[journey] Echo

It had been years since Mikhail had gone to the beach. The closest he’d come lately was when he’d been at lake Bagor which was so big it gave the impression you were at the sea, but that had been a long time ago as well.

He’d decided to come right before the sun started to go down so there wouldn’t be many others around. With the beach almost empty, he let Gureum and Nadezhda out of their pokéball so they could explore, though they never strayed too far away from him.

The soft crunching of sand sounded as he walked on the beach. His prosthetic gave him trouble at first, his balance slightly off as he’d never walked on this kind of terrain with it before, but, with some help from Gureum at the start, he quickly adjusted to it.

Mikhail stood still and watched the waves rolling over the sand before retracting back into sea. The sun was slowly starting to set and painted a portrait of reds and yellows across the sky. The sight was beautiful, yet it also made him feel melancholic, reminded of all those who would never be able to behold this again.

Mikhail was slowly strolling over the beach enjoying the tranquillity when soft singing caught his attention. Determining it came from the ocean, he looked out over the water. There was no boat the sound could come from, only the waves.

Right when he noticed something deeper in the ocean, a shadow that he couldn’t make out what it was from this distance, Nadezhda called him towards her. She’d found a box overgrown with seaweed and was looking at him, unsure of what to do with it.

But before Mikhail could inspect the box closer, he was hit by a ray of water. “Что за черт,” he let out in surprise before looking at the source of the water. It was a bunch of kids trying to get a rise out of him, though one was clearly not happy with the victim his friends had picked and tried to get them to stop.

Ignoring the kids—interacting with them would only further increase their efforts to annoy him—, Mikhail turned back to Nadezhda and the box. He freed the box from the discarded fisher nets it was buried beneath before looking for a way to open it. The lock was heavy, but the box was old and so he tried to force it open or find a weak spot in the box where he could open it.

With the seaweed and nets removed, Mikhail could inspect the box.

“Чёрт,” he muttered under his breath as the kids hit him with another ray of water. He’d hoped they would give up sooner, but that appeared to have been wishful thinking. His breathing and heartbeat were starting to speed up under the assault, but he kept his focus on the mysterious box. They were just kids, he reminded himself.

“Игнорируй их,” he told Nadezhda to ignore them. The ursaring had been softly growling at their assailants who were lucky they were out of her reach. At her trainer’s words, she turned towards him again.

After inspecting the box, Mikhail yanked at the lock, shattering it with one strong pull. The display of strength finally brought back the peace and quiet, and Mikhail breathed in, relieved that he could hear the sound of the ocean again.

A sweep of the box’ contents revealed that most of what was inside was compromised by water that had seeped in. He only found a piece of parchment: a map.

After a quick look at the map, Mikhail put it aside for a moment and investigated the rest of the box. Maybe something else in here had survived the water and could tell him more about what the map led to or who had made it.

Mikhail took a moment to breathe in the fresh sea air before looking at the box’ contents. A quick look at the map revealed symbols and markings that didn’t make sense at first glance. Knowing it would be easier to understand them if he had some kind of legend explaining what the symbols meant, he looked through the box to see if anything else had survived the water that had seeped inside.

“Говно,” he let out as goop dropped out of the box and splashed on his shoes. He wiped it off on the sand as well as he could before he took the map and sat down a bit further to study it. There was nothing salvageable left in the box.

Gureum came to look at the map over his shoulder and Nadezhda lay her head on his leg. “Let’s see if I can make any sense of this,” he spoke to the pokémon. The map didn't look like any of the ones he’d seen in the military, but maybe he could find a pattern in the symbols that would allow him to read it.

Nothing on the map seemed to make any sense except that it followed a coastline, but Mikhail was too unfamiliar with the region to know whether it was Cerynia’s or that of another country. The symbols might as well be ancient greek, he couldn’t read them.

“Похоже, тут ничего не получится,” he said to Gureum. It seemed like he wouldn’t be able to learn anything no matter how long he studied the map. But then he held the scroll vertically and he was proven wrong. Picking up the lid revealed an imprint: “Ivanov’s Seafarer’s Hearth”, the name of a restaurant he’d passed earlier.

Whoever had made the map had most likely gotten the scroll from the restaurant. Or was connected to it in another way. This was the best lead he had to find more about the box and map he’d found inside it and so he stood up to make his way towards the restaurant.

“Ты можешь этонести?” he asked Gureum to carry the box. The pokémon took the box with him while Mikhail kept the map safe. Going back into the direction they came from, they walked towards the restaurant. Maybe someone there had known the person who’d drawn the map and they would be glad to get the possessions of this person back.

When they got to the restaurant, Mikhail let his eyes go over the building, assessing it before he went inside.

Before he entered, Mikhail let Nadezhda back in her pokéball and took a moment to take in the restaurant. The sides were open, giving the patrons the chance to enjoy the warm weather in the summer from comfortable wooden chairs. With the name in front confirming this was where he needed to be, Mikhail went inside.

Once he was in, he couldn’t step much further as a server came up to him. The girl dashed towards him on her skates and came to a stop right in front of him.

Mikhail tried to follow her with his eyes as she skated around him. The circling made him feel threatened, especially when her words sounded more like questioning than a server asking what they could help with today. Still, he tried to focus on the curiosity in her eyes. Despite how it came across, she wasn’t a threat.

“What are the specials?” he asked, overwhelmed by the movement for a moment before he felt the scroll in his hand and remembered what he was here for. “I’m actually here because I found something on the beach with the name of the restaurant imprinted on it and I was wondering if someone here might know more about it.”

