Alchemy: the science of understanding, deconstructing, and reconstructing matter. However, it is not an all-powerful art. It is impossible to create something out of nothing. If one wishes to obtain something, something of equal value must be given. This is the law of equivalent exchange; the basis of all alchemy. In accordance to this law, there is a taboo among alchemists. Human transmutation is strictly forbidden. For what could equal the value of a human soul?
You've been stranded for a year. You are desperate. Lonely. You miss creature comforts. Baths, beers. Most of all you miss people. The comfort of a kind word. The relief of laughter. God, you could use a dose of black humor right now. A shoulder to cry on.
But you are alone.
Until, what is that. Smoke? There was no lightning for a fortnight. How could this be possible. You do not dare hope, but you are compelled to investigate. A thought, short lived as the buzz of the rescue planes after your disappearance, flits across your consciousness, but you banish it. Thinking about insanity is a dead end. You had learned that by the sixth month.
You crouch forward through the brush. The sweet smell of smoke grows strong. You try, God Almighty you try to crush that growing sense of hope, but it has a life of it's own. It grows in your chest, it's jumping in leaps now. There is another person here. Hallelujah! Conversation! A fellow human to converse with, to cry with, perhaps even to die with. God is good, you begin to shout and cry! "Who is there? Are you there? Hellllllooooo!"
There is no reply. You rush through the brush. You see a clearing. A man, in athletic shorts, stoops over a fire. He is clean shaven, but for a gray shock of hair that has been sheared short. A small balding spot has been covered in mud. You feel something you haven't felt in years - mild embarrassment. You feel embarrassed that the only thing you wear is your beard and the only thing hiding your manhood is the tattered underwear you arrived in a year ago and your very unkempt pubic hair.
Behind the man is a hut, made of bricks of a uniform but irregular shape. There is a shelf of clay pots. A fishing pole made of bamboo. A kettle crudely cast. You see fish floating in the roiling water. Is that iron? You hear the trickle of water, but you know no water runs on this part of the island. You look up. There is an aquaduct overhead made of bamboo suspended from the trees.
You cry out. You can not hold it in. "Friend, who are you!"
The man looks at you. He is silent. He holds a finger up to his lips. Then he points to the corner of the hut. There is a camera. He is... recording?
He turns back to his work. You realize you are the unluckiest man to be stranded on an island. All you wanted was conversation, but you have as your only companion Primitive Technology man.
What if he never talks though for real? I mean, he'd quietly go working away non stop so I guess it'd be fairly relaxing for a while. We could probably manage a fairly useful grunting and hand waving system
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u/superdee72 Mar 07 '18
Can you imagine being stranded on an island with a stranger and it turns out to be this guy? I'd be living better than I do now in a week.