Finches

Chapter 10 - The Journey Begins

It was Colt's last night before his treacherous journey across a strange island and to the Authority base. Given this, you might think that he stayed up all night, tossing and turning while thinking about the dangers that lay ahead. That's what any person with at least half a brain would do, right?

Unfortunately Colt seemed to be somewhere under that halfway mark. As soon as he closed his eyes last night he had completely forgotten everything that needed to be done. He slept like the dead, having a really awesome time until someone had the nerve to wake him up.

"Get off me," Colt muttered sleepily, trying to pull away from the hands that were shaking him.

"It's time for you to get out of my house," came the voice of the fisherman.

That's when everything came back to Colt. It wasn't enough to get him moving, however.

"Oh that time, huh?" he replied. "Good, I thought maybe I had to wake up or something. But yeah, about that... I might have to take a raincheck on that one."

Colt felt the hands stop shaking him, and for about four seconds he thought that he'd managed to buy himself some time. Then he felt a force tug at his legs and the next thing he knew he was sprawled across the fisherman's shack.

Colt got up slowly and blinked a couple of times until he could see. He ignored the fisherman standing there and crossed the shack, locating his blue tunic and pulling it over his head. Then he shook his hair back and forth for a few seconds to get rid of his bed-head, pushed it back to get it out of his eyes. Finally he slipped on his sandals and looked at the fisherman for the first time that day.

The old man just looked at him, not saying anything.

"I'm ready," Colt said, in case that wasn't otherwise obvious.

The fisherman blinked. "That's your morning routine?" he asked.

"Yeah," Colt replied, then, "I keep it short and simple. Just how I like it."

The old man didn't say anything for a moment longer, then just shrugged like he'd come to a conclusion. He didn't share the conclusion, however. He just asked, "You still have the envelope?"

"Of course I do," said Colt. "It's..." he checked his pocket but came up empty. He frowned, feeling the old man's eyes on him. He knew he had it somewhere; he thought he had stuck it right beside the map of the island. But where was that? Then he checked one of his other pockets and pulled it out. "...right here!"

The fisherman gave a concerned-looking smile. "Good to see you have it nice and secured."

"Yep," Colt said, returning the smile and shoving the envelope back into one of the pockets.

This earned a wince from the fisherman, which Colt ignored. He knelt down and grabbed his cutlass from under the bed, then stood back up and tossed it into the air. He ended up missing the catch and had to jump out of the way to avoid losing his right forearm. So no, not as cool as he'd thought it would look.

Colt scrambled over and picked up the cutlass again before facing the fisherman. "So yeah," he said, "I've got everything and I'm all good to go."

"As reassuring as..." the old man gestured wildly in the air, "...all of that just was: no, you don't have everything."

Colt double checked everything one more time. Shirt: check. Pants: check. Envelope: nope it wasn't that pocket it was... ah, check. Sword: check. What else was there? His pendant: also check. He seemed to have everything.

"So what am I missing?" he asked, looking around the shack just in case he'd overlooked something obvious.

The old man turned his back on Colt and opened up the front door.