(Not) Alone (Swimswamswom and Hilda)

[Plums]

@Swimswamswom

 

[Plums]

Jessica was tired of sitting in their cabin just waiting for something to happen. She looked over at her dad who were scrolling through something on his phone. It didn't seems like the others had any plans, so she would have to take care of it herself. She stood up from the bed and walked towards the door, and she could hear her dad say "Jess...?" Before she closed the door. She were just going to take a walk.


She strolled through the corridors and after a while finally came up on deck. The wind instantly grabbed her hair and started to gently pull it. She looked up on the cloudless sky, and she could feel the sun warming her cheeks. She sighed happily, breathing in the fresh sea air. This was so much better than getting seasick in their cabin. She followed the railing that kept them from falling head first into the blue.


Soon she stopped and put both of her hands on the railing. She leaned out as much as she could without falling and looked at the sea and the waves. The wind were still playing with her hair, but now also threathening to push her down. She leaned back and saw that another person stood besides of her. "There you are!" Said Dave, her brother. "God, you could've atleast told me where you were." Jessica snorted. "Why? I don't need you to babysit me." She smirked and looked over at him, but he didn't look amused. "If you keep running away like that somebody needs to keep an eye on you." She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure. In your dreams."

 

[Swoob]

"No."


This abrupt answer had become Lucas's favorite answer during this "celebration." After one final year of screaming, crying and anxiety, his hard-earned reward was, as he had been realized all too late, an inescapable waterborne prison filled with the one thing he was afraid of the most: people.


Lucas knew, he knew that he needed to talk to people. Living the way he had been for the past 6 years was a destructive, relentless cycle of solitude. But he had already stepped into the quicksand, and it had long since snuffed out his last pleading breaths. Approaching someone might as well have been riding into battle with a stick. It wasn't like he was so opposed to letting the quicksand pull him in; after all, what had the world done for him? He tried talking before, and it gave him scars, humiliation and utter self-worthlessness. So he sank.


Suffocating in the sand was better than breathing in the poison.


"Lucas, I swear to god, get off your ass; we are on a cruise," Sarah warned. In that moment, Lucas was reminded of their mother and shivered.


In all honesty, it was quite an impressive cruise ship. A glistening, white, 9-story mammoth, it had it all: pools, bars, waterslides, events, music, dancing, and every other thing that would seem reasonable to put on a boat. Their own cabin was a sunny, tropical-themed room with a kitchen and its own deck and lounge area. The furniture was mainly made of chocolate brown, woven wood. The whole place gave off a relaxed, homy feel. And this is where Lucas wanted to stay. At home.


"Lucas, come on," she groaned, picking his arm off the keyboard and attempting to pull him off his seat. Lucas resisted. "You could like, fuck, I don't know, go swim in the pool or meet a girl or something."


"My god, will you stop bothering me?" he asked, raising his voice. "I'm not going; I just want to stay here."


"You could even, like, just bring your laptop and sit outside with me or something. Please?"


"No."


"Why? All you have to do is just sit outside. You barely even have to do anything!"


"Goddammit, I'm not going to!" Lucas throws a glare at Sarah and she freezes for a bit. Finally, she sighs.


"Fine. Fine. I'm just trying to help you, but do what you want. Just sit in here and become a useless piece of trash." Ending abruptly, she turned, left, and slammed the door behind her. A heavy sheet of silence fell over the room. For a long time, Lucas simply stared at the door, the presence of her last words lingering on the doormat. He turned to the table, rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Before long, his eyelashes became wet and tears began to drop onto his keyboard. He closed his laptop, went onto his bed, and cried silently. He did not feel like playing any more games.

 

[Plums]

Dave sighed, but Jessica didn't care. She leaned out over the railing again, standing on her toes. "Stop that." He mumbled and she leaned out a bit more just to tease him. "Jess, you're going to fall." He said right before the boat suddenly rocked and she lost her balance. She probably would have slipped and been thrown overboard if he hadn't grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. She looked up at him, a bit shaken from the thrill. He was grinning proudly, pleased to be right (As always). "I told ya." He chuckled. Jessica frowned and repeated his words in a mocking tone. "I told ya." She let go of the railing and started to walk away. She weren't heading anywhere special. Oh right, she was actually. Away from him.


But of course he wouldn't let her go that easily. She could hear his steps catching up to hers, and it didn't take long before he was back at her side. "Hey, cheer up! Don't see me as your babysitter, see me more like your bodyguard. That's a lot cooler, right?" He said jokingly, and she tried to hide that she thought it was funny, but it didn't go very well. "Fuck you." She said as seriously as she could, but there was still a hint of a giggle in her voice. Dave laughed. "I love you too sis." He said and smirked slightly.


They walked around for a while. After a while they found a bar with loud music playing. Some people were dancing (And some of them looked like they have had a bit too much to drink) while others sat around small tables laughing. "I'm going to get a drink." She said, which made Dave raise one eyebrow and give her a disapproving look, but she just laughed at him. "No, nothing alcoholic. I swear." She said and smiled. "Do you want something?" He nodded slowly. "Yeah. A beer." They went up to the bar, and she ordered a lemonade and he a beer, and then sat down at one of the small tables. "Where's mom and dad?" Jessica asked him. "At the spa, apparently. They told me to make sure that you didn't get into any trouble." She didn't believe him. "No they didn't. It was your idea to babysit me." His grin confirmed that she was right. "Have you already forgotten? Not babysitter, bodyguard." He said.

