Ch.3: Hopping Islands
He began to swim, his strokes strong. He gasped when the cold water lapped up to his waist, then took a deep breath and plunged down into the water. No one knew how strong he could swim except for his dad, who didn't care for him anyhow. He'd gone and tried out for the swim team on a whim, especially when his dad made it clear that he wanted to see his son on the team partly because they'd heard that swimming made a person grow taller and physically more fit, and partly because his dad had been on the swim team when he was in high school. Of course, Kaga had never been good enough to please his father even in that aspect - his dad wanted medals, awards, pride, and he hadn't been able to satisfy that side of the equation. He didn't care, though - once he was free from the island he was free from everyone else as well. He'd never have to see his dad's or anybody else's faces ever again. With that thought, his strokes seemed to grow confident, and he swam even stronger. Overhead, though he couldn't see it, clouds swelled in the sky like billowing sails, and the wind against his back drove cold needles into his wooden limbs.
It wasn't until it was almost dark that he looked back. When he was swimming, he retained a sort of half-conscious, not quite paying attention to where he was going. Now, he looked back - and the cold seemed to freeze straight to the marrow of his bones. He was in the exact same place that he had been a thousand strokes earlier. But how could that be? He stopped and treaded water, watching the waves push him, push AGAINST him - with every two strokes he waved, a giant invisible hand was pushing him back. In his anger, he had failed to consider the incoming tide. A flare of anger flickered to life inside of him, trying to get him to blame whoever had done this to him; but he couldn't very well fight an ocean like he could another human being. Resigning to float back to shore, the trip back into the bay took relatively little time to the eons he had swam. Shivering, he looked for his shirt and shoes that he had left on the beach.
Trudging back towards the stream, he saw that the shelter was now no more than a smoldering mass of debris-strewn coals. He stirred them up gently, and they ate up the oxygen finally exposed to them greedily. He fed the small fire with little dry twigs and bark that he found lying around. A little ways to the charred settlement, he found the blanket that Shindou had specifically told him not to harm because it was handmade and had been used by many people to heal themselves before. For a little while he frowned over it in puzzlement - had he missed when he threw it in the doorway of the shelter to burn like all the other materials? But that was of no great importance now; he had the blanket, and the blanket kept him at least slightly warm beside the fire. He was careful not to let it catch - but at the same time, he wasn't exactly willing to forsake his warm fire either. He shivered most of the night away under it, getting up once in a while to gather a little wood and poke at the fire until it sent up a massive shower of sparks.
It was autumn already, not quite close to winter but so red and orange in the air that a person would turn their head at the slight sound of the cranes south, or the salmon that had still survived swimming downstream. The season screamed in the air like its multicolored leaves, warning of cold and of chilliness that had nothing to do with the weather. Kaga felt that way now - he felt as if the season was trying to warn him that this was a bad idea or something like that. It was probably just his nerves working, though, overdriven by the numbness of the water and the wind that flickered his little heap of coals. He'd expected the cold to come, a slow, seeping cold, not biting - the casual freezing of his marrow in his bones that seeped into him like groundwater. Vaguely he hoped that no wild animals would attack that night - he'd be two stiff to even wave a stick.
Somewhere along the night, he fell asleep with his back against a now-warm boulder, heated by his body, the blanket and the fire. He awoke again when it was morning, a little misty and very mysterious, when it was almost light and not-quite light. Half-awake, he dreamed that the mist slowly billowed away with the rising of the sun, and that the light brought sparkles and shafts streaming down like sunshine in the times that the clouds didn't mask its brilliance. He wasn't thinking, he wasn't even conscious of the things he was seeing - and yet he knew that this was not a dream. He had no thoughts; it was as if he were rooted as a part of the earth, a part of the boulder that he was leaning on, and he was observing his children as if he were Earth itself, watching his children play. The sky felt so peaceful, so blue it was dizzying, and the clouds took their time across the sky. The world was beautiful, he thought with a burst of sudden inspiration that lanced through him suddenly, the world IS BEAUTIFUL. And then he returned to that calm state, half-rooted into the Earth as if he had tendrils like a tree, reaching down to grasp life in its own hands. Slower came the thought to him: how much of the Earth had been destroyed?
A slow, dull sound slowly came to him, and he turned his attention away from it. It seemed to be coming from far away - he didn't want to leave his peace just yet, but gradually the sound built on his nerves and grew closer and generally more annoying. As it slowly approached, reality suddenly hit him like lightning and he sat up straight, all peace forgotten. Panicking, he scampered around madly for a moment, still clutching the blanket to himself protectively.
