274. Odysseus, 1

(Rose)

B - I hope we won't get stuck on every island by crazies like Ulysses.

R - Well... I already completed the journey of going through hell for you, and a many, many, many years late homecoming, so... Perhaps we're already good on trials from the gods to pass?

B - I'm not sure there is rest for the wicked. The path to wisdom has no end. So... What will we find on this first island?

R - Well, probably not much. Hopefully nothing dire. With luck, some easy to gather food supply for us to cross the sea without risk.

B - What about Medusa? Or sirens?

R - Please don't jinx us! Eh?

We laugh about it, and soon reach the first island on our way. The coastline is still being visible behind us.

We anchor the ship and use the smaller raft it has, to reach the beach a little further away.

A nice beach with sand for once.

A real holiday resort.

We climb a path to the top of the hill and have a good sight of the island.

It's larger than I thought it was and even has cities.

All looks quiet of course.

We don't see nor feel anything suspicious, so we decide to split up.

Bleue will go back to the ship and sail around the island to dock closer to the city where a small part lies ruined. Meanwhile, I will head ahead on foot and inspect the town before she arrives.

We part ways with a kiss now.

And there I go alone on the road, to the port city below.

~

I reach a small dusty city, shrouded in sunlight and silent as if nothing was left alive inside.

R - Teufel, what a surprise.

Wind brushes dust and sand away for all reply. It's deserted. As it should be currently.

Everything lies in chiaroscuro, slowly eroding ruins, and that's about all there is to it.

All the places are empty.

After two hours or so of wandering in this ghost town, I see Bleue and the boat arriving the port as expected. I go to greet her.

B - Nothing unusual or whimsical happened?

R - Not that I noticed unfortunately, there isn't.

She presses her lips together and forward, eyes closed. I give in and grant her the quick kiss she's begging for.

B - Now there is.

R - Silly you...

We rummage a little longer but can't find anything worthy of being taken except for a fishing pole and its accessories.

I fished in a river once as a child with something like that. Hopefully the principles are similar at sea.

We'll try it.

We end up noticing a great complex across town, on the hill behind the woods. It's toward the roads that heads to the next city behind the main fields and cultures.

We climb a path under heavy sunlight and reach the leisure resort in sweat. Too bad the showers and pools had years to dry and cease functioning. We would have enjoyed them otherwise.

The hotels of this complex for rich tourists are all falling apart. But some luggage are still there.

We found swimsuits. We really were from very different cultures, seeing what the fashion was at this place and time.

Not that we really would mind much anymore being naked, we took them nonetheless for a later try. It could be fun.

We found more sea swimming equipment around, and not much else worthy of interest.

Here and there lied rotten clothes, watches, glasses, titanium splinters and tooth fillings.

It's hard to know how it happened, and how bones or tooth enamel can vanish, but it's safe to assume that people died there. In a sudden time it seems, everything organic, and bones, were dissolved or burnt, but nothing else.

Though the bones may have melted later and over a longer period of time. We've seen clues to that before. Well, the whole bodies may have simply liquefied gradually, and the good dried up later, before vanishing as dust in the wind.

We left the resort and its colourful carpet that probably looked horrific for a while in a distant past.

Bleue and I split again. One to bring the ship closer to this side of the island, and the other one to begin inspecting the next city.

I went back to the ship this time, carrying our bags and findings.

I untied the poorly attached rope that held the ship in tow, and soon after sailed away. The sun was getting closer to the sea over there as I arrived on the other side of the island.

I anchored the ship around where the city should be, behind a hill that doesn't betray it.

Climbing it a while later, I was reunited with Bleue as expected.

R - Anything unusual?

B - About that... It depends on your reference for what is unusual I guess... I would say yes, for us, it is.

R - What is it?

B - Well... The city is inhabited... I don't understand their language, but they are living there, at least hundreds of people.

R - That... Does sound weird. In more ways than one.

~

We enter a city that is humming with life as people walk around, chatting and doing their usual business.

Though we have an obvious different look to them, they don't seem to care about our foreign presence.

I don't know either the language they're speaking, but it's neither new European, nor anything I've heard before. Maybe Greek.

As we try to discuss, they quickly brush us off as if we truly are bothering them.

They look like happy and carefree citizens of this little city, and they keep it clean.

Bleue notices that they're not paying anything for the things they get, whether it's food or items.

They do sell, or offer, manufactures items that are from this time, but very cheaply crafted from recycled parts of older items. They also offer items of older times.

We get an ice cream. And a microscope from a sports and souvenir shop.

