Thrust onto the Shore [Solo]

[Ginny Ardell]

Day 89 of Winter, 511 AV Ginny woke up to a clouded day with a light drizzle. The moisture had crept through her clothes, and when she moved, it seemed that every single muscle of her body was aching. Ginny looked around. A greyish band of sand extended along the water, vanishing in the mist on one side, and in the distance meeting a large rock on the other. A little bit further upcountry, a forest began. The beach was empty. That was good. No animals had come here overnight and eaten her - though that was kind of obvious anyway. Suddenly, a realization made its way through Ginny's clouded mind. A wave of panic swashed over her, and she felt almost choking. The boat... ! It was gone! At the place where it should have been, there was just the smooth surface of the sand with not trace of anything else. The flood must have taken it away. Ginny looked out on the sea in the hope that it would be floating somewhere there so that she could swim after it. But there was nothing to be seen on the water. Only a sole seagull above it, which somehow irritated Ginny. Shaking, the girl dropped to the ground. She hadn't pulled the boat sufficiently far up on the beach. She couldn't have. She had had to endure a storm for what seemed like hours in the small rowing boat. And then she had seen this coastline and had to make her way towards it. When she had arrived here, her arms wouldn't obey her anymore. Ginny was lucky that she had even taken her backpack out of the boat before she had lain down on the sand and fallen asleep. Some part of her seemed to have had the good sense to direct her a bit further up towards the tree line, so that at least she herself hadn't been caught by the tides. Ginny stood up again. So she was stranded, alright. It was better to find out what to do about it than to sit there brooding. She looked up, but she sky was so densely covered in grey clouds that Ginny couldn't even make out where the sun stood. She looked along the beach into the distance. If she could climb the rocks there, she could maybe see a little more. It seemed one of the less pointless things to do, and the tension and fear inside her made her eager to do something. And walking the way seemed just manageable. So she picked up her backpack and began her way along the treeline. Ginny looked at the ground before her, watching her feet appear in and disappear from her field of vision just to distract herself.

[Ginny Ardell]

Ginny walked very fast so that she would be occupied. Still, it took her the better past of an hour to reach the rock formation that was her goal.s It was maybe thirty foot high, and fell steeply into the see, but had a softer slope towards the land. There was no telling what color it really had - the constant drizzle had made the surface very dark for the moment. Ginny decided to go around it to find the easiest way up. In her state of mind, she was quite oblivious of the fact that climbing or even walking on such wet rocks wasn't exactly a safe endeavour. After ducking under a number of wet boughs, and being showered with raindrops from several others that she couldn't quite avoid, Ginny discovered that a few pieces of rock on the backside formed something like a stair, from the end of which the large rock in the middle rose softly to a small plateau. Ginny was lucky not to slip as she climbed up over the wet rock, some of which was even covered in moss. When she reached the top, she straightened up and looked around. The sea presented an even surface, which appeared grey or even white at times due to the tiny drops of water that continuously hit it. It extended monotonously, until it vanished in the mist. The coast on the other side of the rock was rougher, with more stones and less sand, but again, quite empty. A sudden loud puff made Ginny turn back to the water. At first, she couldn't see anything, but then, the sound recurred and she spotted a disturbance in the water more than a hundred feet off the coast, and what may have been a fountain, although the weather made it difficult to discern. A moment later, another one occurred just besides it. There must be whales out there. So she wasn't the only living being out here. Even though it wasn't quite clear why it should, the thought comforted Ginny a bit. She turned around, away from the sea. From up here, the forest looked just as uniform as the ocean. Ginny's hopes sank. No opening was to be seen anywhere; no breach that would be the sign of a road that could lead her to a settlement. She was a girl alone in the middle of nowhere. All she could hope for was that some ship came by and found her. There was no chance of it with this weather, though, she would have to wait. And that meant it was now time to do something for her survival. Maybe she would find something to eat in the woods. Ginny climbed down and went straight into the forest. She intended to walk a bit deeper into it and then go parallel to the coastline, and look out for mushrooms or berries on the way, even though in light of the season, her hopes were not high.

[Ginny Ardell]