The boat! Shindou and Touya were coming back to check on him! But hadn't they said that they'd come back two days after he'd been all properly settled in? What were they doing back so soon? But slowly, slowly his mind registered that perhaps he HAD been asleep for an entire day, thus waking up on the third day. The exhaustion from his fruitless attempt to get off of the island could have just rendered him tired and fatigued and it was possible that he HAD slept through two days.
The fire was dead; he poked it with a stick. He leapt out of sight of the bay, which he presumed the skiff would be landing. Folding up the blanket hastily, he held it over his head as he splashed into the stream, leaving rocks and fine sand disturbed in his wake - he'd need the blanket later. He didn't even bother to take off his pants as he waded in, he was more concerned with finding a place to hide in. A shot of silver sped past his foot and he knew it was a small fish. Quickly he balanced the blanket over his head as he settled himself under a completely ivy-strewn overhang that fell like a woven green curtain over a jagged rut in the side of the bank. He climbed into the small niche at once, rubbing his feet dry with the blanket and being careful not to drop it into the stream. The waters seemed to read his thoughts - they washed away his footprints like they were nothing. His pants were wet, but he didn't want to attract any attention or movement while the two scouts were still out, and so he sat tight and waited for the telltale sound of the skiff leaving.
It could have been until dark that Shindou and Touya might go, but the moment of beauty in the world had left him strangely satisfied with waiting for the moment. Patience, for the moment, was in him, and even the normal swellings of anger that rose up in him seemed to fall silent and think for a little while. A few times the fleeting temptation of stealing the skiff and leaving the island in a blaze of glory would be wonderful - but was it possible to steal a boat underneath Touya's nose? Probably not. They were probably still checking out the burnt remains of the shelter, he thought, and hoped that they would leave soon. As night fell, he hugged his now- only slightly damp pants to his chest and tried to ignore the rock that poked him in the back. Annoyance started to rise up in him but he quelled it - now wasn't the time to get all hasty and do something that might get him caught again now that he'd escaped. He sat in the cranny of rock, huddled under the blanket like the night or two nights before. As the sun fell (as it did early in the northern hemisphere), his stomach growled with it, but then fell silent when it realized that it would not be fed tonight. He watched the red disk dip behind the trees, thrilling in the way the sun seemed to dye the edge of the green-and-black pines an angry red war paint.
They wouldn't be staying for long, he reassured himself. They probably didn't bring any supplies to live off of, anyway, so they probably wouldn't spend more than a night. He was right, at least this time - in the wee hours of the morning, he awoke to the sound of the skiff's motor. Waiting until the noise was completely out of his range of hearing, he rolled up his pants and waded back to the bank. At the place where he had splashed in, he noted that there were two other sets of prints beside it, more subtle and not as cut into the mud as his old ones were that he had made in his haste. He skirted the clearing where the shelter had been carefully erected and callously misused to the ground, and also the obvious spot where the two searchers had stayed the night before. There were remains of a small fire, and leaves had been kicked around. Though he doubted the prospect, he was wary that maybe one of them was still on the island while the other went back for assistance. But as he walked around, saying their names, he realized that there truly WASN'T anyone there. Of course, he sneered to himself, he was probably just a little nuisance to them anyway. He hoped that they didn't come back. He hoped that he'd NEVER have to see their faces again.
He started into the water about noon or so, knowing that if he waited any longer than that, he'd miss the strongest part of the tide, which would bring him to some other island. It looked as if Shindou and Touya hadn't left anything behind except for a small length of rope they'd used to tie up the skiff when they'd landed on the island. He bundled his clothes into a bundle and wrapped the blanket around it, then secured the entire package to his back. If he was going to escape from the rest of them, he'd have to be at least slightly civilized - he'd have took look decent, at least. He looked down at his shoes regretfully - they'd be a lot of trouble, and they would probably shrink with ever single time he dipped them in water. He tossed them to the side into some bushes, and figured that he'd just find some slippers later or something. Taking a deep (and shocked) breath at the coldness, he plunged himself into the water and just floated for a moment, watching the waters swirl before his eyes before he started to swim. This time he was sure that the die was flowing out, and he made out to the open sea in half the time it had taken before. He treaded water after he'd left the bay, and the waters drifted him away from the island, towards another one in the distance. He hoped that there was freshwater on that island - he started to swim towards it, his arms moving in familiar motion.
