Great. A solid unit of time I can’t argue with.
He tells me about the houses, built on tall legs over the water. He tells me about splix runs, storms, and how the bay breaks the worst of the waves. He tells me about the Deep, using his hands as much as his words. Downward motions, receiving motions, open palms. He means the ocean.
“The Deep gives,” he says. “The Deep takes. We live as the Deep decides.”
No gods or spirits with names. Just a vast, wet logic for someone who lives on and in the ocean.
I also file away the fact that he has not said a single word about women. It likely means I’m the first one he has seen. I will also be the first woman his village sees. A village of cavemen virgins.
“Just what I always wanted,” I growl to myself. I peer into the waves. Would the tentacle monster be better after all?
My brain, traitor that it is, starts building scaffolding. If this wereSurvivor,I think this would be the boat ride where you decide who you can trust. This would be the confessional where you admit you are scared but determined. This would be the part where the music swells and the camera pans over the camp you are about to enter.
I almost laugh. The thought steadies me.
Okay, Callie.New show. New rules. You cannot brute-force this. You cannot run screaming into the jungle and expect to win. You need an alliance. You need to read the room. You need to stay useful.
My eyes drift back to Crat'ax without my permission.
He is not handsome in a safe way. His scars are old and pale, some crossing muscle, some puckered and deep. Some cross hispurple stripes and vanish. His hair is pulled back with a strip of leather, keeping it out of his eyes. He moves like someone who has never had to perform strength for an audience. He simply has it.
I wonder, not for the first time, what he thinks he is doing with me.
When I shift, the sheet slips, exposing my shoulder. The morning air is cool here on the waves, in a way it never was back in the clearing. I don’t rush to cover it. I tell myself this is strategy. I tell myself I am not noticing the way his gaze flickers, then snaps back to the horizon.
“Saucer,” I say, the word rough in my mouth. “Friend. There. Dorie. Theo-dora. Friend. Go back.”
His jaw tightens. He nods once. “That place you came from? The Plood ship? They are not your friends.”
“My friend,” I insist. “Sleep. There.”
He exhales through his nose. “The village is much safer.”
“For me,” I add, then point back the way we came. “For her.”
He does not answer right away. The silence stretches, filled with water sounds and the skirr’s soft movements. When he speaks, his voice is lower.
“The village doesn’t know you,” he says. “But they will.”
That, more than anything else, scares me.
The coastline opens up as the sun clears the horizon. The bay unfolds. The water calms down, and the waves shrink. The smell of smoke reaches me before I see its source. Then the village rises, looking like it hovers, a web of wooden walkwaysand stilted platforms hovering over the shallows. Canoes bob beneath. People move along the planks, their silhouettes crisp against the brightening sky. Cavemen, striped, wide, and tall.
I forget to breathe. It is beautiful, absolutely. A boon for any documentary about lost tribes. But it is also the scariest thing I’ve seen since the space station.
As we glide closer, heads turn. Movement slows. A hush seems to ripple outward, visible even at this distance.
Crat'ax straightens, subtly putting himself between me and the shore. Not blocking my view, I think, but shielding my body in a possessive gesture that I wish didn’t feel this good.
I clutch the sheet tighter and tell myself, again, that this is just another show. New tribe. First impressions. No immunity yet.
The skirr chirps and nudges the hull, as if pleased to be home.
I look at Crat'ax, at the village, and at the water beneath us. I could still slip out. But I know I won’t.
Okay, I think. Let’s see what happens when I walk onto set.
OnSurvivor,they always pretend it is about trust, strength, or harmony. It never is. It is about whether you belong before you open your mouth. And about whether you will keep the viewers’ interest, if you can create so much drama that they just can’t bear the thought of you leaving.
