Adaptation

Harry and Lyra floated for three days. There was nothing to do but let the ocean take them where it wanted them to go. They were used to long silences from the time on the ship, but this was worse. They had no food, no water, and nothing to occupy their time. The first night, they slept at the same time and both fell off the desk into the water. After that, they slept in shifts to keep from falling off. When the girl was sleeping, Harry felt truly alone. They had been used to regular food and water, so by the end of the first day both were extremely hungry, and by the end of the second day, they were starving with stomach pain. They had tried to drink the water, but that made things worse. Harry was reminded of his science class when they boiled salt water. There was no way to create fresh water here.

They were hungry, dehydrated, and sunburnt. The sun beating down on them made it worse. They had no shelter and the water itself reflected it onto them from every angle. Every part of their exposed skin was red and blistering by the end of the second day. Lyra cried quite a few times when salt water would splash over the top of the desk and get on their blisters. During the third day, Harry did his best to shelter Lyra with shade from his own body to keep her from getting worse. There was nothing for either of them to do except to survive, though they had no way to do even that much. Harry felt like he was close to giving up, it would be so easy just to roll off the side of the desk and sink. Though there was no way he was leaving this girl alone and on her own.

On the evening of the third day, they saw land in the distance. With almost no energy left in them, they took turns paddling the desk towards the land. As they got closer, it turned out the land was a mountain in the middle of an island with a large number of trees around the lower areas. It took them a few hours of paddling from the time they had first spotted it, and just after sunset, a wave pushed them up onto the beach of the island. They crawled up past the beach to a group of banana trees. There was a small pool of water underneath that they drank from. They both cried when the water reached their chapped lips and faces. It was more important to drink than care about the pain that came from doing so, so they continued to drink until they had their fill. They then took turns throwing rocks at the banana tree until a bunch fell to the ground to be eaten with gusto. After finishing the bananas, they cleared some rocks from the ground and fell asleep.

When the morning came around, they knocked down more bananas and drank from the pool. They spent most of the day just scavenging around and putting together large banana and palm leaves for a bed. They didn't have much energy for anything else. They walked a little bit inside the treeline but didn't go deeper into the jungle for fear of getting lost, nor did they go onto the beach because they didn't want to be out of the shade into the sun. Their burns were still hurting and their skin peeling. In the evening when the sun went down, they went exploring a bit. They didn't want to go too far from their food and water, so they found a large stick and planted it on the beach as a landmark. Lyra was the first one to notice there was movement in the forest. She tried to point it out to Harry, but he didn't see anything. However, on their way back to their camp Harry could feel something watching them just beyond the trees, but he couldn't hear or see anything. That night they knocked down more bananas for dinner before going to sleep.

In the morning they woke to find around a dozen bananas next to them.

Both Harry and Lyra were a bit freaked out that someone had visited them in their sleep but relieved that they had a bounty of food to eat without having to expend any of their crucial energy. They continued to explore the beach area the next day. As they walked along the beach, they found a few other pools of water that had streams that led up toward the mountain. They made markers on the beach for each pool of water and copse of banana trees.

They were able to get a few miles each way on the beach before reaching a cliff face that rose above the beach and they had to return to their camp. They didn't want to explore too far inland because of the cover of the forest and their unknown benefactors who brought the bananas. They ended their day with more bananas and went to sleep. For the next few days, they woke to find bananas, berries, and fat bugs on leaves waiting for them. They tried to improve their shelter with fallen branches and large banana leaves. Slowly they were gaining their strength back and their sunburns were healing.

A few nights later, Harry was awoken to Lyra screaming. She grabbed him and started talking about seeing a hairy man standing over her. Harry looked around, but no one was there. However, there were berries spilled all around the area in front of their shelter. Lyra mumbled that as soon as she screamed, he vanished into thin air. She clung to Harry breathing heavily until she fell back asleep. Harry couldn't sleep at all that night.

