Ugh, really, hitting a sandbank now of all times?

All I wanted to do was get back home and sleep for a week. My intro ARCH finals had been absolutely harrowing. Ten courses was an insane–though manageable–workload. Well, I attended an Ivy after all, and my dad had prepared me for the shift with his own supplementary summer lessons.

Despite my complaints, Mom insisted on doing a fun family sailing trip–on the very same day Dad and I returned to the island.

I shouldn't have made this mistake of grounding the boat in the first place... if I'd been in top shape, it never would've happened! Normally I wouldn't mind the swim, but this week's work and travel had taken its toll.

Taking a dip in the still-frigid May waters to shove the boat was a last resort. So, I took the slightly more palatable course of action first. After doing a quick survey of the bank's location with a boat hook, I removed my shoes and clambered onto the little ship's boom, swinging it out to reach over the water. Inching my way along it on my stomach, the boat tipped and my toes came perilously close to touching waves.

Suddenly, the boat shuddered and slid free. My frozen hands lost their grip on the boom, and so did I. Normally, my parents would've immediately helped me out, and I'd have been fine, despite the temperature.

Not so, this time. I swiftly descended through the water, like my feet were encased in cement blocks. My body had frozen solid, and nothing was visible but inky blackness. Saltwater stung my open eyes, and I passed out.

In a daze, all that I could feel was warmth and weight pressing down, to the point where I initially couldn't take a breath. I struggled to breathe deeply, and felt immediate regret upon doing so. I smelled rancid meat, simmering in the summer heat.

Instantly panicking, I sat up and opened my eyes. A person’s torso was flung away and tumbled down the pile, a section of large intestine trailing behind.

I was atop a pile of dead bodies.

It took more than a few minutes for me to truly register what had happened, largely involving constant sobbing. I definitely wouldn’t use the phrase ‘come to terms with’.

Balmy midsummer breezes were my next clue that something extraordinarily wrong had occurred.

The possibility wasn’t a thought I wanted to consider, but the bodies’ odd state was also too significant to ignore. Most were incomplete, but not in a way that suggested they had been violently cut or ripped apart. The deep muscles were exposed over skeletons, with organs laid bare in such a way I knew impossible to do through dissection in any reasonable time frame.

If I assumed that they, like me, had been mysteriously transported here… their bodies were reformed, unnaturally regrown. But by what? How?

A few vague memories from earlier about waking up several times, completely unable to move, may be another point in favor of the theory, impossible as it seemed.

The environment itself was almost comfortingly familiar. I'd woken up close to the edge of a small cliff, and welcomed the salt winds that reminded me of home.

The island vegetation was, at least, identifiable. Scrub, large bushes, long grasses, and what I could hesitantly call olive and cypress trees, plus a few of what looked like miniature Lombardi pines, and, bizarrely, Norfolk. Overall, oddly similar to what Crete was like when I went to visit my mom’s extended family over the summer. The frescoes at Akrotiri were incredible. Would I ever be able to return...?

Nevertheless, it did give me hope that I was still on Earth. How low my standards have fallen! Maybe I’ve simply travelled back in time!

After shaking my head, which made flecks of dried blood fly everywhere, I began to carefully pick my way down a small path to the beach below. It was a small comfort that people had been here before.

The cove’s beach was covered with small white pebbles, and I saw a few crabs scuttle behind larger rocks as I passed by. Some fled inside a cave cut into the cliff face.

After taking a sorely needed dip in the shallows, I took my time exploring, but didn’t find a single piece of seaglass. Only a few pot sherds. The sharpest of them still had a few letters visible.

Ones of an alphabet I had never seen before, which was both concerning and exciting.

I suppose everything had led up to an obvious conclusion, but it didn’t really sink in until I looked up from the beach and saw an enormous snake fairly far off in the distance, flying above the rightmost island.

It slowly registered that yes, that’s a dragon, along with the wonderful news that it had just slightly turned course, now undulating directly towards this island. There were some strange house-like structures on top of it, and I could barely make out enough to see that they were being used by people to ride on its back.

I was going to investigate the caves soon, but something tells me it’s better to do so right this instant. Sure, I might get rescued and return to some measure of civilization… but the fare could be one I'm not willing to pay. Becoming a slave would certainly be in the realm of possibility, especially considering I’m from a whole other dimension.

Plus, you know, it's a dragon. Besides the fact that I like sailing, I’d very much prefer to travel on a vehicle that can’t eat me.

