Chapter 10: The Sandcutter

Chapter Ten: The Sandcutter (Edited)

The first time I sincerely realized my new life was abnormal in this world occurred while climbing a small hill on the island’s center, although calling it a hill was still being very generous. Heck, the island itself wasn’t all that much, given I didn’t think the island could be more than forty acres at most in total surface area, although I was heavily estimating there and likely off.

The limestone hill was the tallest point on the island, for a definition of “tall”.  I don’t remember why I decided I wanted to climb it beyond that it was there. Maybe it was some nascent instinct in this new body, or maybe it was innate to want to climb the highest point. Under Mom’s supervision, of course.

At that point, I was still a little uncertain in my new body just walking around and prone to tripping over my own long tail, but Mom was finally letting me outside and was taking me around the island for exercise and “play”. In this case, “play” mostly involved games of hide & seek and surprisingly acrobatic chases through the dead woods. I remember thinking maybe I would finally meet other people, maybe at some local village, cousins, something.

I can’t say I was looking forward to engaging with other kids my apparent age given my memories of an old life. I had no confidence in being able to act right around them, yet I couldn’t deny a fundamental curiosity to learn more about what was out there. The society Mom and I were a part of remained a near total mystery to me. Up to that point, I’d thought Mom was single and living on her own. It fit as well as any other explanation I could think of given my fragmentary grasp of language at that point. Even that thought was straining as it got progressively weirder. The reason was simple; I never saw anyone else.

That day had only just begun as I took in the island with the sun slowly rising through the cloud cover. I observed the dead woods around, their trunks sticking up among otherwise green foliage. To the west I’d seen the ruins of the sea fort we called home, yet those weren’t my goal. I’d climbed hoping to get a good view of the sea, but something in the mist shrouded estuary glinted, so I’d paused in my explorations. Intrigued, I’d sat still as the wind blew away the fog and had my tail go stiff and hair stand on end.

From the mist, a shape took form. A sleek, pointed bow almost like a blade’s edge pierced the fog as gentle waves lapped its sides. Rising from the water like an iron castle, the superstructure stood defiant to the ravages of the elements or time itself. Its superstructure bristled with great batteries of what looked an awful lot like naval artillery pointed to the sky proudly like spears held at the ready.

I don’t know how long I stared at the iron giant resting in the estuary’s calm waters on that day. I don’t think my brain wanted to accept that I was seeing a warship that looked straight out of a World War documentary or archive practically on my doorstep.

Maybe it was that in a previous life I’d never seen any watercraft bigger than a motorboat, or maybe it was the discrepancy between the ancient feeling citadel Mom and I called home vs a small mountain of iron grounded in the estuary.  At some point Mom had closed my gaping mouth with a smirk. I hadn’t even huffed at her for the audacity. I’d barely managed to ask one question, and as always, it was the obvious one.

“What is that?” I’d asked.

Mom sighed wistfully. “That, Gwen? That’s the ICM Sandcuter, although we always called her Sandy.”

“So big,” I muttered.

My comment made Mom snicker. My look just made her snicker more. “Sorry, just… Sandy’s not that big. She’s just a [scriostóir],” Mom said, making me frown at another word I didn’t know yet. Something relating to destructors as a class of ship? “Compared to the big girls in her majesty’s navy, she’s teeny-tiny,” Mom said as she settled beside me on the limestone and pulled me into her lap.

Afterward, we’d spent a while longer just watching the waves lapping against the grounded warship as the remaining morning fog was blown away.

Up to that point, I’d suspected things weren’t right. I was just a child and admittedly young, but the only person I’d ever seen was Mom. I never even heard other voices than hers and what my imagination cooked up.

I never saw my father in this world, nor a doting grandmother. I never saw a sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin. There were no neighbors, no babysitters, no landlady checking up on us. Heck, I never even saw someone so much as pass by on an errand.

 I never saw anyone but Mom.

It might be one thing to be born to a single mother without much family in her life, but for there to be absolutely no one else to ever make an appearance, even briefly? Something was deeply wrong. Seeing the proud ship grounded in the estuary and wounded confirmed the truth for me.

Mom and I were alone, shipwrecked survivors. I could only guess I’d been teeny tiny when we ended up here, if I wasn’t outright born here. Where the other people such a vessel would’ve had were, I didn’t want to even say. The possibilities were many and uniformly dark.

 It’d been too long. No help was coming. The latter realization took a bit longer to percolate in my brain, but it made sense. Normally shipwrecked survivors were picked up — especially in an age of steel warships like Sandy — but nobody came for us. We were on our own.

