Page 26 of Stranded

I hold my palms out in front of me, watching the blood drip to the jungle floor. They’re dead. They’re all dead.

“Dad?” I whisper, crawling over to where his body lays, unmoving. “Dad, get up, please!” I beg, my hands moving to his cheeks to make him look at me. It only results in covering him with blood.Theirblood. “No! Dad, you can’t leave me here all alone!” I scream as I fall on my ass, scurrying backwards, away from the bodies and the blood. My backhits a tree and I pull my knees up, burying my face in my hands as I'm swallowed whole by the sound of my own sobbing.

I don’t know how long I sit like that, crying, covered in blood. But eventually I pass out from exhaustion. When I wake, he’s still there. My stomach sinks as I look around, realizing how alone I truly am. I glimpse at my hands covered in blood and start to panic. I try to wipe it off, but it’s dried. Suddenly, I can feel the dried blood everywhere. On my arms and legs, my face.

Needing to get rid of it, I run towards the ocean. Branches slap me in the face and scratch my skin as I move, uncaring through the island. I finally hit the sand and increase my pace, running straight into the water.

As soon as it’s waist deep, I dive under, scrubbing at every inch of skin I can, only coming up for air when I feel like my lungs are about to burst. I look at my hands, still seeing red everywhere. I let out a pain filled scream as I rub frantically. “Get off, get off!” I scream.

I dunk myself back under, rubbing my arms and my face as hard as I can. I don’t realize I’ve run out of air until I take in a lungful of water. My senses kick in and I’m able to stand up, coughing hard as I hobble to the beach.

When I’m finally free of the water, I collapse on my back and stare at the sky as I cough and breath heavily.

“Ahhh!” I scream as loud as I can, hoping that maybe someone, somewhere, will hear me and come for me. I’m only thirteen. There’s no way I can survive on a deserted island by myself.

Chapterfourteen

Weston

One moment, she’s standing there, staring at her hands. The next, she’s crumbling towards the jungle floor.

“Shit!” Bower exclaims, leaping forward to catch her just before her head hits the ground. He cradles her head in his lap as King and I kneel on either side of her, inspecting her for injuries.

I notice red scratches on her arms that look like they happened recently, some of them looking slightly inflamed.

“What happened?” Bower asks, seeing what I’m looking at.

“I don’t think this has to do with what just happened,” I tell him as I glance at the rest of her body. I can see faint white scars all over her skin. My fists clench in frustration and anger. She’s been here for a while. These marks indicate her having a rough life.

“She just… collapsed,” King says, gently pushing a loose piece of hair away from her face.

“I think she might have had a panic attack,” I say, remembering the way her eyes had glossed over right before she fell.

“But nothing happened. Aren't there normally signs? Staggered breathing, light-headedness, things like that?” Bower asks.

“Panic attacks can look different for everyone,” I tell him. “Back in the Marines, I watched soldiers freeze up, break down… guys you’d never expect. It doesn’t take much, just the right trigger. I’ve even had some myself, before I got help. With Zee, I think seeing the blood on her hands triggered something. She probably stopped breathing and passed out from lack of oxygen.”

“What, like she just forgot to breathe? I didn’t even know that was a thing,” he says, his voice filled with concern as we all stare down at her unconscious body.

“Her panic took over her body.”

“What do we do?” King asks. “To help her.”

“We should try to clean some of this blood off of her. We can't clean her clothes, but we can clean her skin,” I tell them, assessing the amount of blood. It’s not too bad.

“We should take her to the waterfall. I don’t think we have enough in our waterskins,” King says, getting to his feet.

“The sun is setting quickly now. We shouldn’t walk around when it’s dark. Why don’t you run and fill up our water and I’ll grab something to use as a washcloth from my pack in the tree hut?”

“Got it,” King says, grabbing the three waterskins and jogging out of camp.

“Bower, you stay with her, yell if she starts to wake up.” He nods, not lifting his eyes from her face.

It doesn’t take long to grab a spare shirt and some soap and King arrives a couple minutes later, panting heavily, clearly having run the whole way there and back.

“Good job, King. I’m gonna wash her face first, then you can hold an arm up while I wipe.”

As gently as I can, I clean her sun-kissed skin. For someone living outside for who knows how long, her skin was in surprisingly good shape. I suppose the jungle offers a lot of shade.

---