Chapter Text
“I don’t need you anymore!”
The words, so vivid, struck Calvin like lightning as he slept, and then he awoke to a thunderclap. The pitter-patter of rain upon leaves and sand surrounded him, and he shivered as a cold wind blew upon his soaked body. His skin, which had smoked and burned before, now yearned for warmth.
His unfocused gaze fell by chance down to the ground, and he noticed that the sand around him was drier than the rest of the beach. Shifting to look above him, he saw the gigantic leaves of a plant, and a curtain of rainwater dripping all around him in a half-circle as it gathered around the leaves’ edges.
Calvin scooted to the edge of his lucky roof and placed his head under the curtain. The water splattered his face as he opened his mouth, and for the first time, he felt a semblance of comfort as he drank. His tightened throat slackened. For minutes he lay there, before scooting back out of the full force of the wind and falling back to sleep.
He woke up one or two more times, each time only for a few moments. Finally, he awoke to sunlight glancing across his face.
He turned his head, squinting and groaning. He tried to recall how long he had slept, but it may as well have been five minutes. He tried to sit up, and his ribs pressed against his skin. Aches across his body throbbed like sirens, shooting painful alarms through his head, and the parts of his skin that were in contact with the ground burned like he had skidded on carpet. Propping himself up, he crawled to a nearby boulder and sat against it, ignoring the pain by looking around.
All around him was a beach, with white sand and glittering ocean. Rocks dotted the beach, some as large as a car. The giant plant that he had slept under was surrounded by small and large palm trees, without fruit and with fibrous trunks. Smaller stones, decaying brown palm leaves, and foliage were scattered among the thin groves.
Looking at the angle of the sun, he realized that it was already far past its zenith, and was now beginning to set. Again he tried to recall how long he had slept, and what had happened to him.
He remembered. The seabirds, the sand, the sun. That cruel, cruel sun. He could still feel it in every cell of his skin, that touch-less burn that could be clearly tracked as it worsened, that could be clearly and precisely felt. And then he remembered the sheer agony, the torture, as he had dragged himself across the beach, away from the waves, in search of relief from the disc of blazing light that hung in the sky. But to his confusion, he could remember nothing else.
He looked behind him. The beach was more of a cove. It ended abruptly on the right side, where a gigantic rock jutted out past the shore by a good couple dozen yards, cutting off the 40-foot strip of sand. Water had carved out a curve in the rock wall over time. The rock met a steep slope of land that arced around the back of the beach, lessening in severity before picking back up near the other end. A few white wisps floated across the pale blue sky, but in the distance, dark-gray walls of clouds rolled in, warning of covered skies. He’d never been to the tropics, except for a quick stop in Miami once. This was no regulated, orderly Miami beach. It was wild, and had a sense of the primitive around it. Flora grew as it wished. Seaweed was strung across the sand. It was rather cold for what he thought a tropical climate should be.
Where was he?
He examined his palms. They were alright, although dirty and sporting a few small, dried cuts. The backs of his hands and the rest of his skin were raw and red, and already peeling with vigor.
He did a double take, realizing that he was, save for a pair of fibrous boxer underwear, completely naked, and reactively looked around out of fear that someone would see him. The questions began to pour in.
What happened?
He suddenly remembered the last memory he’d had before washing up on the beach, the image a flash like gunpowder, and he remembered the breaking of bones and the swelling of blood. The image lingered, despite Calvin’s attempts to push it away. The collision. He didn’t want to think about it.
Then he thought of his parents, his mother and father who would certainly have had their lives shattered, and realized that he was alive when he shouldn’t be. That he shouldn’t be able to think or feel. And if he was, it shouldn’t be on a tropical beach, alone. It should be in a hospital bed, or in a forest of pine and ash if it had to be in the wild. Ohio, not the tropics. He lived in Ohio.
What were his parents thinking right now? Was he missing?
Had he died?
This certainly didn’t look like any afterlife he’d ever heard of.
“I’m here,” he said, and recoiled. He sounded like a warbling bird. He coughed, swallowed, licked his lips, and tried again. “I’m here… I’m Calvin.”
He kept going, feeling silly. “I’m… I’m…”
The word, ‘alone,’ popped into his head, and he stopped talking. He was alone, without anyone around, it seemed, on some strange beach, basically naked, and hungry.