But by the time he got there, the sun was already setting. He dragged himself exhaustedly from the bank, made sure that he couldn't be seen from the bay that he'd entered, and then flopped down with his back against a tree, ignoring the pine needles that poked his legs. He fell asleep and stayed that way until the next afternoon, when the sun was only starting to turn the tops of the trees red and brown. His clothes were still a little damp, though, because he'd forgotten to lay them out when he'd arrived - but he put them on anyway. Gathering some sticks and tinder, he struck sparks with the Swiss Army knife that he'd found by chance still in his pants pocket into the small pile of dry wood. It was hard going; it seemed that the tinder would never catch, the sparks flickering out before they reached the wood. But he persisted, and by the time the sun was completely down he had a small, steady blaze going, feeding it pine needles. Careful to sit with the wind at his back so that the smoke wouldn't blow in his face, he huddled under the blanket again for the second night in a row and waited for the morning to arrive.
He stayed on that particular island for two days, catching fish for lunch by loosely weaving ivy strands together in some form of a rough basket so that when a fish swam on top, he would jerk it up and throw it on bank, then kill and scrape off the scales with his knife. Mostly what he found for tinder was pine needles, which gave off a lot of smoke - he managed to learn how to make the fire occupy only a little space, and smoked the fish rather than cooked it. He swam to another island the day after the next, and slowly his body began to get used to swimming every day - he hadn't been exercising all that much when he was in the detention center, but now he could feel his muscles were starting to build themselves up again, getting ready for daily rigorous work.
Several times, he heard the sound of motorboats, but none of them stopped at his island. He wondered if they were searching for him, and at the thought a little fear crept into him despite his efforts to keep it away - the thought of having to face a bigger punishment. In his mind, he was starting to understand - there was no "second chance" this time. This was it. This was the END.
He knew his final destination, of course, was the large landmass in the distance. He hopped islands daily, sometimes hopping two at a time if he had managed to catch fish and eat well. He went down the chain of islands one after the other, always heading for the mainland - or, rather, the large island of Hokkaido. He wouldn't be on the large island just yet. But he didn't care - he'd be able to escape from Hokkaido when he got there. And he'd never, ever have to see any of them ever again.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:
Why do you think Kaga hates everyone so much? Well, simply because everyone hates him, or so he thinks - mainly, it's just his dad, but because of his dad he thinks that everyone hates him as well. I'm sorry if the ending of this chapter was. . .unsatisfying. But, it gives insight on just where he's going, where he's heading, I guess. I partly based this on a book - but now, I've completely started going off the plot in the book, so I'm pretty glad I'm not copying anymore. Hope you enjoyed it!
Andrea Weiling
He began to swim, his strokes strong. He gasped when the cold water lapped up to his waist, then took a deep breath and plunged down into the water. No one knew how strong he could swim except for his dad, who didn't care for him anyhow. He'd gone and tried out for the swim team on a whim, especially when his dad made it clear that he wanted to see his son on the team partly because they'd heard that swimming made a person grow taller and physically more fit, and partly because his dad had been on the swim team when he was in high school. Of course, Kaga had never been good enough to please his father even in that aspect - his dad wanted medals, awards, pride, and he hadn't been able to satisfy that side of the equation. He didn't care, though - once he was free from the island he was free from everyone else as well. He'd never have to see his dad's or anybody else's faces ever again. With that thought, his strokes seemed to grow confident, and he swam even stronger. Overhead, though he couldn't see it, clouds swelled in the sky like billowing sails, and the wind against his back drove cold needles into his wooden limbs.
It wasn't until it was almost dark that he looked back. When he was swimming, he retained a sort of half-conscious, not quite paying attention to where he was going. Now, he looked back - and the cold seemed to freeze straight to the marrow of his bones. He was in the exact same place that he had been a thousand strokes earlier. But how could that be? He stopped and treaded water, watching the waves push him, push AGAINST him - with every two strokes he waved, a giant invisible hand was pushing him back. In his anger, he had failed to consider the incoming tide. A flare of anger flickered to life inside of him, trying to get him to blame whoever had done this to him; but he couldn't very well fight an ocean like he could another human being. Resigning to float back to shore, the trip back into the bay took relatively little time to the eons he had swam. Shivering, he looked for his shirt and shoes that he had left on the beach.
Trudging back towards the stream, he saw that the shelter was now no more than a smoldering mass of debris-strewn coals. He stirred them up gently, and they ate up the oxygen finally exposed to them greedily. He fed the small fire with little dry twigs and bark that he found lying around. A little ways to the charred settlement, he found the blanket that Shindou had specifically told him not to harm because it was handmade and had been used by many people to heal themselves before. For a little while he frowned over it in puzzlement - had he missed when he threw it in the doorway of the shelter to burn like all the other materials? But that was of no great importance now; he had the blanket, and the blanket kept him at least slightly warm beside the fire. He was careful not to let it catch - but at the same time, he wasn't exactly willing to forsake his warm fire either. He shivered most of the night away under it, getting up once in a while to gather a little wood and poke at the fire until it sent up a massive shower of sparks.