We're being suspicious and take a look at the cream before eating any of it. It takes us then the rest of the day to check things in more details. I bring samples of various things for Bleue to observe and analyses, as she sits at a peaceful terrace with view over the sea.

As I notice someone spitting a little further in a street, I go collect a sample of his saliva.

I bring it to Bleue. She compares it against ours.

B - Yup. There is definitely something weird there, your hunch was correct. Let's check something more dirty if you don't mind...

I go to public toilets and collect a few samples of feces. They don't smell as bad as I feared. Bleue compares it against some of our own again.

B - What they eat and drink seems mostly normal. What they leave doesn't.

R - So... The food is normal, but the people aren't?

B - That would be my conclusion. We shouldn't rule out that it comes from something they eat and I can't see however.

R - What was different?

B - Well... There wasn't much to see. The saliva had no living cells, and the feces were just mud. Water and dirts in suspension. I didn't see any living tissues.

R - We should check their blood...

Not long before night began to set, I bumped accidentally into someone, a needle in hand.

The person taunted me, but didn't react really to the tiny wound.

Soon after, Bleue was comparing red droplets.

B - I'm no biologist, but it's obviously not blood. It's more like sea water and a dye. There are no cells again. Nothing organic there.

R - So... They're not even living organisms? They're golems?

B - Or puppets. Hard to say with only our eyes...

~

We went back to the ship to spend the night, cautiously. The flying ribbons we can perceive if we focus enough didn't tell us much. I didn't perceive a great flow or hole swallowing everything.

B - Should we invest the situation here further? Try to find out what they are?

R - I don't know, it could backfire wildly if we piss-off a daiûa holding them. And since they're not really alive, it may not matter much.

B - The safest course of action for us would be to leave right away. But what do you want to do?

R - I want to know at least a little more about what happened here. But we won't try to act or change anything before we're sure about everything. And if we can't find out, we leave it as is.

B - Agreed then. Good night.

~

On the next dawn, we went back to observe the city. No one had awoken yet. It was as if everyone had vanished overnight.

We found out they were sleeping as we saw some bodies inside rooms, doors and windows sometimes left open.

They looked dead. They were dead. All of them were mummified corpses, some of them still wearing the new and pristine clothes bought the previous day.

Then as the sun rose, we saw it.

A kind of fog came out from the sea, and spread into the city. It condensed itself inside the bodies, and they looked like they were being regenerated, rebuilt by this heavy moisture.

We held our breath as the fog ran around our legs, and we stood still. It was running along the stairs like a flow of smoke, entering every house beneath the door and along the window frames. It ran around us, perplexed or annoyed, but eventually scattered rapidly.

We saw the bodies regaining seemingly flesh as the fog flown into them and condensed there. Until the human bodies all seemed asleep and seemingly breathing, to wake up almost naturally a moment later.

The remaining fog disappeared inside the last bodies in the most distant buildings we could guess.

So there was something not in town, but under the sea, and a daily show of puppets.

We simply had missed the evening closing ceremony yesterday.

What should we do with that?

B - They're not living beings being tormented, so... Nothing?

R - I think so too. Whatever is under the sea, that daiûa is only playing with puppets. I see no harm in that. Let's leave it at that.

It's a little grim for our sensibilities of course, but we get used to current normality now. If a monster plays with humans remains, today, there's nothing wrong about that. That would have been a different story in our time.

As we returned to the boat, someone on a bike caught up with us, and tried to talk with us.

We didn't understand. We don't know either what that thing speaking really is.

But he became aggressive, and I unsheathed my sword.

He drew a gun at us.

Before he had the time to take the safety off, I had slashed his hands away.

Bleue reacted just as fast, and took the weapon away from the quickly decaying hands on the ground.

Then we left the place swiftly without exchanging a word.

The puppet pursued us on foot, but as I didn't expect it to be able to swim to the boat, we didn't try to stop it from following us. I didn't slash its head off to avoid getting its master even angrier.

I think it was yelling something at us in different languages, trying them one after the other.

At some point we heard distinctly the English ''Wait!'', which made us twitch.

But we weren't going to take our chance on this island after that.

We jumped into the raft onto the sea. The puppet stopped running as it reached the shore.

As we were climbing onto the boat, we saw the puppet fall dead, abandoned.

I had a bad feeling about this, and urged Bleue to start quickly to stir the boat away as I tried to pull the raft back inside.

The fog was regrouping in its hollow form, and beginning to hover over the sea toward us.

I abandoned the raft as the thing reached it, it wasn't worth trying to keep it. We left it behind and quickly sailed away.

~