Finally the girl stopped skating around. His heartbeat slowed down again and halfway through her explanation, her words started to register. Once she finished talking, he told her what he was actually here for: the scroll.

Without responding, she was off. Mikhail watched her disappear. Once she was gone he looked at Gureum, the two silently agreeing on the strangeness of what had just transpired.

When she left, Mikhail had expected that she was getting someone, but the more time passed, the more he suspected she’d simply gone. Whatever it was that he had found, maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to bring it here.

Right when it felt like she wasn’t coming back, the girl’s voice sounded and a man came out of the back. Mikhail took a moment to take him in. He was older than him, most likely the owner of the restaurant. As he studied the stranger, Mikhail saw the spark in his eyes that told him this man might know more. This was someone who’d lived life and learned its wisdom.

While he would never be sure that it had been right to bring the box and scroll here until he showed the man, it was the best option he had. If anything went wrong, he’d deal with that later. “If found this on the beach,” he showed the man the scroll with the name of the restaurant imprinted on it and the box it had been kept safe in. “I wondered if anyone here might know who made it or what it means.”

Recognition showed on the man’s face. After a quick second of assessing the situation, Mikhail let the scroll and box go when Ashton reached out for them. The man knew more, that much was clear.

Once Ashton had the map laid out in front of them, he started to tell the story of Nikolai Ivanov, an ancestor of his who’d been a legendary navigator. The man had found a mysterious isle and that was the place he’d marked on the map.

Mikhail tried to stay awake, but the man’s monotone voice slowly lulled him to sleep. Normally, sleep didn’t come easy for him, but maybe that was why he couldn’t stay awake listening to the story. With how little he slept, and when he did it was never really restful as he was always still vigilant, it was harder to fight the tiredness.

At the gentle shake, Mikhail jumped awake in alarm. His eyes focusing on the girl’s face in front of him, he realised his surroundings and calmed down. The old man was now looking out over the ocean in thought.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he apologised to the man about falling asleep.

The man explained what he should do to follow the map. While the explanation was clear, it still left Mikhail with questions. He remembered how he’d tried to read the map before and hadn’t been able to find any points of reference he could use to understand it. “How do I read the map?” he asked Ashton. The man had told him about twin palms and star-shaped stones, but he didn’t know where to start as he didn’t have a point on the map he recognised.

And there was one more thing that had drawn his attention. “You send me to find this treasure, but also say it will be claimed by the rightful heir. How could that be me?” He’d just found the map on the beach. There was no connection between him and the box.

Of course he would have to read the map with his eyes, but when he didn’t find a point of reference on the paper there was nowhere he could start. Mikhail let the man laugh, smiling politely as he waited for the other to continue. When the man said he’d already told him everything on the map and explained that he’d just given him the translation before handing the object back, Mikhail took another look at the scroll, holding it the right way up, and tried to understand the map once more now that he knew how to make sense of it.

There was still one last thing he wanted to ask the man. Ashton’s eyes softened as he reassured him that maybe it would take someone outside the family to find the secret his ancestor had hidden as no member had been able to discover it yet. “If I find anything, I’ll make sure to come back here,” Mikhail smiled at the man.

“Thank you for your help,” he thanked the old man and the girl. “I’ll see where this will lead me,” he said, looking at the map.

He said his goodbye to the pair before leaving the restaurant. Once outside, he let Nadezhda back outside her pokéball. The pokémon immediately went to Gureum and the two pokémon looked at their trainer, waiting to see what they would do now.

Mikhail looked at the map. With the information he’d gotten from Ashton he tried to understand the markings on the paper. Thinking back on what he’d just heard he looked from the map to his surroundings as he tried to figure out what way he had to go to follow the map.

Even with Ashton’s explanation, it wasn’t entirely clear to Mikhail where the map would lead to. Maybe if he hadn’t fallen asleep and heard the entire story, things would be clearer. Now he had to work with the information he had.

After spending some time studying the map again, Mikhail held it into the sunlight, the light finally allowing him to notice a symbol that meant north from what Ashton had told him. He followed the map in that direction. As he walked he kept looking from his surroundings to the paper to make sure he was going the right way.

With his attention on the symbols that were still mostly a mystery to him, Mikhail didn’t see he was walking right into a hole that someone had dug in the sand.

His prosthetic leg gave way underneath him, the hole about as deep as his lower leg. The sudden loss of balance gave Mikhail no time to shift his weight to his other leg and he went down to the ground. Falling forward, his reflexes kicked in, remembering how to break the fall and absorb part of the impact as he’d done many times before.

He lay in the sand. Pain blossomed in his hands, arms, knee and what remained of his leg where the prosthetic was attached. He took in a deep breath to stabilise himself. Then he rolled over and sat up.

He was covered in sand and the map lay crumpled on the ground. Shocks of pain went through his stump, the sensitive nerve ends seemingly on fire. His breathing was rapid from the sudden events as a burst of anxiety went through him. He looked around. It was just a beach. The hole had probably been dug by playing kids. There was no fighting, nothing or no one to defend himself from. His hands gripped the sand below him to ground himself.

First he checked for any injuries before looking the prosthetic leg over and making sure it wasn’t damaged. Everything was covered in sand and he took a moment to wipe it all off as well as he could, the time that took helped calm down his breathing and thoughts. The map had landed on the ground as well. He smoothed out the paper and looked it over to make sure nothing had happened to it in the fall.