Ducking into the cave, and feeling my way through the narrow passageway, I stumbled up a set of roughly hewn stairs.

Oh… reliefs are cut into the walls. Curiosity broke me out of my dragon-induced panic. They’re dolphins, I realized, as I traced the outlines with my fingers. If I was on Earth at the moment, I’d immediately exit and call for some real archaeologists to look at the site. Not one that's only a year into college. Unfortunately, looks like it’s either up to me, or those dragon riders.

Suddenly, a light appeared in a wide niche at the hallway’s end, illuminating the reliefs’ polychromy. On the floor, there were several piles of what looked to be a variety of–likely bronze and wood–weapons and tools. Sadly, they had long since corroded or decomposed.

Reaching the end of the passageway, it opened up into a tiny room and I came face to face with…

What the hell is that?

I stared into its eyes–large, warm, and nearly human. Its face and ears were more feline in structure, but had a small smiling mouth. Three sets of parallel horns adorned its head, gently curving upwards. The creature’s body was long and sinuous, but lacked wings like that dragon. Instead, it had multitudes of hoofed legs. Blue, and a few orange, wiggly marks ran down its furred body, evoking ocean waves. Alarmingly, it was semi transparent, to the point of seeming weak and sickly.

Nausea rushed through me as the… spirit? extended its catlike forelimbs. From it, I received a mental impression of a gift, and a cloudy gold bubble blossomed between its paws. Two deep blue colored rods floated directly below.

Before I could say anything, the spirit reached its arms out further, intensifying the nausea.

It dragged two softly glowing, sea-green tetrahedra from my head. Each vertex was capped with curving, metallic shapes. I couldn’t do much else than stare in horror and awe as the bubble and rods–information, knowledge, power–flowed inside them. Text immediately started spreading across its surfaces.

The waves of connecting concepts crashing through my mind nearly caused me to pass out, but I held fast.

It didn’t take long for the language to finish being literally downloaded into my head. Strangely, it felt like the process was cut short, with the spirit suddenly wavering, then fizzling out of existence.

Did it just die? I sat there somberly, for a moment.

Is this effectively an interdimensional visitor center, then? Despite being thankful, I can’t help but feel the slightest bit miffed that I learned more of a language in minutes than I did in years of Latin lessons from my dad. More importantly, was the cave built here because this is a location that people get transported to? Or is it the thing that transports people here? The spot where all the bodies appeared is directly above where the spirit is, isn’t it.

The sound of two faint voices outside snapped me out of my speculations. Judging from the direction, I was pretty sure the people were in the cove adjacent to mine. It was surprising I could hear them at all.

“Akın, you sure that ––– of a dragon said it was here? With the size of this archipelago, could be anywhere…”

“We’ve been over this, Ece! Don’t call İstaklal a damn ––– and especially not a ––––––––! I know it isn’t the smoothest ride, but–“

“Jeez, this place reeks! Yeah, there's no doubt. Bet none of those guys crossing over made it… buncha weaklings.”

“Whatever, Ece. Calibrate your MP Counter so we can loot the spirit shrine and capture any survivors. This one’s not marked on a single map, I’m sure it’ll have some good ––– –––––.”

So they are looking for this place. I wish I could understand everything they’re saying. Seems that the language I know is out of date. Just how old is the shrine?

Wasting no time, I exited and crept around the cliffside, then hid in the water. The sea was calm today, so my body gently bumped against the rocks as I waited.

About twenty minutes passed.

The voices returned, much closer this time.

“Not a single damned thing! It didn’t even have a spirit!” Ece wailed. “Paid th– İstaklal–twenty-six whole akşe to take a tiny detour. You really couldn’t have thought to remind me that yes, there’s a small chance the time-lock glyphs will have completely degraded? At this rate we’ll barely recoup our losses once we get to port…”

She was met with silence, followed by a long sigh.

“Ugh… wait, twenty-six? You sai– er, nevermind. I’ll make it up to you, Ece. For now, let’s just focus on swimming back to the pickup location without getting our legs bitten off by ––––––.”

Whatever the hell -ketiyila- are, I’m suddenly rather unsure about my previous plan to swim from island to island, hoping to stumble across a merchant or fishing ship. Perhaps there's a very good reason they use air travel here.

Maybe I should’ve asked to go with them, even if it meant becoming a slave, being imprisoned, or other such fate, judging by that guy's use of "capture". Plus I'm not at all confident in people who loot places like that shrine as ones being inclined towards altruism.

Though… objectively, isn’t getting eaten by a sea monster worse?