Morning all and Happy Friday. Let’s jump into the last prompt of the week and see where it takes us. Timers set for fifteen minutes, no stopping to let the inner editor get a hold and off we go.
Okay this may be my favorite prompt of the week. I really need to take a look at continuing this. I love the idea of an outpost suddenly cut off and having to navigate a new world.
Friday, April 10th: It was the second day.
It was the second day. Marcy tried not to let it bother her. She looked out of the window. The sea was calm and flat. There was no sign of storms and only a few shreds of white clouds stramed across the deep blue of the sky.
The sea was calm. There was no danger.
‘No reason for delay,’ she thought.
Still there were no signs of boats of any size. No small row boats or large ships. Nothing but glancing sunlight bouncing ff the shifting water could be seen. In the distance she could see the long dark line of the mainland. She was too far to see the actual coast but this section was uninhabited so she doubted she would see movement even if she could see the distant shore clearly.
‘They wouldn’t be leaving from my line of sight,’ she reminded herself. ‘Not traveling in daylight.’
She looked away and tried telling herself that two days was nothing. “It is only he second day,” she said aloud hoping the words would help. They didn’t but she had no choice but to set the worry aside and occupy herself with the necessary tasks.
There were plenty. The island was self sufficient but to maintain that self sufficiency not only took effort and skill but an attention to detail. They could survive on their own but Marcy was well aware there was a tipping point. Everything had to stay in balance or all of their work could come crashing down on them, collapsing and leaving them in need of basic supplies.
‘And now is certainly not time for a collapse,’ She thought.
Her eyes darted to the window again even as she moved to her desk. As she had since the need to send someone to the mainland was decided upon by their council, she reminded herself they sent the best people for the task. They knew what they were doing.
She had no fears on that score.
She just didn’t know what they would be walking into. Marcy rolled her eyes at herself. “No one does which is why we sent them,” she told herself.
While set up independently they maintained regular communication with the mainland. Once a month or so messages were sent to and from the island to the mainland. There was no set schedule. Then someone realized they hadn’t heard from anyone on the mainland in a while and sent a message asking for news. There was no reply. Again this was not cause for concern as there were often interferences in transmission or delays in sending and receiving messages. There was a relay system where the would upload messages and then the other end of the line would download them. Sometimes it took longer to upload and others to download.
Once the message was sent it was forgotten., time passed as it was their busy season and no one thought much about it until the season was over and there was a break in the activity. Then it was realized that no message had been returned.
Still there was the possibility it never uploaded and therefore couldn’t be downloaded. Messages were lost on occasion. While there was some unease, it was minor. A new message was sent. This time, people paid attention to the details. No message was returned.
Possible system failures were proposed. Each one was checked and double checked. The system was working well on their end. If there was a problem, it was on the mainland.
There was a debate about waiting until someone noticed no messages were coming from the island and they waited some more. They waited through the season of storms and concerned themselves with their own work. Finally the waiting was too much and a team was sent to investigate.
“It is only the second day,” Marcy reminded herself. Yet there was a pit in her stomach. The night before she did the math, adding up the time from the last message received from the mainland to the day their team left. It was more than she thought.
Ten til Midnight 