Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus


Making Things a Little More Complicated

Hot Coals didn’t know what was going on… but he could see little glimpses of it through the trees.

After he’d sent Gyro off on the raft, the mummies had fallen upon him almost immediately. At first, he’d thought he was dead, that they would rend him limb from limb like they had apparently done to so many others in the tomb while he was unconscious. But other than using their numbers to subdue him, and apart from some cuts and bruises, he was mostly unharmed. The mummies had merely dragged him back to the center of the island… and then sat down.

Coals had no idea what had made them do that, but he could only assume it was through the command of their master. Now, they just sat in a circle facing him, and if he tried to stand or move, they would growl at him and begin to stand as well. Apparently, their orders were to bring him back alive and unharmed, and then keep him in one place. Or at least, that was the best he could gather from them. They weren’t exactly the most talkative captors.

But now that he was alone, save for the company of his undead guards, Coals could only wonder what happened to everypony else. Had the team that had gone into the shrine been captured as well? He could only assume they had; after all, they would have come back up to the topside, only to be similarly subdued and put under watch. But so far, there had been no movement. As far as Coals could tell, they were still beneath the island, and not likely to leave any time soon.

And what about Gyro? What about the others? He hoped that Gyro was safe out there and that one of the sirens would find her. So long as the mummies couldn’t swim, then they wouldn’t be able to get to her. But as for Rainbow and the others, were they safe? They had flown to the island where the mummies first came from. What if there were more there?

He couldn’t know for sure if anypony else was safe. But he did know what he could see and hear, so far away. Little flashes of something lit up the night sky through the trees, and every so often a note from a distant song would whisper in his ears. Something was happening out there, and he had no idea what that meant for anypony. Was it salvation? Was it his demise? There was no way to find out.

But just then, a loud explosion shook the trees and startled some of the birds awake. A cacophony of surprised and shrill shrieks colored the night as it inexplicably turned to day. Coals looked toward the heavens, squinting and shielding his eyes, as a ring of brilliant color rolled through the sky from the west. The light chased away the darkness, and he could see the trees and his surroundings in perfect clarity as if he stood outside in the brightest, sunniest day. Suddenly, the night was no more, interrupted by the warmth of day. He’d never seen anything like it.

It didn’t just look like day, either. The mummies around him hissed and cowered, some attempting to flee while others kicked and flailed at the sand around them. The daylight pained them in some way, and Coals didn’t know if it would last. He knew if he was going to make a break for it, now was his chance. But if the mummies caught him again…

A squawk from a nearby tree caught his attention, and he looked over to see that scarlet macaw perched on one of the palms, frantically flapping its wings. After the bird had helped him get Gyro to safety earlier, Coals wasn’t about to second-guess its intentions. If there was one good thing that had come from the mummies dragging him back and watching him, it had been a chance to catch his breath and recover his strength. Now that he didn’t have to carry Gyro on his shoulders, he could move much faster and slip around the mummies still writhing in pain from the daylight burning their flesh and shooting little wisps of smoke into the air. It was trivially easy to get away before the light began to fade.

And fade it did, and all too quickly. As the ring of light made its way past the islands, the darkness slowly returned. The shadows deepened and strengthened, and just as quickly as it had appeared, the light was gone. Coals heard the mummies growl and hiss in rage behind him, and he doubled his pace, following the bird’s flight through the trees.

“Where are we going?!” he called up to the bird, as if it could give him an answer. “How are we even going to get out of here?! We don’t even have the raft anymore!”

But the bird never answered him, save for a few chirps and squawks that he couldn’t make sense of. It led him further and further westward, around the pond in the center of the island and to the gently curving beach sheltered by the sandbar on the other side. Maybe it was taking him to Gyro? There was a chance that his marefriend could still be close by depending on how the ocean currents moved. That had to be it, right? It was the most logical conclusion.

Racing across the beach, his hooves kicking up clumps of sand, Coals ran right up to the water’s edge and skidded to a stop. What he saw in front of him was not Gyro’s raft. Not even close. What he saw instead was a line of canoes, a dozen of them, running aground on the sandbar just across the water, each being tightly secured from the waves by four large, muscular bodies climbing out of its hull.

Coals swallowed hard and took a few steps back. Now he really regretted following that macaw. ‘A rock and a hard place’ barely even began to describe just how bad of a situation he now found himself in.

How could this night get any worse?