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Chapter 4: Questions

Skye was the first one to wake up. She opened her eyes and looked around her, confused. She had expected to be at the bottom of the ocean, but instead she was on a beach and covered in sand. It was still dark from the storm clouds above her, but the bright orange fire from what remained of the Air Patroller lit up the beach around her. The occasional flash of lightning would also light up her surroundings, showing a forest to the west opposite the water and a mountain looming in the distance to the northwest. Getting up, she limped through the dry sand over to the wreckage to look for the others. One glimpse into the fiery craft made it evident that nobody in there would have survived. Thankfully all the seats were empty; the fire still eating its way through them. She turned her attention to looking elsewhere for the others. Spying a figure on the ground nearby, she padded over to it.

"Marshall, wake up! Are you okay?" Skye shook him gently.

Marshall groaned, "Ouch… What happened…?"

"We crashed. The ship is destroyed but we were thrown clear. Nobody was still in the ship, so I'm going to go look for the others."

"I'm coming with you."

"No Marshall. Stay here, your paw was probably injured again in the crash."

Marshall tested his leg, seeing if there was any new pain. "No, I'm actually not hurt." Then he looked at Skye. "In fact, if either of us shouldn't be moving about it's you with that paw. Besides, the others probably need a medic. I should go." Marshal stood up, coughing slightly, "Yeah, my paw feels fine. Come on."

"My paw's just sore, but alright… If you're sure," Skye relented.

They both went around taking care of the others and seeing to what few scratches and scrapes they had. Miraculously nobody seemed to have sustained any serious life-threatening injuries, though Ryder, Everest, and Zuma remained unconscious. Once everyone was accounted for, those who were conscious gathered together by the light of the flaming Air Patroller to converse.

"So what do we do now?" Skye asked, "None of us have our packs; they're all in the Air Patroller."

Chase replied, "Well, first things first, it looks like we're going to be here for a while. We should probably build a shelter and find some food."

"I can get to work on some sort of shelter. There's a good number of fallen trees at the forest line, and I should be able to get something up without my pack," Rubble volunteered.

"I should stay and take care of Zuma, Ryder, and Everest," Marshall said, "Too bad I don't have my medic pack. It'd be useful. I can also make a fire while I'm at it."

"And I can look around for food," said Tracker. After a moment of hesitation looking at the darkness of the woods he added, "I'll need a light, though."

"Okay, but try to not go too far into the forest. We don't want to get lost," Marshall cautioned.

"I grew up in forests," Tracker said, "I should be fine. I have a great sense of direction and can always just follow the sounds of the fire and ocean back here. Besides, I don't want to be in there any longer than I need to be."

Chase nodded at him, "Alright, just make sure to meet us back here in a couple of hours. Night might be coming on soon. It's hard to tell with this cloud cover, though."

Rocky looked up at the sky nervously. Skye turned to him, "Rocky, are you okay? What's on your mind?"

Rocky looked back at the group, "No, I'm not okay!" he burst out, clearly stressed. "Our plane was just hit by lightning, then a wing fell off a few seconds later after something that didn't show up on our radar hit us, then we plummeted thousands of feet in a crash landing on a strange land that also didn't show on our radar, and nobody suffered anything worse than a concussion! Also, has nobody noticed that despite the lightning and how it was clearly raining before we crashed, that it hasn't been raining here? The sand is completely dry." At this everyone looked around them nervously as well and realized he was right. "We should be soaked right now, though I'm not complaining. Does nobody want to talk about any of that? Or even the fact that we got such a strange message in the first place? We shouldn't have come here! Now we're stuck and we'll never get back home!"

Rocky finished unloading, breathing heavily. After a few seconds, he slowly stopped panicking. "Sorry guys... I shouldn't have said those things... Not in the way I said them..."

"It's okay, you're right," Chase told him, "None of us have really stopped to think about what's happened, and I'm not sure if I want to..."

"Now that you've mentioned that it's not raining, I want to get back home as soon as possible," Rubble whimpered, "I don't like it here."

"Sí, it's strange," Tracker added on, "I can hear the rain, but there isn't any."

"That's not really a problem we can solve right now," Chase reminded them, "We'll look around more in the morning. Right now we need to be working on getting ready for nightfall. I can help Rubble with a shelter. Skye, can you help Marshall take care of the others while he's working on the fire?"

"Sure," Skye responded.

"Should I help Tracker?" Rocky asked.

"No," Chase said after thinking for a moment, "We'll need all the supplies we can get, so if anything survived from the Air Patroller, we'll need it. Marshall, once Rocky gets your pup pack out, help him with some of the fires so he can get in and out safely. Also, give Tracker my spotlight when you get it cleared out."

"Sure thing," Rocky agreed.

"¡Gracias! Thank you!" Tracker beamed.

"Alright, if everyone has a task we'll meet back here in a couple hours."

This chapter was both challenging and enjoyable to write. It's the first chapter where the pups really get to interact with each other. Seeing that I haven't watched any episodes since January of 2018, the lines were a bit harder to come up with, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I especially had fun writing Rocky's lines because of how he calls out and questions a lot of the lore bits I've hidden for the reader to question, if not piece together. You'll notice in the first paragraph that Skye limped through the dry sand, despite the lightning and storm clouds. An observant reader might notice that and assume I made a mistake. I purposefully had the question and the callout in the same chapter here so I could point out what types of things I'm talking about.