Sitting upright with her back turned against the waterfall, Marisol held her breath as the skittering at the darker end of the cave grew louder and louder.

  the Archive said plainly.

  Her imagination wandered to dark, scary corners as the skittering continued. Sunlight didn’t reach so far into the deep end of the cave, so whatever type of ‘crab’ was making that sound, she couldn’t even get a peek of it. If the Archive was giving her the option to fight, then it probably wasn’t a marauder—but it wasn’t as though she could beat a Giant-Class crab in her current state, either.

  she thought, She bit her lip, preparing to jump onto her glaives at a moment’s notice.

  The Archive sounded serious, so she clenched her teeth and swallowed a hard gulp. She narrowed her eyes at the deep end of the cave, trying to see through the dark like she’d never tried before, and… when the ‘crab’ skittered sideways into the light, a shudder of animalistic fear rippled down her spine.

  It was followed by shock.

  Then surprise.

  Then confusion.

  What she saw was a little boy’s physique, a body incontrovertibly human. He was thin on the boney side, and wore only a pair of shorts fashioned from strips of bark, torn and twisted together to create a fabric-like texture. His bare chest and torso was inked with faded tattoos. They depicted what seemed like waves and vines. The ink snaked around to his back, down his arms, and legs.

  If the way he skittered out of the dark scuttling on all fours didn’t tell her he was probably an island tribesman, then it was his giant, bright, orange crab-shaped head. From the neck down and at the angle she saw, he still looked human.

  Admittedly, though, she a bit freaked out by the crab head, so she kicked a pebble at him, trying to get him to back off.

  It simply bounced off the top of his head with a little .

  In response to her pebble, he tilted his head a full ninety degrees, his protruding eye stalks blinking pointedly—and then he skittered sideways to swerve closer to her. His bare feet made crab-like tip-taps along the ground.

  His strange manner of movement, his crab head, narrow eye stalks, and the fact that his left hand was actually pincer-shaped freaked her out even more. She scooted backwards, kicking off the ground with her glaives, and then—

  She lost her balance.

  And started slipping over the edge of the cave.

  The boy skittered forward, darting in to clamp her wrist with his pincer. If he wanted to rip her entire arm off before she fell, he probably could right this instant. Instead, he yanked her back in with what was the most gentle and graceful of pulls—completely unbecoming of a half-crustacean human like him.

  She fell forward, landing on her forearms and gasping for breath. The boy skittered back to the deep end of the cave and tilted his head at her. As he did, she glanced up at him, furrowing her brows; was a little off about his head.

  “Wait… a second,” she mumbled. “Your head just wobbled, and it felt like there was a human hand underneath your pincer. Are you… a mutated human like those marauders outside?”

  The boy continued staring at her quizzically, so she crawled over to sit by the wall of the cave before miming taking off an invisible helmet. It took a few moments—she had to repeat the motion a few more times, even miming taking off an invisible glove over her left hand—but eventually. the boy seemed to get the message.

  He grabbed the edge of his crab helmet and made it wobble just a little bit. The helmet still seemed glued onto his neck from her perspective, but then he took off his pincer with ease and showed off his boringly normal human hand: five fingers, five nails, and a tattoo of a crab in the center of his palm.

  She let out a huge sigh of relief as he resecured the helmet over his head, pinching his neck as though doing so would make it less wobbly.

  the Archive commented.

  the Archive explained.

  She shuffled up against the wall. She coming down from the adrenaline rush, and her body told her she was exhausted. Her shoulders slumped and she sank to the ground. She really, needed to sleep.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  she thought, hugging her mama’s book as her head drooped.

  She managed to squint down at the little water strider on her shoulder.

  The last thing she saw before she drifted off to sleep was the tilted head of the boy, staring at her once again. With his helmet on, it looked as though he wanted to take a bite out of her.

  she muttered.

  It was well into the night when the sounds of a crackling fire woke Marisol.

  Groggily, she sat up straight against the wall and rubbed her eyes, trying to adapt to the incredibly dense ball of light in front of her. The world was dark outside, and the crab boy had started a bonfire in the middle of the cave. He squatted with his back turned to her.

