I remember waking up on the beach of an unknown land. The white sand beneath me was burning, and all I could think of was escape from the beating rays of the sun. I slowly stood, for my head was pounding and I feared that any quick movements would make me faint again. What I saw was horrible. I will never forget it. I saw the boat that Eka, Be, Trana, and I had bought with our hard earned money. It laid on the beach, splintered into a multitude of tiny pieces. The sails and the food could be seen scattered along the shoreline as far as the eye could see. I saw no one else, no Eka, no Be, and no Trana. I was paralyzed with shock. Things like this werent supposed to happen to explorers like me!
How naive I was at the time. I was about to experience much, much worse. When I finally began moving towards the trees that lined the opposite side of the beach sharp pains shot through my body. When I looked down I realized that I was a bright crimson. My body was so burned that I might well have been lying on that beach for many days. I still dont know to this day. Regardless, the fact that I looked as ripe as one of the tomatoes my village grew meant I had to get under shade as soon as possible.
When I finished my trudging across the burning sand and reached the shade of the trees I felt relief. That feeling was to be short lived. As I walked further inland I noticed that the sounds of wildlife one usually hears in the wilderness were absent. Immediately I was put on my guard, but it was too late. The first dart to bury itself in my neck was not the last, but it was the only one I consciously recognized. As blackness descended upon me, I saw a man step out of the brush around me. He was a muscular man, wearing only a rough loincloth and a hat decorated by deer antlers. He sneered at me.
When I woke from my dreams, I almost wished I had stayed asleep. I appeared to be in a village of sorts. It was populated by men and women similar to the one I had seen when I was knocked out. They seemed to have a very guttural language, mostly grunts and short words. I could not speak it, but when a young boy no older than 10 approached me with a large club his intent was quite obvious. The boy said something in this tongue of theirs, and when I only responded with a questioning look he pounced on me. He beat me with his club until he had knocked out three of my teeth, and blood was running freely from multiple places on my body. My right eye was swollen shut, and I was bruised in almost every part of my body.
Even when the boy did stop, I got the impression that it was only because someone of greater importance than him was approaching. That someone came to a stop in front of me, and I saw that he was huge. He was the only person I had seen here that had any clothes other than a loincloth and deer antler hat, but even he only wore a deerskin cloak. He did carry what seemed to be standard issue around this camp, though. It was a club, the largest I had yet seen. The man, I assumed he was the chief, looked at me and then looked towards the boy that had beaten me. He made a questioning grunt, and the boy answered with a derisive snort.
The chief turned towards where the rest of the tribe had gathered and made a loud pronouncement. Dgurn huh jur huhna! Then, he moved his finger across his neck in a straight line. I knew at that moment that he had decided to kill me, for what I dont know. I suspected it was because I had not fought back when the boy attacked me. In any event, I began to steel myself for death. However, when the crowd reached towards me they did not attack. They simply handed me off, moving me as though I were only a sack of nuts.
When I got to the end of the line, I was thrown over stakes inside a ring-shaped pit which were no doubt poisoned, and landed in the center. There was no way out, and I didnt have the strength to jump over the pit. What I saw on the ground next to me immediately raised my spirits, however. It was two of my lost companions, Eka and Be! They were both asleep, but I hurried to wake them. We reunited joyfully, and our bond grew even stronger. We had survived the shipwreck together, and now we had survived the camp together.
Our joy was soon dampened, however. We heard and saw that the men and women who inhabited the camp were building devices whose purpose could not be mistaken. We were to be executed after all. This fact only increased our need to escape, and we spent the entire night planning. The plan we came up with was a desperate gambit, but it was the only thing we could do. We would jump the pit, and then run as far to the east along the coast as we could. In all this it never occurred to us that Trana was not with us.
When we jumped the pit, all of us made it over. Apparently the camp dwellers were not used to seamen who had to have strong legs to survive. When we got out into the forest, our gaiety ended. We found Trana, dead. His corpse had obviously been there for quite a while. The stink that rose off that decaying flesh was too great to describe. Our grieving would have to wait, however. We did all that we could. We found the sea, and we ran. We ran like we had never run before. We ran until our lungs felt like they would burst, and then ran some more. We ran.