At the last thought, his stomach rumbled, twisting itself into a hollow knot. He wanted food. No, more than that he wanted safety. He wanted home. He began to cry, folding his knees against his chest, and dipping his head. He was sunburned and hungry and weak and alone and he hated it. Why? Was it because of the collision? He let out a sob, and felt hot, sticky tears on his face. For minutes he sat, as a breeze started up and cooled his skin. A shadow fell over him- a gray cloud, leading the others in the direction of the beach. He paid no heed and kept crying.
As Calvin sobbed, he didn’t hear the soft steps of a creature coming up behind him. And it wasn’t until he heard a loud, avian warble that he reacted.
With a shout, he jumped away, ready to bolt if necessary as he gawked at the plucky, pear-shaped bird in front of him, watching him. It was fat enough for him to know that this bird was one of the flightless variants. It was covered with gray and brown feathers all the way from its head to its back, and looked at him without fear or aggression. The next second it let out a trill from its long, ochre beak, and tilted its head. Calvin could only stare.
Apparently having seen enough, the bird waddled away. Calvin dredged up information on flightless birds from his disheveled mind, but the only thing that he could come up with couldn’t be possible. And yet, he was positive that he had just encountered a dodo. He reached up a hand to brush through his wild, matted, straw-like hair.
But that didn’t make sense. Dodos had died out sometime around the 17th century, hadn’t they? He wasn’t exactly certain of that- he had never been good with dates, and his grades had always been dismal. But the fact was there: dodos were supposed to have gone extinct. A churning feeling developed in his stomach, and he stood up, wobbling unsteadily.
Calvin looked around again, once again observing the beach, himself, and the dodo, when comprehension struck him. He was hallucinating.
Thoughts of his sickness introduced themselves; his alter egos, his visits with Dr. Graham, the voices that wouldn’t go away, and Hobbes. Looking around again, Calvin’s breath halted in his throat, and he spun around, scanning everything with wide, frightened eyes. No. No, not this…
He glimpsed the outline of a tiger in the taller trees beyond the palms, and whirled, breathing low and fast. There was nothing. He looked around again, then up at the blanketed sky, where the gray clouds had blotted out the sun. A shadow fell, and the wind picked up. When was the last time he’d taken his medication? He automatically reached for a pocket that wasn’t there, and he breathed faster.
He tried to remember what he should do. If he was dreaming or hallucinating, he should tell himself that it’s nothing but a fabrication- remember things about reality to ground him…
Okay… He closed his eyes, and tried to remember his life. His home, with its gray walls and brick foundation, surrounded by a wide green lawn and hedge, and rose-stuffed window boxes that his mom loved to plant. His mom… his dad, their voices, their comforting love. The oak tree in the backyard…
None of this is real. It’s just my imagination making me think things… see things… Wake up, Calvin.
But then why did it feel so real? Why was he feeling the wind, hearing the unmistakable swaying of palm trees, the crashing of water? Why was he smelling the salty air, and experiencing real pain?
“ No. No, it’s not real.” He opened his eyes.
It’s my condition. It must have gotten worse. It’s trapping me. It’s overwhelming me… oh god, what do I do?
Shaking, he racked his brain for anything that could help, but nothing came to mind. His tears returned as his mind desperately searched for an answer to his situation. He began hyperventilating, looking around with wide eyes, when suddenly, he stopped. He had an idea. An insane idea, but if it meant waking up, he’d take the option.
He would ‘die’ again. And hopefully, when he did, he’d wake up, having shattered the illusion around him.
Looking around, he saw the ocean spread out in front of him and made up his mind. He staggered across the beach, heading for the rock jutting out on the right side. Clambering up the slope, he reached the top, blocking out the pain of stepping on dirt and rock and plant life with his red, raw soles. He walked to the very edge, unsteady and unfocused, and stopped at the precipice of the rock. Below was the water, crashing against the wall. A few smooth rocks jutted out of the surface, as though gasping for breath as the waves covered them over and over. It seemed to him that he was miles up as he stared down at the turbulence.
Wind blew his hair asunder and into his face, and he nearly stumbled, before recovering and taking a hasty step backwards. He was ready to stop, to forfeit, to climb back down to the beach and figure out something else. But there seemed to be no other way to escape. If some pain was all that stood between him and his parents, his life, he could take it. He’d take every injustice, every problem that had been piled upon him rather than starve alone in this twisted hallucination of a beach. He wrapped his arms around his chest, stooping in the cold of the breeze, and stepped forward, then stepped back. Then forward.