The next night, Harry stayed up, leaning against their banana tree, cradling Lyra between his legs. Harry enjoyed spending time with Lyra, he remembered a bit about kindergarten and spending time with Tracey. What he didn't like about the time he spent with Tracey was that it had to end every day when he went home. With Lyra, there was no beginning of the day or end of the day. With Lyra, they were together all the time, they shared every moment. He would do what he needed to do to protect her, whether it was from the sun, hunger, or these hairy men. He didn't know what the feelings for her he felt were or where they came from, nor why she put so much trust in him. He didn't understand why reading to her made her feel better or how she felt safe sleeping next to him. His whole life people pushed him away, but now someone wanted him close.

In the middle of the night, the hair on Harry's neck stood on end and he saw movement coming out of the trees toward them. As the movement got closer, Harry could see two hairy figures, which hunched slightly while walking, carrying something in their arms.

He raised his head a little and spoke, "Hello there." Their heads jerked toward him and they both disappeared before he could even blink. Harry was so startled, he woke up Lyra. He held onto her and just whispered, "they were here again, I spoke and they vanished." Lyra was scared, but Harry just held her until she fell asleep again.

They both tried to speak to the hairy men the next few nights but with no success. Every time they showed up, as soon as they noticed Harry or Lyra trying to wave or speak to them, they would vanish. Sometimes they made a huffing or a peep like noise before disappearing, but they wouldn't stay. Lyra had figured out that there were at least four different creatures that had been visiting them. She said she could see different heights and characteristics of them. Harry couldn't, but he trusted her judgment.

After a week, they had a full moon. When they had their nightly visit, one of the two creatures had a small, hairless baby clinging to their fur. As the two of them got up to the front of the shelter they had set up to set down the food, Harry broke the silence with a very polite "Good evening." As usual, this startled the creatures, causing them to vanish from sight. However, the baby, clinging to the fur of the adult did not vanish and appeared to hover in mid-air. It then started to move away slowly, floating the whole time.

Lyra pointed at the baby and Harry decided to follow. He pulled Lyra after him keeping up with their slow pace. However, after they entered the denser trees, the floating baby stopped and two bright blue eyes appeared above it. They shone brighter than the moonlight for a moment before disappearing and moving more quickly through the jungle. Harry and Lyra raced after it.

They ran for about ten minutes before arriving at a small clearing surrounded by large trees filled with vines. They had completely lost the creatures. The trees around them gave them a bit of shelter from the wind and they were able to find a spot to huddle together among the massive roots of one of the trees. Curling up together, Harry and Lyra fell asleep.

When Harry woke up in the daylight he looked around with Lyra sleeping next to him. The trees they had seen at night looked amazing in the daylight. Each one appeared to be hundreds of thick vines made up in the shape of a tree. Green leaves were growing out the top of the branches and skinny vines hanging down above the ground. Harry could feel that he was being watched and he thought he saw what looked like large nests made out of sticks, leaves, and mud in the upper branches of the trees.

Harry woke Lyra up and pointed out his observations. She also pointed out that in the branches above them was one of the creatures. Harry slowly approached the bottom of the tree and set a banana he had been carrying down at the base and then backed up to where Lyra was sitting.

Slowly but surely, the creature climbed down to the base of the tree. It looked like a monkey, but not anyone he had ever seen or heard of before. The creature was about their height but walked slightly hunched over, so it would probably be a foot taller if it stood up straight. Its head had large eyes and eyebrows that made it look like an owl. The creature never took its eyes off Harry and Lyra even as it opened and ate the banana. The creature's entire body except its hands and feet were covered with silvery hair that looked both transparent and solid at the same time. Finally it had a tail that looked like it would fit better on a labrador retriever than any kind of monkey or ape.

Harry and Lyra started noticing more and more eyes looking down on them from the trees above them. There were at least ten creatures that they could see. As the one eating the banana finished, Harry took another banana out of his pocket and placed it on the ground in front of him. The creature started to come closer. The hairs on Harry's neck stood up as he felt something above him. He and Lyra looked up and there was another creature directly above them coming down the trunk of the tree they were leaning against. Lyra panicked and screamed. All of them disappeared in an instant.

