• The Thing That Walks the Island •
Heracles is a warrior who is currently residing in the Greenstone forest in the Boin Archipelago.
Heracles came from the South Blue, and he set out on a voyage as a botanist. After three years at sea, Heracles and his group we're caught in a storm in their boat flipped. over. Heracles was washed up on an Island that's part of the Boin Archipelago.
Heracles price to live on the island and made a farm. For the past few weeks ago that the hay bales started creeping slowly away from the house. Every morning when Heracles woke up, each had moved a few hundred feet from where it was before. He assumed it was moved by the animals of the Greenstone forest in the Boin Archipelago, so he ignored it.
Within a few days, though, the bales began to approach the boundaries of the farm. Heracles was tired of this, and move it back. Heracles thought he was the only one on the island but he has a feeling that there's someone else here with them, since the bales were placed in a perfect position, and that no was no way animal would do such a thing. It took a tedious hour to bring them all from where they were to over near his cabin again, and by the time he was done Heracles was ready to found out whoever it is that's moving his bales.
The next morning, Heracles found each and every one of some Greenstone forest animals messily decapitated. The smell was what woke him up. Each one was slumped over against the side of its stall. There were no signs of their heads. Heracles spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess and burying the remains. It was only when he was done that he noticed the bales of hay had all returned to their positions from the day before, scattered far out into the fields. This time he left them where they were.
That night Heracles sat on his porch, sat for hours, straining his eyes into the fields to catch a glimpse of who was moving his hay bales. Finally, he was beginning to nod off. Heracles would have, but just as his eyes began to close he heard a clamor and a rustling of trees from the nearby woods. Heracles leaned forward, his heart racing with excitement; Heracles was going to catch the corporate. Heracles waiting anxiously for whoever it was to get close enough to ambush. It was only when the thing got close enough for him to make out its silhouette in the dark that is when Heracles was frozen still in fear. The thing that crept into his fields from the nearby woods didn't seem to notice him sitting there.
It stalked, hunched and deliberate, through the field with the posture of a tiptoeing thief. If not for the fact that it must have towered to over ten feet tall even in its crouched position, it might have seemed almost frail. The thinness of its arms and legs and the emaciated, caved-in quality of its chest reminded me of a starving animal. Still, this thing was undeniably strong, and Heracles watched it hoist each bale up into its arms with ease, and set it down carefully a while away, taking only a few strides to cover the distance. Heracles watched it work, moving each bale thoughtfully. Every once in a while it would straighten up to look around at the other bales' positions in the field, before adjusting the one it was working on ever so slightly.
Before it left, it looked towards the house. Heracles felt its eyes sweep over him in the dark, but couldn't tell whether tje creatute saw him or not Heracles couldn't tell. Then, it turned silently and crept back the way it came, disappearing into the dark of the. Greenstone Forest. It took Heracles an hour before he had the courage to move at all. He went inside after a while, but didn't sleep that night. It was only when the sun rose that Heracles dared step off his porch into the forest. The hay bales were where it left them. Strangely, it didn't move them as far as it had in the previous days.
They were approaching something invisible in the fields, and as Heracles looked at them he realized that they seemed to be marking some line. Indeed, as he walked around the house, he saw the distinct circle that they formed with Heracles at the center. At first he thought the bales were just being haphazardly moved away from the house, but now he could see that they were instead being moved towards some boundary. The thing was sending Heracles a message. He slept uneasily that night, and only because Heracles was exhausted.
The next morning the bales hadn't moved at all. They didn't move at all for the rest of that week, in fact. They were finally where the thing wanted them. Heracles made himself sick trying to interpret them. Why would this thing expend so much energy moving his hay bales, and threaten him with such violence should he try to interfere? Killing animals that plays it around his cabin was it a threat ?
It knew what would scare him, and it knew that he would understand the implications.
Heracles heard the sound of a Boat landing its acre on Boin Archipelago seashore one morning, it gave Heracles a little rush of excitement. He'd been planning to abandon the island since he saw the thing, but he couldn't hope to leave on foot without risking it treating me like it treated my horses. But, if he could get on the boat with the Sailors who were about to walk up the path towards his cabin, he might be able to escape before it could stop Heracles. He didn't know or care who they were. He decided that the moment they reach his cabin, Heracles would convince them to run to the boat and tell them to get off this island. But he didn't get the chance.
Once the sailors touch the ground. He urged them silently to hurry to the path of his cabin. It was when it passed between the two bales placed on either side of the path that Heracles began to hear a booming clatter from the forest. The thing burst suddenly from between the trees, sprinting on all four of its terrible, gangly limbs towards the Sailors. Within a few seconds it was there, pouncing on some of the Sailors like a predatory cat. Within moments the Sailors were panicking and starts attacking the creature with their flinkfocks.
The Sailors screamed all the while and he could hear them over the sound of them firing their flinkfock at the creature. It was only when the thing easily annihilated the Sailors and their screaming stopped, meaning the creature killed every one of them. It tossed their bodies in the ocean, starts picking and peeling the boat apart, and straightened up to look at Heracles once again. In the sunlight, he could see the inhumanity of it. It was composed entirely of something awful and alive which was lashed together in a messy semblance of a human form. Whatever it was made of looked so polished and hard, that if it weren't for the minute writhing of the stuff, he'd think it was made of granite.
The thing retreated back into the Greenstone forest, and he was left to his shock. His eyes wandered to where the boat was, between two of the hay bales. Suddenly, he understood. The message was clear. Heracles is this thing's captive, and he is not allowed visitors. Heracles assume he couldn't cross the borders it has set. He is trapped here, by that thing that walks the island, and it demands nothing except that Heracles never leaves Boin Archipelago.
Still, Heracles don't know if he can handle being that thing's canary. He has been thinking hard for the last few days since he saw that thing killed the Sailor Men. If he tried to leave the island, it'd probably do the same. It'd smash his skull before I could put his hands up to protect himself. It'd go and find a new pet, and probably keep looking until it found someone who could stand knowing that it was waiting just outside, watching it at all hours with its shiny, insect eyes.
Heracles been thinking hard for the last few days, and he might just make a run for it and jump into the ocean, and swim as fast as he can.