Albert the Albatross's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Albert the Albatross pins a hand-drawn map of Compass Crossing to the wall of his rented room, marking three locations where travelers have gone missing in the last month. His wings ache from yesterday's flight, but he studies the lines anyway, waiting for someone to walk through his door and say the words he needs to hear: I need help finding them. He finds the hangar at the jungle's edge, half-hidden by vines and rust, its metal frame groaning in the humid air. The previous owner left tools scattered across the concrete and a seaplane with one pontoon cracked clean through, but Albert walks the perimeter twice, his chest tight with something close to certainty—this is where he'll launch every impossible job, where panic will turn into precision. He drags the console inside himself, its worn metal and wood frame heavier than it looks, and bolts it to the hangar floor near the window facing the airstrip. The switches click under his wing tips as he tests each channel, static crackling through the speakers until a faint voice breaks through—someone asking if anyone can hear them. Albert leans forward, his heart hammering, and presses the transmitter: I hear you. The patched seaplane sits outside with its pontoons catching sunlight through the canopy, and Albert climbs into the cockpit to run through pre-flight checks he's memorized but never trusted. He throttles up and lifts off over the treetops, banking hard through a gap barely wider than his wingspan, his stomach dropping as the wings shudder. When he lands back at the hangar twenty minutes later, sweat soaking his feathers, he knows the route—knows he can do it again when someone's life depends on it.