Page 6 of Stranded

Jumping in the raft, I immediately unzip the first bag. I’m a little disappointed that it’s mostly clothes, but I find a toiletry bag and stare at the toothbrush with a huge amount of trepidation. Ireallywant to take it, I’ve been brushing and flossing with leaves and twigs for fifteen years. I was super anal about it, never missing a day, terrified of getting a cavity or something worse and having to deal with never ending tooth pain or having to rip out my own tooth. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to do that, not mentally, anyway.

If I take this, he’s gonna know it’s missing, right? I see a few other treasures in his bag, including two disposable razors and deodorant. I clean myself every day, but having deodorant for a treat would be amazing. However, I know it would attract bugs, so it was better to leave that one. The razor, however… I lift my arm and stare at the ungodly hair there, then glance down at my hairy legs. He was a guy, how much would he really miss it? Besides, he had two of them. I take one and shove into my own bag and keep searching.

I find headphones, a tablet, and a couple of granola bars. “Hmm, what’s the betting he forgot these granola bars are here?” I ask Mo-Mo. I could take them, he’s clearly forgotten since he mentioned being hungry. But something stops me. Instead, I pack his bag back up and place them at the very top, so he’ll see them as soon as he opens it.

I move to the second bag to find similar items. I pull out one of his t-shirts and my breath catches in my throat. It’s black with ACDC onthe front. Sadness overwhelms me as memories from my life before the island start to push in. I loved their music, I’d spend hours listening to it with my best friend.

Unable to help myself, I decide to steal it, shoving it into my pouch. It looks long enough to sleep in, and since I was sleeping outside in my hammock now, I really didn’t want to sleep naked anymore.

I zip his bag back up and stare at it. Maybe I should take more clothes? Would they notice? What if I threw things all over the place, I could make it look like the lemurs pilfered their stuff. I stare down the beach in the direction they went. Something about them feels… different. I thought I’d be eager to make their lives difficult here, but the thought of doing it makes me feel… guilty. They haven’t actually done anything to me… yet.

“Ugh, crap shells! Mo-Mo, why do I feel guilty? I don’t owe them anything. If anything, Ideservetheir stuff. I’ve been here for fifteen years without any of it! Let them learn what it’s like to have nothing!” I don't realize I’m crying until Mo-Mo gently climbs into my lap and snuggles against me, forcing me to hug him as I start sniffling.

“Stupid emotions,” I grumble. I was good at always keeping the tears to myself, only letting them out at night in my hut. I rarely ever let Mo-Mo see me like this. I wanted him to think I was strong and fun. If he knew how dark my thoughts really were, he wouldn’t want to hang around me anymore, and I’m not sure I’d survive losing his friendship. Out here, it’s all I have.

Chapter four

Bower

“Be honest, King. How screwed are we?” I ask as we carefully push our way through the jungle. We had run out of beach and hit a large cliff, giving us no choice but to cut through the jungle as we made our way around the island.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” he asks, pausing to look down at his shoes before he continues walking. I cringe, looking at his mud caked shoes. He had a bit of an addiction to footwear, and although I doubt he’ll actually complain out loud, I’m sure seeing his shoes in that state is killing him a little on the inside.

“Lay it on me,” I answer, bracing myself for the inevitable.

“The good news is there’s life here, we saw those lemurs. That means there is food and fresh water… somewhere. The bad news—”

He pauses as we push out of the jungle and back to the beach. Ahead, I see the bright yellow of our raft, making that small ball of hope in my chest shatter.

“The bad news is, our cell phones are broken and I’m pretty sure we’ve landed ourselves on a deserted island.”

“Fuck,” I swear, realizing we’ve made our way around the entire island now.

“Yeah. Fuck, indeed,” he grumbles as we walk towards our raft. “We need water, and soon.”

As we get back to the raft and I spot our backpacks, I realize we were stupid to leave them here. Animals could have got into them, and the stuff in there is all we have.

“Hey, look!” I exclaim, pointing at the two coconuts sitting on the sand right beside our raft. Glancing up, the nearest palm tree seems a couple feet too far away from them to have dropped from there.

“They must have rolled down here,” King says, obviously having the same train of thought as me. We both reach down and pick one up, turning it over in our hands. “This will have water inside we can drink. We need to crack it open.”

“Wish I had a knife,” I grumble.

“Me too. We’ll have to find a sharp rock to hit it with, or to hit it on, let’s look.” We skim the tree line until we find a large boulder. We take turns trying to crack our coconuts open by slamming it down on the surface, but it just results in us exhausting ourselves.

“We need a sharp edge,” he tells me, walking around the boulder to see if there’s a better spot.

“Eep!”

“Fuck!” I jump back and fall on my ass as a damn lemur jumps down onto the boulder in front of me.

King chuckles at my expense. “Did the little lemur scare you?”

“I was just startled!” I say in defense as I get to my feet, carefully watching the little guy. He tilts his head, then lifts up something towards me. “Is that a… rock?”

He pushes his hand closer to me, and I frown.

“I think he wants you to take it,” King says calmly.

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