Ginny had been wondering in the forest for quite a while and found nothing. Now she wanted to go back to the coast. But after several minutes, she still hadn't reached the edge of the woods; she didn't even hear the breaking of waves. She stopped abruptly. Had she really gone in the right direction? Ginny felt a clot in her throat. She tried to ignore the mad beating of her heart and focus, run through all the changes in direction she had made... From what she could piece together, she should go a little further right. She didn't know that was really it, but it was her best shot. Anxious to find out, she walked fast, and then started running. It was only a minute until she thought she could see the forest thin out. A moment later, she stopped and sighed with relief. It had really not been a good idea wandering off from the coast like that. Ginny pulled herself together and walked to she beach, where she sat down to rest. Lying on her aching back, Ginny felt the fine drops of water fall in her face from the endless, indiscriminate grey above. It must have been around midday now, but the sun was still invisible behind the clouds. Pictures were trying to force their way into Ginny's conscious mind. Fleeting images of dark water masses, waves collapsing on a ship, sails being torn, wood breaking - their sound drowning the cries of the people on it. Maybe they had actually survived? The others, her father... She remembered him shouting at her as she sat in the boat, and being unable to understand him; and then his frantic gestures, telling her to leave. The drizzle helped by making it difficult to focus. The memories remained more of a vague menace. She would surely come home and find her father there. Thinking of her own survival made her aware that she was becoming hungry. The woods hadn't seemed as if the contained anything edible at this time of the year. Ginny sat up and looked around. The beach was just as bleak and empty as before. She looked at the water. It seemed that she had to look for food there. There was, of course, no way she could catch a fish without a boat or a net, but maybe she would at least find some mussles. The fact that it wasn't exactly warm didn't hold her back. She was completely wet by now anyway, with a mixture of her own cooled sweat and the moisture from the air. A minute later, a naked Ginny was failing to feel her feet in the cold water that was washing around them. At first, there had been a stinging sensation, but it was gone now. Ginny shivered, and then she stepped forward with determination. In fact, she started running, so the dreadful process of entering the water would be as short as possible. When she water reached her hips, she took a deep breath and just jumped forward. For a moment, it felt like needles all over her skin. Ginny swam forward and resurfaced a few meters deeper into the water. Feeling the sand under her feet, she discovered that she could still stand here. Ginny swam forward against the weak thrust of the incoming waves, first with her head above the water, and then under water. As she opened her eyes, a grey-blue veil laid itself over her eyes. She saw the slightly disturbed surface with breaking waves above herself, and looking down, the sand of the ground. It was becoming coarser. The water was now three or four meters deep, with a mixture of sand and stones beneath her. Above the water, there was only grey either, and curiously, the air felt even colder. Ginny had been diving down repeatedly, but the only like she had discovered was a few pieces of algae on the stones. She was freezing and beginning to feel weak. But when she had swam up to the surface a moment ago, it had seemed to her that she saw something move in the corner of her eye. It may just have been the effect of the dim light, but Ginny felt hope and anxiety at the same time. She held her breath once again and dived down. Floating in the water, she looked around on the ground below her. And there it was, indeed! A crab seemed to be scraping algae off one of the stones. Hastily, and with eager anticipation, she swam towards it. But the animal had spotted her and quickly moved its numerous legs to escape to one side. The girl struggled, but after a few seconds, she was in arms reach. She extended her left hand to grasp the crab; but what she met was a sudden pain! It had caught her hand between the thumb and the index finger with its pincer, and it was surprisingly strong. Instinctively, the girl drew back her hand, but the crab didn't let go and was so drawn towards her. Ginny didn't think - she only wanted to get it off of her hand and back to the surface, feeling her air running out, too. With her right, she got to grasp three legs of the right side of the crab and pulled. A moment later, it was floating in the water, falling back to the ground, with its three legs coming after it as Ginny was struggling towards the surface. Upon reaching it, she took a deep, relieving breath. Then she raised her left hand to examine it. There was no blood, but a purple bruise that hurt quite a lot. Ginny squinched up her face. And then she realized that she had torn off the crab's legs and that it was probably unable to move. She was shivering all over from the cold and exhaustion, but a little grin appeared on her face.

[Ginny Ardell]

Ginny was out of the water and back in her clothes, although those didn't do very much to alleviate the cold. On the ground lay a crab that moved its limbs in desperation, but failed to get away more than a few centimeters. Ginny looked at it. There was no point in even trying to make a fire in this weather. She would have to eat it raw. But that was probably not so bad anyway. She just had to find something to open it. She thought about her knife, but dismissed it as a possibility. She wouldn't want to run the danger of breaking it against the stone-hard carapace. So she went into the forest in search of a stone. It took her a few minutes, but she returned with a suitably edgy one. Without hesitation, she kneeled beside the crab and zealously struck it with the stone. At first, she hit and smashed one of its claws, but the second strike hit the body. It was too weak to have any effect - but the third and fourth finally cracked it. The remaining legs and pincer were still twitching a little when Ginny ripped apart the plate on the animal's back with her fingers. She wasn't aware that it would have been easier to open on the stomach; but it worked that way, too. Eating the crab was quite a difficult undertaking. It wasn't easy to pull out the meet and remove all splinters of the carapace from it. It tasted predominantly of nothing and salt, but Ginny devoured her meagre meal with zest nonetheless. The cool temperature had her made forget her thirst for most of the last hours, but the salty taste left her craving for it. She retrieved her waterskin and took a generous draught. Suddenly, it occurred to her that if she positioned it the right way, she might actually have the rain refill it, if only by a small measure. Ginny threw the remains of the crab into the water. Then she went to the tree line and set up her backpack so that it was almost closed, with only the opening of her waterskin standing out. She left it in the open and went a few meters into the wood to find shelter under the trees. She sat against the stem of a large one, crouched, with her knees pulled up and her arms crossed to warm herself, if only a little. Time seemed to flow infinitely slowly. Ginny watched the occasional large drops of water that fell from the trees. Sometimes, she looked out of the forest into the monotonous grey. She felt incredibly lost, and yearned for her dry, warm bed at home. But that was far, far away...