It was autumn already, not quite close to winter but so red and orange in the air that a person would turn their head at the slight sound of the cranes south, or the salmon that had still survived swimming downstream. The season screamed in the air like its multicolored leaves, warning of cold and of chilliness that had nothing to do with the weather. Kaga felt that way now - he felt as if the season was trying to warn him that this was a bad idea or something like that. It was probably just his nerves working, though, overdriven by the numbness of the water and the wind that flickered his little heap of coals. He'd expected the cold to come, a slow, seeping cold, not biting - the casual freezing of his marrow in his bones that seeped into him like groundwater. Vaguely he hoped that no wild animals would attack that night - he'd be two stiff to even wave a stick.
Somewhere along the night, he fell asleep with his back against a now-warm boulder, heated by his body, the blanket and the fire. He awoke again when it was morning, a little misty and very mysterious, when it was almost light and not-quite light. Half-awake, he dreamed that the mist slowly billowed away with the rising of the sun, and that the light brought sparkles and shafts streaming down like sunshine in the times that the clouds didn't mask its brilliance. He wasn't thinking, he wasn't even conscious of the things he was seeing - and yet he knew that this was not a dream. He had no thoughts; it was as if he were rooted as a part of the earth, a part of the boulder that he was leaning on, and he was observing his children as if he were Earth itself, watching his children play. The sky felt so peaceful, so blue it was dizzying, and the clouds took their time across the sky. The world was beautiful, he thought with a burst of sudden inspiration that lanced through him suddenly, the world IS BEAUTIFUL. And then he returned to that calm state, half-rooted into the Earth as if he had tendrils like a tree, reaching down to grasp life in its own hands. Slower came the thought to him: how much of the Earth had been destroyed?
A slow, dull sound slowly came to him, and he turned his attention away from it. It seemed to be coming from far away - he didn't want to leave his peace just yet, but gradually the sound built on his nerves and grew closer and generally more annoying. As it slowly approached, reality suddenly hit him like lightning and he sat up straight, all peace forgotten. Panicking, he scampered around madly for a moment, still clutching the blanket to himself protectively.
The boat! Shindou and Touya were coming back to check on him! But hadn't they said that they'd come back two days after he'd been all properly settled in? What were they doing back so soon? But slowly, slowly his mind registered that perhaps he HAD been asleep for an entire day, thus waking up on the third day. The exhaustion from his fruitless attempt to get off of the island could have just rendered him tired and fatigued and it was possible that he HAD slept through two days.
The fire was dead; he poked it with a stick. He leapt out of sight of the bay, which he presumed the skiff would be landing. Folding up the blanket hastily, he held it over his head as he splashed into the stream, leaving rocks and fine sand disturbed in his wake - he'd need the blanket later. He didn't even bother to take off his pants as he waded in, he was more concerned with finding a place to hide in. A shot of silver sped past his foot and he knew it was a small fish. Quickly he balanced the blanket over his head as he settled himself under a completely ivy-strewn overhang that fell like a woven green curtain over a jagged rut in the side of the bank. He climbed into the small niche at once, rubbing his feet dry with the blanket and being careful not to drop it into the stream. The waters seemed to read his thoughts - they washed away his footprints like they were nothing. His pants were wet, but he didn't want to attract any attention or movement while the two scouts were still out, and so he sat tight and waited for the telltale sound of the skiff leaving.
It could have been until dark that Shindou and Touya might go, but the moment of beauty in the world had left him strangely satisfied with waiting for the moment. Patience, for the moment, was in him, and even the normal swellings of anger that rose up in him seemed to fall silent and think for a little while. A few times the fleeting temptation of stealing the skiff and leaving the island in a blaze of glory would be wonderful - but was it possible to steal a boat underneath Touya's nose? Probably not. They were probably still checking out the burnt remains of the shelter, he thought, and hoped that they would leave soon. As night fell, he hugged his now- only slightly damp pants to his chest and tried to ignore the rock that poked him in the back. Annoyance started to rise up in him but he quelled it - now wasn't the time to get all hasty and do something that might get him caught again now that he'd escaped. He sat in the cranny of rock, huddled under the blanket like the night or two nights before. As the sun fell (as it did early in the northern hemisphere), his stomach growled with it, but then fell silent when it realized that it would not be fed tonight. He watched the red disk dip behind the trees, thrilling in the way the sun seemed to dye the edge of the green-and-black pines an angry red war paint.