Yet, Mom had a plan and Sandy was the key.

~~~

That afternoon found Mom and I in a secondary room in the citadel directly across from our bedroom that functioned as a half storage space for random supplies and half workshop for everything from carpentry to machinery. There used to be some sort of fresco on the surface of the otherwise uniform sandstone, but it was long worn away.

 “Torque wrench?” Mom asked.

My slightly fuzzy fingers danced over the dizzying array of assorted tools and what Mom assured me was not junk before finding the tool in question with a little “ha!”.

“Offset screwdriver with adjustable heads?” This one took even less time, and yes, I did make a different sound; instead, it was a, “a—ha!” after finding it.

“Here’s a tricky one. Tethia Type One-Mana reader?” This one took me a moment to find as it was an odd little square box with an adjustable cable with a ring cap coming out of the bottom that had something akin to a voltage gauge but on a system I didn’t recognize yet. Yet, it got a ‘Ha!” all the same.

My tail may have been a touch more energetic than normal as I helped.

“Lubricant, Type B?” So it went, with Mom steadily refilling a beaten blue-gray toolbox. It was her fault, honestly. I remember the last time she just dumped the whole thing over the table and called that organized. The stupid part was that it worked for her. Yet, she was careful in putting everything back in its place until the box was efficiently packed. I really did wonder what went through my mom’s brain sometimes.

No matter how endless Mom’s tollbox seemed or her supernatural ability to find more places to shove parts and tools, there was an end to things as she eventually finished packing with my assistance. Mom patted my head and gave my ears a pet. I resisted the urge to lean into the headpats but accepted them graciously. “Good job, Kitten.You’ve gotten better at this.”

For a second, I saw both my mom retracting her hand, but it overlaid another memory, a double image like two old time film stripes laid over each other. I saw Mom smiling at me in the blue tinged store room of the Citadel lit by blue light strips, but I also saw gray concrete and a lazily spinning fan with a beat-up Volkswagen as the backdrop. My father mirrored Mom’s movements. I heard his achingly familiar voice say, “Good job, kiddo. You’ve gotten better at this.”

I blinked. The vivid memory was gone. Mom didn’t seem to notice my spaceout, for which I was grateful. I did my best not to grimace. That was increasingly freaky when it happened.

I hadn’t forgotten my old world. At least, I didn’t think I had.  I still remembered all 53 states, knew where I grew up in a rusting central town surrounded by nothing but corn and ruined industry, my study of art design in college, my best friend and his undying hatred of eggs, and fond memories of my dad trying as a father despite not really being cut out for it. Yet, each passing day here meant those memories didn’t have much of a place or even relevance right up until something, a reminder, thrust them to the forefront of my brain. They almost felt like flashbacks; except I was fully aware of what was happening as a memory.

 I looked at my hand. Correlation did not equal causation, but it was really freaking weird that this started happening after I gained my crest.

“Mom?” I hesitated a second, before continuing. “Does the crest do things? LIke, to memories and stuff?”

Mom paused her own work. “It can,” she said, carefully. “Why?”

“Just wondering,” I lied instantly.

Mom stared at me. “You can tell me when you’re ready, sweetie,” she said.

I was struck by wanting to hug her for understanding of my reluctance and utter embarrassment for how shitty my excuse was. I settled for looking away as Mom continued working.

In between fetching various tools for Mom, I had packed up my portion of the work: lunch. More specifically, I had packed up leftover food from our last meal into bowls covered with fabric more to keep out flies than anything else. My contribution wasn’t much and it galled me a little bit. Unfortunately, I was well aware I was a child here, and I physically couldn’t even carry that much without being overwhelmed. Hell, I had trouble with the heavy front door most days, although half of that was terrible hinges in need of oiling.

Feeling just a touch sneaky, I snuck a smaller lantern we didn’t use very much and wax pencil in as well. I didn’t know if I’d have a chance to use these, but if I did, I don’t think Mom would blame me too much. Hopefully.

A few minutes later, and we were at the door ready to go. Yet, Mom paused. My ears perked up, but she didn’t say anything. She entered the bedroom and returned a few moments later with a long thing that could be mistaken for a rilfe slung over her shoulder.

“Oh,” was all I could muster as I tracked the weapon she’d told me was called a shard thrower. The weapon looked as if a bolt-action rifle had a night of passion with a crossbow and the resulting offspring was fought over in a bitter custody battle that tore it between sleek military utilitarian aesthetics and a Norse rune maker’s wet dream.The front curved risers of the thrower were plastered in complex interlinking runes studded with dull bits of blue glass, as well as strange geometric lines carved into the long barrel that led back to a purely functional wood stock, trigger, and iron sights.

“Can’t be too careful,” Mom said, patting me before shoving the door open with her usual strength.

I tried to smile back at her, but I knew it wasn’t one of my best smiles. The sight of the weapon brought back some bitter memories of my old life, ones I would rather wish were left buried.

________________________________________

If you've paid to read this anywhere outside of Patreon, SubscribeStar, or Ko-Fi, then you've been scammed and someone is ripping you off as it is stolen.

If you're reading this on any other site than RoyalRoad, SufficientVelocity,Spacebattles, QuestionableQuesting, MZNovel, or Wattpad or it's by anyone other than HiddenMaster, it's been plagiarized and stolen.

________________________________________

Chapter Ten Author’s Note

We finally discover the truth of why they’re here!

I’ve known since the beginning, albeit I did have a big change at one point. Originally, I’d had them be fully native to the island with Eliza being a member of a hunted clan hiding out here, but I ultimately changed things to this backstory and, significantly to the setting as a whole that radically changed the premise.  I think that was for the better overall. It flowed way more smoothly, at least.

Obligatory author plug because I'd love to write more but society sadly says I need monies to keep living (and support my growing addiction to commissioning catgirl art)

Support me on Patreon, Ko Fi, or Subscribe Star. Check them advance chapters uploaded every weekend, too. Or check out my website for links to my other author accounts, contact, socials, etc. Anything is appreciated :3

Also I have a discord now! Check it out. I would love to chat with fans. :3