Day 206: Pilot Araja, Her Unknown Talent.

Coqoj 32th, 4288: 206 Days in the Mortal Realm

Pilot Araja. Pilot A. Eloirakn. Pilot Eloirakn.

Not sure I like either of those titles. If one couldn’t guess, I’m the pilot now of the ornithopter. When I woke this morning, we were still under water. There wasn’t a clock visible and so I hadn’t any idea what time it was. Timmy, well John once he woke up, was still asleep at the wheel. I walked around the room, observing once more the ocean life as they swam by. Isaac was laying on the floor watching me pace. I eventually sat down and leaned up against him as boredom set in.

I began to watch Timmy. Surely he was about to wake up soon or so I thought. As I watched for signs of him arousing, I noticed how still he remained. There wasn’t moment in his shoulders to indicate he was breathing. Alarmed, I went to Timmy’s side. I carefully touched his arm.

Cold.

I applied more pressure.

Stiff.

“Carl!” I yelled. Footsteps rang up the stairs and shortly Carl was by my side.

“What?”

“Touch him!”

“What?” he repeated.

“Carl, I think Timmy’s dead. Touch him!” I commanded once more. Carl gaped at me. He slowly looked at Timmy, mouth still open though rigid. He slowly stretched a hand out toward him. Just as he was about to touch Timmy, Carl suddenly snapped his hand back and headed to the door.

“Don’t even joke Araja! He’s fine,” Carl said, not looking back.

“Carl! I’m pretty sure he’s dead!” I insisted.

“Not funny!!” his voice echoed up the stairs.

I looked over at Isaac. He shrugged his shoulders. A bottle clanked and rolled across the floor suddenly.

“Give that to John when he wakes up!” Carl instructed. I bit my tongue. I wanted to shout at him once more that he was dead but figured Carl still wouldn’t accept it.

I eyed Timmy’s body once more. Too still. There was no way he was alive. I licked the tip of my right hand’s fingers and carefully, to avoid touching Timmy again, placed my right hand in front of his face. I held that pose for 10 seconds. My fingers couldn’t feel any chill of breath upon them.

Scared, I went back to Isaac and leaned up against him. I couldn’t help but worry how we were now in a watery grave. The only hope I held onto was Carl being able to get us back up into the air.

Some time passed. Timmy remained still and silent. Slow footsteps came up the stairs. Carl peeked around the corner.

“Please tell me John’s awake and that you’re still joking,” Carl said with a touch of desperation. I looked at him with grave eyes. I slowly shook my head and looked away. Carl walked up to Timmy and gave him a poke. He cringed away, repulsed. He looked at me once more, grief eminent on his face. “Do either of you know how to fly this?” My heart sank. He doesn’t know how to fly this thing!? I thought. The last thing I operated that was crafted by the gnomes was that forsaken submarine! I felt very fortunate that I managed to get out of that contraption alive! I doubted I’d be as lucky this time around. Nevertheless, I got up and approached Timmy.

I couldn’t figure out just from looking at him what had caused his untimely death. It was unpleasant removing him from his restrains. The fleshy, but stiff, feel of his rigor mortis body made me cringe. I suppressed the thoughts of Meryth’s cold body, Rekka’s freshly deceased form, and the little boy that we were able to resurrect. Poor Timmy. I doubted we’d find a Cleric any time soon. For all I knew, we were fated to this watery world.

Once Timmy was removed from the controls, I got myself in place as best I could. The controls were designed for a gnome, not a 6’ 2” Angelic. I took a few deep breathes, closing my eyes to help calm my nerves. I had watched him fly the contraption. Surely it was as simple as he made it out to be, I told myself. The notes I saw looked like they were written by a drunk man, so I knew I had to go purely on what I remembered seeing.

There was a button next to the one I was sure Timmy had pressed before we descended into the water, that had an arrow pointing up. I figured that was the best option for going back to the surface. I held my breathe as I pushed down on the button. Sure enough, the ornithopter began to propel upward. Soon we broke the surface.

The sun was high in the sky and I was convinced it had to have been past noon. That was about all I could tell. The windows of the dome were smudged and littered with jellyfish. I had to clean the windows before taking off.

Carefully I made my way out a side hatch into the sun. I had grabbed a bucket of water and a rag from Carl. Though bright, the sun wasn’t too hot. We had to be fairly south for the early autumn sun to not be scorching at this time of day. I used my wings to keep myself in place as I wiped away the jellyfishes. A few of them touched me, which stung, but nothing terrible. After many minutes of cleaning, the dome was relatively clear of the scum the sea creatures had left.

When I got back to the control panel, I triggered the wings to extend and slowly pulled down on the lever that Timmy managed the speed with. Sure enough, the ornithopter took off with no problems and a sense of security swept over me. It wasn’t difficult at all. I continued the zig zag motion of northeast and southeast to avoid the glass dome becoming a death ray.

We’re now resting once more in the depths of the sea. I’m feeling quite confident in my new talent. I’m actually considering making money off of transporting people. I’m sure Carl would still enjoy keeping his job too, or would it be more considerate of me that he’d be happy to hire me on as the new pilot. Surely this is now his ornithopter. Anyways, I’m also grateful I haven’t killed us yet in the 14 hours of flying that I’ve done thus far.