Project: Pyp

I: Awakening

My skin is warm. An annoying sound tries to break me from this blackness, but I roll away from it. A more calm and soothing woosh fills my ears. The surface I'm laying on is soft and shifting. When I roll over, it sticks to me like little grains of sand. Harsh water washes over my head. I open my eyes and try to scream. I can't see. Water fills my mouth. I can't breath. The tide turns, and water goes up my nose. I sputter and choke and crawl away from the harsh water and sprawl out on the warm sand. The annoying sound comes again, and I pull myself up and look around. Water rolls up and down the beach and the imprint of my body is washed away by the tide.

I look out to the horizon. There's so much water, I can hardly believe it! Have I ever seen this much water before? It feels as though I have, and yet... It's as breathtaking as if seeing it with new eyes. In the far distance, a blue lump breaks the horizon. A distant island?

Where am I?

That annoying call comes again, and a white bird is sitting atop a log. It looks at me, head cocked to one side. Its eyes are black.

I ask it, "What?"

It calls again.

"Could you stop, please? It's annoying."

It calls again. Four more times.

I shake my head and try to stand, but the albatross beats its massive wings and, startled, I fall again. My legs feel like jelly. A voice calls from behind me, and a shadow passes over my heart.

"Pyp!" it says. "Pyp, you're awake! Good. I need you to come with me."

The urgency in the voice startles me, and I try to stand again. A birdman approaches me as I gain my feet. Small, hunched, and dark-feathered, it wears dirty white robes with a geometric blue design. They were fine, once.

He's waddling at me as fast as he can. "Pyp, can you hear me? How do you feel?"

I nod and say, "Um, yes. Hi. Who are you?"

He approaches me and examines my naked body. In his claws is a set of plain clothes.

"Do I know you?" I ask. The birdman ignores me. I pull my arm away from him and say, "If you will not answer my questions, then I won't have you peeking about my person like that."

He looks up at me with startle in his beady bird eyes and nods slowly, making a mental note before composing himself. "Yes... Yes, I'm terribly sorry my dear friend. You are Pyp, and I-"

I interrupt him. "Yes. I know who I am, thank you very much."

He pauses and squints at me before continuing, "I... am Bartholomew, and these are for you." His long, curved beak looks like it shouldn't be able form the sounds it does. He holds out the clothes, and I dress.

"Thank you and well met, Bartholomew. Can I ask where we are? I'm not familiar with this place. What's that island over-"

I turn to point at the horizon, but Bartholomew takes my hand, saying "Come with me. We'll have time for questions later." I let him lead me to a break in the forest at the top of the beach. The trees are small, only twice my height and not very thick. Are all trees like this, or have I seen larger before?

As we walk, Bartholomew explains, "This is the magical land of Al'Orion, and I am in the middle of a very important experiment your help is vital to completing." I stroll along behind his fast shuffle and look at the forest as we pass by it. The trees get larger and denser deeper in the forest off to the left, but they thin out going off to the right, where a cliff rises above them. I have to crane my neck to see the top.

A figure on the side of the road catches my eye. It's a white marble statue that appears to peer deeper into the forest on the left. Rather than being a short birdperson like Bartholomew, the statue is of a primateperson about my height. It's absolutely beautiful. The face is so expressive and the detail of the clothes is minute. The belt buckle is so finely carved only a master could have crafted it. The detail is such that the statue looks as though it had been a real person, once. A person looking for something.

Bartholomew leads me to a ramshackle hut next to a sparkling river and a small waterfall. The hut itself is old, and several-times reinforced. There's a fenced-in area behind it. More forest extends out on the other side of the stream. More statues like the one I passed litter the area. There are several just in the fenced area. One appears to be looking at something in the sky in front of the house, and another is recoiling from a reinforced wall of the hut. Another is reaching down from the roof. They're all identical. The sun peeks its golden rays through the trees across the stream.

We enter the fenced area, and Bartholomew lets go of my arm. There are a few strange contraptions in addition to the statues. Bartholomew ignores them all and walks directly to a small table with two vertical brackets rising up on either side of the far side of the area. There is a small rope attached to one of the brackets, long enough to reach the other bracket with some hanging slack. Bartholomew takes my hand and puts it on top of the rope, holding it taught from the bracket to the center of the table.

"Hold this down and don't let it move," he says. I oblige.

Bartholomew takes the other side of the rope and pulls it toward the other bracket, trying to connect it. The rope is too short with me holding down the center. I think of lifting my hand to allow Bartholomew to connect the rope, but I don't. He looks at me for a moment and nods, pulling a notebook from out of his robes. He turns away and starts scribbling something down.

"Did I do well, Bartholomew?" I ask.

He barely turns and gives me a quick glance. "Yes, yes, Pyp. You did extraordinary."

"Can I move my hand, now?"

He stops walking and looks at me like he did at the beach. I don't like that look; it makes me very uncomfortable.

"You can stop holding down the rope," he says, finally. I move my hand and approach him. "I am leaving," he says. "I will see you in a month." He begins to walk away, but remembers something and turns back. "Also, Pyp."

"Yes?" I ask.

"Do not go near the stream. The water is dangerous," he says. "And stay away from the ocean. If you... somehow find yourself near a reflective surface, do not look at it. Your reflection is death for us all." With that, he disappears over the hill, leaving me to my questions and this ramshackle hut. I look at it and forget my questions. Strangely enough, it feels like home.