Waterlogged

4: Crafting a Way

Making a raft shouldn't be that difficult.
That's what Syrus was hoping for, anyway.

In an ideal world, he could have just had his quantum reconstructor reshape the wood into an entire boat and be done, but the problem is that quantum reconstruction had poor results on organic matter.

Wood gave the best results in that regard, but even that usually ended up as what a novice carpenter would come up with at best.

That made wooden products one of the few things that still have to be crafted manually, though even those industries are preparing to die once the tech advances.

Even if he did manage to get it in the right shape, the wood coming out of reconstruction is always completely dry, and wood expands when it absorbs moisture. Anything he succeeded with would probably crack or split soon anyway.

Thankfully he didn't need a real boat, the mainland was even visible from the beach!

Syrus was focused on his task, cutting down numerous trees and stripping the branches off using the cutting feature of the reconstructor.

Once he finally decided he had enough logs, he began working on the rope to hold them together.

The knife he recieved as a parting gift came in useful here as well, helping to split the plants into fibers that could be twisted into rope.

The satisfactory feeling of looking at a completed raft was intoxicating, and despite the obvious danger, he was quick to pile all the useful equipment onto the raft right away.

If it didn't work then fine, he was doomed anyway if he never makes it off this island.

Syrus was ready to push the raft off, when he felt another ominous presence around him. Even if there was something there, it made no sense to 'feel' anything, but he could.

This time, he tried to ignore it and brush it off as his sanity declining.

But just as he was ready to continue with his plans, he could feel something practically touching him, and when he looked down at the water, reflected behind him was a clear shadow of some kind of... monster!

He screams and fall forward into the water in response, and even starts choking on it before finally surfacing to realize it was gone again.

Syrus splashed frantically to get on the raft and hurry out of this place.

There had to be something on that island, and he didn't want any part of it at all!

The only thing he had to focus on was rowing!

He didn't really think there could be anything more scary than whatever was on that island, besides being followed by whatever was on it.

Nevertheless, this world was more than ready to punish him for thinking something so optimistic.

Syrus was exhausting himself with the rowing, and it'd only been 30 minutes before the radio started making noise.

He couldn't guess whether rescue was coming early or if it would just be some extra communication from Earth.

The former would be a disaster and he can't respond to the latter with his portable radio, which he's not even sure will escape the atmosphere.

He picks up the radio to check, but instead of something he expected to hear, it's a distorted, yet almost feminine sounding voice.

"Who...are...you?"

It cuts out abruptly without any elaboration or even any indication from the radio that the broadcast ended.

The isolating background noise of waves once again became deafening over anything else.

Syrus felt another spike of fear already.

It was one thing to be alone on a planet with strange alien monsters roaming around, but it was so much worse to be told he wasn't alone, to the point they even knew what frequency he had it set to?

What could he even do if he had to actually face the creators of what stranded him here? He was alone and he definitely didn't have an army to fight with.

Syrus was getting tired of rowing, but he could see he was almost halfway there, and he had to get there before the waters angered.

While he was focused on getting to land, he almost forgot there was life on this planet.

The reminder came in the form of a creature resembling some kind of salamander.

It had a blue tint to camoflauge in the water and darker patches on its face which were easy to see when it peeked out of the water at him.

Syrus just hoped ignoring it would make it go away, but ignoring your problems has never worked.

Instead of leaving, it opens its mouth and shoots out what amounted to what could only be described as an organic spear.

The mechanism for such a powerful attack was certainly an amazing biological evolution, but that wasn't very pleasant for Syrus, who had to barely dodge it with the time he had because of the distance.

He shot back, and miraculously hit it directly, but it had no effect at all, and it simply started closing distance to have an easier target.

Syrus forgot he never moved the weapon off its stun setting! It was easy to forget since even the stun was enough for the crabs back on the island.

But he was desperate right now, so he cranked it all the way up to the maximum in the heat of the moment and just fired it off as soon as the sea monster surfaced to attack again.

This time, the beast shrieked and fell back into the water with a large hole directly cauterized into its vital area.

Being able to see through it like swiss cheese was a testament to the weapons power, but he'd also wasted a huge amount of its charge.

The next hour and a half were thankfully uneventful, and he arrived on land in one piece.

Syrus was having more and more trouble thinking of this predicament in a positive light as everything he encounters tries to kill him in some way.

He was so thankful for the perceived safety of land, he never wanted to go close to the water again! But he has no choice.

He wasn't even sure he could enjoy an ocean on Earth after this experience.