Lyra let out a whimper and walked out to the middle of the clearing calling out "I'm sorry, please come back!" Nothing happened so she fell over and started to cry.

Harry was feeling sad as well. Even if they weren't people, the creatures had helped them, but they just vanished when they tried to talk to them. Harry gently wrapped his arms around the crying girl on the ground and held her close. After a few minutes, a hairy arm appeared out of the air and placed it on her head with Harry. He was startled, but they seemed to be offering her comfort. He kept quiet as any noise he might make would scare them off again.

After another minute another smaller arm appeared, holding them both from the other side. By the time Lyra stopped crying, there were six of the creatures offering them comfort, holding them both in their arms.

For the next few days, Harry and Lyra tried to figure out how to live with the strange creatures. The biggest problem was that every time they made a noise, the creatures would turn invisible. They weren't even able to speak to each other without startling the creatures near them. Harry and Lyra began only speaking to each other with their hands, making motions for almost everything they wanted to do. As they practiced basic signs like [Come] or [Eat], they could see the creatures trying to mimic the gestures.

They pointed to different objects like trees, bushes, bananas, and more, and then used their hands to create a sign for the object. For each sign they showed a creature, they were able to mimic it and reuse it on their own in less than ten tries. What surprised them the most in the next week was that the creatures started approaching them to teach them signs they created themselves for other things that Harry and Lyra hadn't thought of yet.

The creature who had always held the baby signed to them, [Come], [Eat].

When they came over, the creature casually lifted a log to reveal many fat grubs underneath. The creature then held up a single finger and scrunched it, then extended it. It picked up some grubs and gave them to the baby who slurped them up contently. The creature again picked up some of the insects, made the scrunching gesture with its finger, and then ate them itself.

[Eat] [Grubs] the creature signed.

Piers and Nigel had forced Harry to eat worms once. That was disgusting, Harry certainly didn't want to do it, and he could see that Lyra was of the same mind. Though they did need to eat something other than bananas and he knew that if he didn't eat one of the bugs, Lyra certainly wouldn't either. He picked up one medium-sized grub with a greenish tint and threw it in his mouth. The texture was disgusting, but the taste wasn't bad. It wasn't good either, but he ate it all the same. The creature handed one of the bugs to Lyra who shivered a bit as it squirmed in her hand. Her face tightened and she threw it in her mouth and danced around as she chewed and swallowed it. After swallowing, she shook her head back and forth and whispered, "ew, ew, ew" a few times.

The creature then picked up a red and a yellow bug then passed them to Harry. Harry took them and started to put them towards his mouth, but they were slapped from his hand with a speed he didn't know the creature had. The creature then stuck out its tongue and made a retching noise that sounded spooky for it to do.

A week later they had signs for:

[Come], [Eat], [Banana], [Berry], [Grub], [Poison/Bad], [Good], [Climb], [Sleep], [Sun], [Moon], [Water/Thirsty], [Food/Hungry], [Tree], and a few more that hadn't been finalized yet.

Harry and Lyra started eating the bugs regularly. They found they got more energy from them than they did from just the fruits, so they became an essential part of their diet. They needed the energy to start climbing in the trees and making places to sleep. The creatures built nests in the branches of the trees, high above the ground, and they continued trying to teach Harry and Lyra to build their own instead of sleeping on the ground. They were told regularly, [Sleep, Ground, Bad].

Lyra was able to learn to climb the trees with greater ease than Harry could. She was able to find footholds in the trunks of the trees quicker than Harry who also lacked the strength in his arms to pull himself up. He kept working on climbing faster, but also just used mud and leaves to make himself a place to sleep among the roots of a tree. Lyra has started to build a nest, but hadn't been able to gather much mud to keep the sticks together very well.