  While she hugged herself and let out a cold, shuddering breath, she did a quick internal assessment of her body. Her muscles were no longer burning with exhaustion, check. She wasn’t light-headed from all the running and skating around, check. Her earlobe wound was no longer dripping with blood where the marauders had grazed her with a sharp stream of blood, check. Save for her growling stomach and her thirst for fresh, clean water, she was about as rested as a Sand-Dancer could be.

  the Archive answered diligently, waving a little leg at her from her shoulder.

  She groaned, stretched her arms over her head, and gave a great, big yawn as she reached over to cup a handful of water from the roaring waterfall next to her. The water was so impossibly refreshing as she gulped it down, like no water she’d ever had before.

  the Archive said, switching to an exact replica of her own voice.

  She was halfway to nodding off in the middle of the Archive’s ramblings when she noticed a significant weight removed from her lap. Her mama’s leather-bound book wasn’t near her, but she knew she’d fallen asleep with it.

  She looked around, whirling in panic.

  Ignoring the Archive, she scrambled up and then slid past the little bonfire, her glaives screeching against the stone as she reached the other side of the cave. She hadn’t noticed it before since he had his back turned to her, but now, looking at him face-to-face across the campfire, she could see he was utterly engrossed in trying to pick apart the lock keeping her mama’s book sealed. The way he was poking it with his hands and pincer, nobody would doubt him if he said he’d never seen a mechanical contraption before. All he had to do was pull the little lever on the spine and the cover would pop open.

  She didn’t he could pop it open, but she didn’t want him to get frustrated and decide to smash the entire thing apart.

  “Um… can I have my book back?” she asked, coughing into her fist when he didn’t even seem to realize she’d woken up. He finally looked up and stared at her, his hands freezing for a second. "It kinda went through a lot already, sticking with me the entire time. I’ve killed a fairy shrimp, skated through a storm, and then ran away from the marauders… so I’d prefer it if you didn’t break the lock now. May I please have it back?”

  In response, the boy simply kept staring at her over the crackling bonfire. His crab eye stalks were so silly-looking that she couldn’t help but feel a rising urge to laugh. She managed to keep it under wraps, deciding to send him a gentle, small smile instead.

  “Please?” she asked again, clapping her hands together.

  When there was no response yet again, she darted forward and tried to snatch her book off the ground, but he was faster. He clamped her book with his pincer and skittered a few steps into the deeper end of the cave, tilting his head as though he genuinely didn’t understand what was going on.

  She squatted so she could be on eye-level with him. This time, her measured smile wasn’t so kind and friendly.

  “Please give it back,” she said, trying not to let her irritation show on her face. “My mama gave it to me to read if I ever found myself bored out of my mind with nobody to talk to. I don’t even know how long she’d been writing it for, but I don’t intend to throw it away. Would your mama be happy if she knew something she made for you was stolen by a complete stranger?”

  No answer again.

  the Archive said, after the little boy managed to tilt his head even further sideways, the edge of his helmet pressing into his bare shoulder.

  She squinted at the Archive on her shoulders.

  Without a word of warning, the boy skittered into the deep end of the cave, and then it was like he just fell through a tunnel.

  A crab tunnel.

  Scrambling up again, she slid over to the deep end of the cave and peered down the gigantic hole in the ground she hadn't bothered to check earlier. Over the edge was an entire of bluish-pink bioluminescent corals and crystals, all underneath the surface of the island. She saw the crab boy sliding down a cord of vines, sprinting far away with her mama’s book still in his pincer.

  The Archive shrugged on her shoulders.

  The Archive shook its head, pointing at the vines and giant roots sprawling across the underground coral forest.

  Admittedly, she felt a little terrified staring down at the coral forest. It a fifty-meter drop to the bottom. Although she could grab onto the thick vines and shimmy down like she was descending a particularly tall tree, there was no telling how far the crab boy could run before she reached the bottom.

  If the winds didn’t favor her, she’d never be able to catch up to his incredibly agile sideways skittering.

  she thought, mustering her courage and forcing a grin onto her face. She prepared herself to jump glaives-first into the vines.

  The Archive hummed in agreement, pulling up a status screen next to her head.

  [Objective #4: Pursue the boy and reclaim your book]

  [Time Limit: Undefined]

  [Reward: The Vellamira Sand-Dancing Technique Book]

  [Failure: Mother’s wrath]