Subnautica: A Rise of Time

Chapter 9: Missing ||| Perspective: Ryley Robinson

Ryley was fuming, and he was clearly not in the brightest mood.

But nowadays, he never was in a bright mood, as his life had been nothing but loneliness and pain for the past seven years.

He swam fiercely to his Cyclops, which was parked outside the base. He climbed into it, and paid no attention to the greeting it gave him. Instead, Ryley jumped up the ladder and threw himself over to the wheel. Ryley had left his Cyclops running, thinking he wouldn't spend that much time at Operation Alpha before leaving.

But he did spend way too much time, and now, he had to find a missing dragon. A dragon who got lost at the floating island. Ryley wasn't surprised, it was a literal jungle where the trees made it as dark as night even during the day. But he hated that place, and he hated it for a pretty good reason he never wanted to remember again.

Ryley set the speed of the Cyclops to standard, as much as he wanted to go as fast as possible using the fastest setting, he did not want to have his Cyclops on fire for like the fiftieth time. Ryley didn't have the floodlights that the Cyclops had on, and since he hated how bright they were, he just used the scanners he had installed.

The good thing was that Operation Alpha was not that far from the floating island, as it was situated right on the edge of the Grand Reef. So it hopefully would not take long to find Erry.

Hopefully.

Ryley swiveled around spires that jutted from the ground. He was a clumsy driver, and as usual, he ran into some of the spires. It was no wonder why all of his vehicles that he owned were beaten and looked inoperable, it was mainly from how clumsy he was whenever he drove something.

The floating island was quickly in his sights thanks to his scanning module that scanned the terrain. Ryley sped forward to it, trying to get there as fast as possible without going at the fastest speed. His claws dug into the metal of the wheel, and his muscles tensed as he approached it.

Ryley absolutely did not want to go crawling into the floating island's thick jungles, but if the idiots who went there in the first place forgot someone there, Ryley was going to get the person they forgot. As from what he learned from experience, if there was one person trapped somewhere, nobody dared to find them.

He stopped his Cyclops right outside the island, the glass at the front pretty close to the land. Ryley shut off the Cyclops, turning off the lights to save power. Ryley trotted over to one of the lockers in his Cyclops, more specifically the one in the bridge. He slammed it open, looking for some of the survival tools he had stowed away in the locker.

Ryley grabbed the old flashlight he used to use often but put it in this locker and forgot about it. It surprisingly looked brand new, but that probably wouldn't last very long. There were extra, fully charged ion batteries in the locker Ryley took as well. He also grabbed his trusty stasis rifle, that he'd used all the time ever since he made it.

Then Ryley jumped down the ladder to the bottom floor of the Cyclops. He opened up the hatch at the bottom of the Cyclops, and he dove into the water. Once he was underwater, he could hear rain pouring and beating down on the water's surface. And when he raised his head out of the water, he was already getting drenched with rain.

Ryley swam to the floating island and climbed onto it. He shook himself out unsuccessfully, as he was drenched only seconds after doing so. Ryley ran into the forest, hoping the trees would provide enough cover. Water still dripped down from the thick canopies that covered the floating island's grounds, but it was drier than outside the canopies.

He pulled out his flashlight, ripping out the old battery in it and inserting a new ion battery. Once Ryley turned the flashlight on, the beam it produced was bright and clear.