They wouldn't be staying for long, he reassured himself. They probably didn't bring any supplies to live off of, anyway, so they probably wouldn't spend more than a night. He was right, at least this time - in the wee hours of the morning, he awoke to the sound of the skiff's motor. Waiting until the noise was completely out of his range of hearing, he rolled up his pants and waded back to the bank. At the place where he had splashed in, he noted that there were two other sets of prints beside it, more subtle and not as cut into the mud as his old ones were that he had made in his haste. He skirted the clearing where the shelter had been carefully erected and callously misused to the ground, and also the obvious spot where the two searchers had stayed the night before. There were remains of a small fire, and leaves had been kicked around. Though he doubted the prospect, he was wary that maybe one of them was still on the island while the other went back for assistance. But as he walked around, saying their names, he realized that there truly WASN'T anyone there. Of course, he sneered to himself, he was probably just a little nuisance to them anyway. He hoped that they didn't come back. He hoped that he'd NEVER have to see their faces again.
He started into the water about noon or so, knowing that if he waited any longer than that, he'd miss the strongest part of the tide, which would bring him to some other island. It looked as if Shindou and Touya hadn't left anything behind except for a small length of rope they'd used to tie up the skiff when they'd landed on the island. He bundled his clothes into a bundle and wrapped the blanket around it, then secured the entire package to his back. If he was going to escape from the rest of them, he'd have to be at least slightly civilized - he'd have took look decent, at least. He looked down at his shoes regretfully - they'd be a lot of trouble, and they would probably shrink with ever single time he dipped them in water. He tossed them to the side into some bushes, and figured that he'd just find some slippers later or something. Taking a deep (and shocked) breath at the coldness, he plunged himself into the water and just floated for a moment, watching the waters swirl before his eyes before he started to swim. This time he was sure that the die was flowing out, and he made out to the open sea in half the time it had taken before. He treaded water after he'd left the bay, and the waters drifted him away from the island, towards another one in the distance. He hoped that there was freshwater on that island - he started to swim towards it, his arms moving in familiar motion.
But by the time he got there, the sun was already setting. He dragged himself exhaustedly from the bank, made sure that he couldn't be seen from the bay that he'd entered, and then flopped down with his back against a tree, ignoring the pine needles that poked his legs. He fell asleep and stayed that way until the next afternoon, when the sun was only starting to turn the tops of the trees red and brown. His clothes were still a little damp, though, because he'd forgotten to lay them out when he'd arrived - but he put them on anyway. Gathering some sticks and tinder, he struck sparks with the Swiss Army knife that he'd found by chance still in his pants pocket into the small pile of dry wood. It was hard going; it seemed that the tinder would never catch, the sparks flickering out before they reached the wood. But he persisted, and by the time the sun was completely down he had a small, steady blaze going, feeding it pine needles. Careful to sit with the wind at his back so that the smoke wouldn't blow in his face, he huddled under the blanket again for the second night in a row and waited for the morning to arrive.
He stayed on that particular island for two days, catching fish for lunch by loosely weaving ivy strands together in some form of a rough basket so that when a fish swam on top, he would jerk it up and throw it on bank, then kill and scrape off the scales with his knife. Mostly what he found for tinder was pine needles, which gave off a lot of smoke - he managed to learn how to make the fire occupy only a little space, and smoked the fish rather than cooked it. He swam to another island the day after the next, and slowly his body began to get used to swimming every day - he hadn't been exercising all that much when he was in the detention center, but now he could feel his muscles were starting to build themselves up again, getting ready for daily rigorous work.
Several times, he heard the sound of motorboats, but none of them stopped at his island. He wondered if they were searching for him, and at the thought a little fear crept into him despite his efforts to keep it away - the thought of having to face a bigger punishment. In his mind, he was starting to understand - there was no "second chance" this time. This was it. This was the END.
He knew his final destination, of course, was the large landmass in the distance. He hopped islands daily, sometimes hopping two at a time if he had managed to catch fish and eat well. He went down the chain of islands one after the other, always heading for the mainland - or, rather, the large island of Hokkaido. He wouldn't be on the large island just yet. But he didn't care - he'd be able to escape from Hokkaido when he got there. And he'd never, ever have to see any of them ever again.
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:
Why do you think Kaga hates everyone so much? Well, simply because everyone hates him, or so he thinks - mainly, it's just his dad, but because of his dad he thinks that everyone hates him as well. I'm sorry if the ending of this chapter was. . .unsatisfying. But, it gives insight on just where he's going, where he's heading, I guess. I partly based this on a book - but now, I've completely started going off the plot in the book, so I'm pretty glad I'm not copying anymore. Hope you enjoyed it!
Andrea Weiling