had seen many roads, the sides had holes and cracks in them. Nothing a decent working man would want to be seen in.
To him however these were a real treat, he had managed to tie them to his feet with some thread he had found earlier. His old ones were totally worn down, and walking on anything but soft ground was beginning to be painful. So you can imagine how excited he had been when he found them. Nothing wrong with them he said to himself as he pulled his feet out and put them beside the fire. Next where his pants and vests, he always wore 2 pair of each. That was barely enough to keep him warm on cold days so on those he wore 4. While they lay beside the fire, he noticed how plain they were, nothing like he had worn back home, “Ah home…” he sighed, it really is like they say “There’s no place like it”.
He remembered how back home on T’anok, he never had a care in the world, but that something always felt missing, because of this he had done many things that would not be considered proper behavior for his class. He had hung out with workers, got drunk, neglected studies, he even got into a fight or 2, he remembered how furious his guardians had been with him, socializing with the working class, what was he thinking they had said. As punishment they had sent him to a boarding school for the misbehaving, this was a place where you would get send if you did not think along the same lines as the rest of the island. The teachers where incredibly strict and were allowed to, as only ones on the island, to use physical punishment as a deterrent. At first he had hated his guardians for sending him to such an awful place, he had tried to escape 3 times before he had given up and decided it was best to minimize the damage this place would do to him for the duration he had to be there.
It was not until his second semester that he had found something that sparked his interest in the library, the interesting thing had been a map called “The Island and Beyond”.
The reason why it had been interesting was because of the latter part of the title: “and beyond” every T’anokian had learnt since they were small that T’anok was the last remaining piece of civilization that was left standing after, well to be honest no one really had a clue as to what had happened. One day trading merchants just started coming back with reports that when they had docked at once familiar harbors, which used to be full of people from around the world, there would be no one for miles. The few expeditions that were sent to investigate turned up nothing conclusive, all came back with reports stating the same; people were gone, missing, vanished into thin air. Nothing seemed to be damaged, there were no bodies found, it was like one moment they were there, the next they were gone.
To be Continued..