“No.” He turned away, breathing shakily, and looked down at the beach. It beckoned, despite the ruthlessness of the waves and blowing trees surrounding it. There was no way he could jump. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
And then he did.
Hours later, he lay curled up on the sand, trembling to his very bones and unable to get up, his lungs like bellows that had for too long fanned a fire. Coral cuts, pale cold and rock-inflicted bruises made his skin look like that of a corpse. A pencil-long gash on his leg oozed hot blood upon the dry sand.
Calvin cried softly. The beach was real. It was all real. The trees, the water, the seagulls, the blood, the rocks…
“Stupid…” he whispered.
He lay there for hours, until the sun passed its prime and began to descend. At long last he stood, looking around at the empty beach and the forest beyond the slope. The palm trees had stopped blowing. The waves continued to pulse. The seagulls continued to cry.
He noticed his sunken stomach. He hadn’t eaten since he’d woken up on the beach, and he was once again craving water. The lack of both was apparent in his appearance, from his unstable stance to the feel of his ribs just under his skin. He looked around, and decided that he didn’t want to die; he wanted to survive.
For the first time, he began to really think. No one was going to help him. Perhaps somewhere out there was someone else, but he couldn’t stay here and wait for something to happen. The only thing that would occur would be death from exposure. He could feel it- he was already far weaker than when he had woken up.
He turned to face the sun, which would be gone in a few hours, and then a gust of wind hit him. Long shadows began creeping across the beach, and he thought of a word: priorities.
When Calvin was six, his father had signed him up for the Boy Scouts. At first he’d hated it, especially his no-excuses scoutmaster, tough as a rock and just as understanding as one. But there was no denying that that scoutmaster was the best man to have for a situation like his.
Priorities, that’s what he’d talked about. Calvin tried to recall the list.
First, shelter. Forget food. Forget water, even. You could go for a few days without the latter and much longer without the former. What came first was protection from the elements, which, depending on the situation, could kill within hours or minutes. And Calvin had a feeling that he wouldn’t survive another cold night outside.
He began to look for a suitable place to build a lean-to, the simplest type of shelter, when he realized that it would mean finding and carrying around wood, quite possibly at night. He’d wasted most of his strength already. He couldn’t waste so much more for what might possibly not amount to much, especially in case of rain, and then he remembered fire.
He knew how to start a fire- he’d earned a reputation in his scout troop for how fast he could do it. If he could find enough materials for a fire drill, he could start one and be safe from the cold. With fire, he could see in the dark and find food, and wood for a lean-to.
He looked at the sun, which threatened to touch the horizon, then at the forest beyond the slope and the palms.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s go exploring.”
He began to walk.
He should be dead. He was dead.
So why did he feel cold?
Hobbes came alive, gasping, wide-eyed. His brain jumpstarted, his temples pounding, and then he was wheezing in and out... in and out… and so on. Something wet lapped at his shoulders, then receded. It happened again. Everything was freezing like he was immersed in arctic waters. His nose twitched, and he detected the smell of salt water. Of ocean air.
Part of his fur was roughly torn out, and he let out a low, protesting rumble. The next moment, he heard flapping wings, and something- a bird, he thought- left his back. For a long time he lay there, the water crashing, awful, twisting pain across his back and his head and his skin, eyes squeezed shut as he shivered. His head felt like it was filled with water. He hoped it was all just an illusion. He hoped that he’d soon fall back to sleep.
“ Splash !” His heart doubled in speed as a thundering wave fell over him, picking his large body up and soaking his fur. He lifted his eyelids, and glimpsed the last of the wave receding in front of him, leaving a border between wet and dry sand about a yard away. Sand, salt, water. A beach. And again the thought came to him, that he shouldn’t be alive. Why?
Calvin.
Tears threatened to spill out of Hobbes’ eyes at the name, and he instead focused on his surroundings. He was on a beach. He was cold. He-
Another, bigger wave enveloped him, and he choked on saltwater. The muted roar of the waves filled his ears as it consumed him, then released him once more. So subtle was the feeling that he barely noticed it; as the wave receded it tugged him another few inches from the dry shore. Then a third wave repeated the action. The water was trying to pull him back under.
He needed to get far enough away from the water so that it couldn’t touch him. But his body was numb; so numb that he couldn’t move.
But he could breathe, and he could wriggle. So he wriggled, taking in the deepest breaths he could manage, and kept attempting to move. Perhaps the numbness would melt.
Another wave, another few inches.
He kept trying. Another wave. Then another.