After a month, they were collecting food when one of the creatures dropped the food it was carrying and its eyes started to glow blue, and all of its hair started to stick out straight. The creature let out a small shriek and all of the others disappeared and could be heard climbing up the trees into their nests. Harry and Lyra were confused until they heard a distant rumbling and they saw a plane fly overhead. Lyra immediately climbed up to the nest she had built, but it was too fragile for quick action and collapsed causing her to fall to the ground. Harry had retreated into his shelter in the roots of his tree and he saw Lyra curled up against the next tree. She was alternating between looking up and curling up in a ball when she too… vanished.

After the sound of the plane went away, the creatures began to appear again. The one with the glowing blue eyes approached the place where Lyra had disappeared and seemed to pick up a bundle with both hands. Harry assumed that it had picked up Lyra, but he couldn't understand how the creature knew where she was. The creature stroked the invisible Lyra until she slowly faded back into visibility.

It pointed at Lyra and signed [You, Good], rubbed its arms and chest, [You, Good]. Then put Lyra on the ground and walked away. Harry approached and they spoke in whispers.

"You disappeared! How did you do that?" whispered Harry

"I was scared, I thought about those men coming back from the ship, and then the whole world turned silver. I didn't know I disappeared," Lyra whispered back.

It was at that moment that one of the creatures started running towards Lyra and Harry. It used its arms to run with four legs for more speed, screeching loudly as it ran towards them, cornered at the roots of the tree. As it got close, it raised its arms high making it at least six feet tall, and screamed showing all its teeth. Lyra screamed just as loud and vanished.

The creature shrunk back down to its normal slump of about four feet tall and reached out to the invisible Lyra, patting her invisible head and signing [You, Good].

Lyra faded back to being visible and started laughing. Harry had never heard her laugh. It was like a melody. When he imagined the elves singing in The Hobbit he imagined their voices to be like what he heard in Lyra's laughter.

When she finished laughing, the creature held up its hand and signed to Harry, [You, Bad], then to Lyra, [You] and then it stood up tall and waved its arms, [Point at Harry]. Harry didn't understand at first, but Lyra clearly did. The evil smile on her face said everything. The next month for Harry was exhausting.

Over the next month, two things happened. The first was that Harry and Lyra were able to figure out which of the creatures were male and which were female. They went to a nearby hot springs to wash the younger creature as it was starting to grow its own hair. While all the other creatures were in the springs, and their hair went flat, they were able to tell very easily which were male. The second thing that happened was Lyra took every opportunity possible to scare Harry within an inch of his life. She would jump out from behind trees, or from above him in a tree. She often would wake him up in the middle of the night and jump out at him from the shadows. She used her own vanishing act to pop out in front of him, and anything else she could think of.

Finally, after a month, Lyra lowered herself over Harry while he was resting and held a large yellow spider in front of his face before whispering his name. Harry opened his eyes… Lyra was pretty sure he vanished at the same moment that he screamed. The other creatures took turns then scaring Harry until he managed to turn invisible on his own without being frightened. They also took turns to mock him and imitate his scream. Despite being made fun of by Dudley before for the same thing, this felt like it was fun and not embarrassing.

Harry and Lyra started to try to name the creatures around them and give everyone signs for themselves.

Harry gave himself the sign of drawing his finger in the shape of his scar.

Lyra played with her hair below her shoulders.

Chief was the one who seemed to be in charge and whose eyes glowed blue for the airplane. His sign was like pulling open an eye with the thumb and index finger

Digger would spend time finding grubs and roots to eat in the ground. His sign was clawing the air

Teacher was the one who carried the child around most of the time. She also would show them the dangerous things around their living area. Her sign was rocking an invisible baby

Weaver was another female who had started to weave strands of her hair in with Harry Lyra's hair. Even after weeks, it didn't seem to come out. Her sign was rubbing thumbs and fingers together.

They continued to think up names and signs as they were needed.