Dozens and dozens of waves. The water covered his mouth and nose as it passed, and he choked and hacked again. He increased his movement, and noticed something. It started as just a tingle, became a low, dull feeling, and then erupted into agony. His entire nervous system was being stung by a thousand bees. The burning was torture; a body-wide smear of pain made up of millions of pinpricks. He didn’t stop moving, even as the water made him cough and sputter and the waves began to overtake him. A great crash of water grabbed him and pulled him back. The weight beneath him suddenly gave way, a bank of sand crumbling, and Hobbes began to sink. He panicked. He strained his limbs, pushing and kicking feebly, keeping afloat just a little longer. It seemed as though with every kick of his legs, he slipped a little deeper under the surface.
Finally, he was forced to take a last, great breath. He disappeared under the water, and his lungs began to burn. Fear threatened to overtake him.
He ordered himself, with all of his willpower, to stay calm, and continued to kick and move and struggle until his lungs threatened to implode. Until he couldn’t take it anymore. He felt his mouth open to take in air. It took in water instead. And at that critical moment, his paw touched sand.
The touch sent strength through him, and he kicked forward as the water rushed into his open mouth and nose. He breached the surface, and pulled himself onto wet ground, before his stomach and throat squeezed together to expel what he had swallowed. He threw it all up in spades, his throat stinging. He had nearly drowned in three feet of water.
He crawled until dry sand caked his fur, and collapsed against something hard.
He lay there, unable to move any more for what seemed like hours, shivering and aching. His weakened muscles and joints felt the combined tension of cold water, cramps, and overexertion. Salt, left over from the evaporating water, gave his disheveled fur a texture not far from stiff straw.
As he rested, thoughts and questions washed past in a torrent, until he couldn’t bear to leave them all unanswered. But the torrent became a fog, clouding his head, and he couldn’t pick one to start with.
Something simple, then. Something he knew. Who was he?
“Hobbes,” he croaked, and grimaced at the scratchiness of his voice, dry and coarse as the sand he rested on. He was Hobbes. He was a tiger. He was Calvin’s best friend.
The last thought stopped him. He had been Calvin’s best friend.
“Right,” he whispered, moving past the thought. “Where am I?”
He looked around, getting his first proper image of his surroundings. He was on a beach. A large one, with a great distance between both ends. It was a gray and gloomy beach, too, littered with washed up seaweed and driftwood, and rocks closer to the back where the sand met a thin, clear line of palm trees. A thick fog obscured vision beyond a couple dozen yards, but he saw bigger trees with blacker canopies behind the palms; a forest. Monotone waves washed onto dry sand further down.
A bird landed on a piece of driftwood a ways down the beach. A seagull, he could tell, but not any kind of seagull he’d ever seen before. It was bigger, the size of a doberman, and with a greater wingspan. He recalled the torn out patch of fur.
How did he get here? He found that he couldn’t recall. The last thing he remembered…
He blocked out the thought as soon as he remembered, and tried to distract himself. He needed to survive. No matter how he’d gotten here. From the looks of it, the weather could turn to rain any second, and he wanted to stay dry from this point on. His stomach burned, and added food to his list of needs. But first: water. His throat was begging for it at this point. Breathing hurt.
He stood up… at least, he tried to. With a sharp exclamation, he fell down. And it was then that he realized that something about his legs and arms had changed, from his skeleton to his muscles. Where before he had been a tiger, but with the best human qualities (nimble hands and standing upright), he had now lost his abilities. He tried again to stand as he usually did- on two legs- and again he fell. After a few minutes of experimentation, Hobbes concluded that where before he had been a tiger, but with the best human qualities, he had lost his human abilities… except for speech, apparently.
What an experience , he thought. To wake up on a godforsaken beach in god-knows-where, nearly drown, and then to discover that your fundamental anatomy has changed.
Water. Forget everything else. He needed water. And until he found water, he wouldn’t give another moment’s thought to his questions. They could wait. His throat couldn’t.
So, cold and weak, he walked on all four legs into the forest, as rain began to fall from the shrouded sky above.
Calvin sat, shivering as he carefully wrapped together strands of dry fiber, taken from the dead palm leaves on the ground, and strung the completed cordage on a thick and supple branch. The sun had touched down upon the horizon a couple of minutes ago, and the forest had begun to emit the cries and calls of unknown creatures. He tied thick and biting knots on both ends, watching the branch bend with the tension, and plucked the string. It gave a hum like a poorly-strung bass, and Calvin placed a foot-long stick on a small notch in the driftwood that would serve as his platform. His fingers trembled. The sun began to disappear behind the ocean.
Taking the bow, he twisted it around on the stick so that the string created a tight loop around it, and placed a wide piece of wood with a similar notch on top. Then, placing a foot on the driftwood to keep it in place, and checking to see if the ball of tinder that he’d made was ready and nearby, he began to push and pull the bow back and forth. “C’mon…”
The stick began to rotate, carving a clean hole into the driftwood and the upper piece, until the initial friction opposing the motion smoothed out. He sawed for minutes like he’d been taught, until the rim of the indentation began to blacken. He didn’t stop, even as his muscles quivered and his breath became labored, and prayed that the bow wouldn't snap. Back and forth he went, until smoke started to rise, but he could tell that the strength that he had left was failing him.
Then his hands slipped and the stick jerked out of the indent and flew to the ground.
“No…”
Calvin wanted to scream. He picked the stick back up, and tried to restart the process. A few seconds later his cold, weak grip came apart again. Once more he tried, but he could feel himself breaking down. He couldn’t do it. He was too weak, now.
He collapsed, and let the bow and drill drop to the ground. A sob escaped him.
A hand placed itself on Calvin’s shoulder, and he flinched. Then he felt the coarse skin, the calloused joints and that old, familiar warmth. It couldn’t be…
Looking up, he followed the hand up its arm, to the shoulder, clothed in a blue woolen Christmas sweater, and then finally to the encouraging, mustached, smiling face of the person that Calvin had never thought he’d see again. The man who had spent countless hours telling him incredible stories, who had whisked him away on forest or road trip adventures, and who had taught him more than he’d ever learned in school, guiding him under watch of his kind, encouraging eyes; Uncle Max.
“Hey, kiddo,” Max said.
Calvin looked around, then back at him, searching for signs of a phantom apparition in front of him. But Max was as solid and earthly as a stone. “You- what… how are you…”
He trailed off, his lower lip trembling.
Uncle Max looked at the fire drill, and Calvin remembered the first time he’d done it, with Max’s supporting hand on his shoulder, his arms pumping as they worked to move the bow, and then the coal that they had both fanned into a proper flame.
“Here,” Max said, and placed the dropped pieces of the fire drill back into Calvin’s hands. Try again. I’ll be right behind you.”
“…Okay,” Calvin said, shuddering, and prepared the process. Then, beginning to move the bow, he felt two arms mimic his own, one on the arm moving the bow and another on top of the hand that held the drill in place.
“Remember,” Max said. “Keep a steady hand; like a surgeon’s. Back and forth. Now, put some muscle into it. C’mon, push!”
Calvin threw all that remained of his precise strength into the motion, his shoulders and chest moving with his arms. Smoke began to rise again. He needed more friction, more speed, more pressure. He kept going, putting everything into the simple push and pull, until a steady wisp rose in the evening air. And the whole time, Uncle Max was there, his warm hands on top of his own, aiding in strength.
“Yes, exactly. Keep it steady… Now, put yourself into it- all your focus. Everything. Fire’s a mirror of your own soul. Feeding it, growing it- takes a lot of effort. Put your will into it!”
Calvin entered a sort of calm frenzy, locking his mouth into a slim line as his eyes quaked with the intensity of his stare, focused entirely on the increasing trail of smoke. Smoke consumed the lower half of the stick, and he saw a glow. He gave it just a little more, his muscles threatening to spasm, and as quick as he could, he snatched up the tinder and held the fibrous fluff to the glow, quiet words of encouragement spilling out of his mouth as though he were reciting a prayer. Slowly and deliberately, he coaxed the glow, nurturing it until finally, the tinder caught.
“You did it, kiddo!”
A small flame began to eat away at the fire, and Calvin, eyes wide, turned and set the flame into the middle of a conical arrangement of kindling, placed in a prepared fire pit a foot deep to protect from the weather. The kindling caught, and Calvin watched the flame grow into a real fire. Ice melted in his heart, and he chuckled. He’d done it. He’d really done it. He needed to gather more firewood, and then construct a real shelter nearby. But for the moment, he sat, letting himself feel the warmth of the flames.
And as he laughed, his eyes shined, and he twisted to look behind him, to thank the person that had, through his teachings, saved his life. To see his face again, after so many years. And as he turned, his smile receded, a part of him already knowing what he’d find.
Uncle Max was gone. He’d never been there.