 

[Swoob]

It was midnight. Not that it made any difference.


The warm light of the bedside lamp comforted Lucas as he lay on the bed. After a long period of deep thought, he had drifted off to sleep. Now, the sides of his mouth were crusty and his eyes watered as he picked the sleep out of them. Night brought out the best she could muster this time, a myriad of stars twinkling, dancing and spinning for their transfixed audience.


Everyone must be asleep now, Lucas thought. Silently, he creeped over to the door and slowly slipped through. He tiptoed down the long, dimly-lit halls, heart pounding at the eerie silence. Though it was late, Lucas found it odd how nobody was in the halls – not running children, love-struck couples, or stumbling, hammered adults. Finally, he made it to the doors and went out onto the deck.


The deck was much more spacious than it looked during the day. The moon and stars cast an enchanting light on the long wooden planks, accenting the darkness with a bright, bluish tint. Still, despite this long space, Lucas couldn't see anybody. He had hoped not to anyway, but couldn't help but feel a sense of odd discomfort. He leaned against the sleek white wall of the boat and stared up at the sky. Under all these stars, he could truly feel like the nothing he was. Simply a mass of tissue, wandering around, living off of others, doing absolutely nothing. There were the stars... and here was him. And that's when he realized it.


The presence.


"Sarah?" That was his first reaction, to run to his sister. He could've written it off, the moon could just have easily been behind the ship, out of his field of vision. But it was midnight and the moon was supposed to be directly above him. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but something was happening. Something was wrong.


"Sarah? Sarah!" Lucas's calls became louder and more frantic as he looked around him. He began to notice things he didn't before; blood splattered on the walls and on the deck, bodies littering the floor, jumbled whispers coming from all around him, and this presence. This large, terrifying presence. "Sarah!?" Lucas called again, the whispers growing louder. They seemed to get excited, closing in on him. "SARAH!!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. "SARAH!" The whispers were deafening. It was getting closer. It was upon him. It was reaching out–


"Lucas!" Sarah burst through the door, hair tangled and eyes wild. She bolted over to Lucas and hugged him, pressing his head to her chest. Her hands and body shook violently and she sobbed with relief. "Oh my god, Lucas... you're alright... I checked in the room, and and and you weren't there and–"


"What's going on?" Lucas yelled. Sarah shushed him.


"I don't know, I don't fucking know. Stay silent, keep your voice down..." Sarah looked back at the deck and began standing up slowly. She held Lucas in her arms the entire time. When they both finally felt okay, they took a few steps away from each other and held hands. Carefully, shakily, they began taking steps forward. "I really don't know what's going on," she explained, still panicky. "I was just having a couple drinks, and then, and then, everybody just... started acting crazy, and... I don't know what's going on, I don't know what to d–"


The ship split. There was no warning at first, not a crack, or a premonition, or anything. But, in that sudden moment, the boat started leaning in opposite directions between them, and their hands came undone. It was the largest, most catastrophic thing Lucas had ever seen. The entire ship was split cleanly in half, quickly leaning downward. Lucas could see all the stories beneath the deck. Rooms were split in half, people were trying to jump across. Most landed in the water and simply stopped moving. The waves churned and any screams were drowned by their crashes. The wind whipped and shoved Lucas away from the edge. He began to lurch backward as the ground tipped. Muscles burning, he tried to hold his ground and step forward, but the ship was leaning quickly and the ground was slipping beneath him. He could feel himself losing balance. Trudging against the wind, he made it to the edge of the boat and did one last lunge toward the edge before his feet could no longer hold on.


"LUCAS!" Despite the unbelievable carnage around him, Lucas could still hear Sarah's voice, faintly, from the other side.. He pulled himself up the edge to look. Sarah was running down the side. No... She raced for the bottom edge. You won't make it, please don't do it... All Lucas could do was watch, bewildered, as Sarah jumped. She was never going to make it. She flew halfway in between the two sides before falling and hitting the water. And then she was lifeless.


The world had lost all of its reality. This was a dream. It could not be real. Lucas watched his sister's body being eaten by the cataclysmic waves. It wasn't real. The boat was almost completely vertical, and the water level was quickly getting closer. In a state of utter disbelief, Lucas simply hoisted himself up on the edge of the deck and walked towards one of the sides. And then he jumped.

 

[Plums]

Jessica opened her eyes.


Nothing had woken her. She wasn't thirsty, it was dead silent except the distant sound of the splashing waves crashing into the ship, she wasn't seasick...Her sleep had simply been interupted by awakeness. Her sleep usually wasn't interupted like that.


She could hear her parents and brother breathing heavily and rhythmically in the other room. She glanced over at the big black and white clock on the wall.


Almost a quarter past twelve.


She should definitely be sleeping now too, but she was wide awake, stuck in this sudden non-sleep. She sat up. Even in the dark room with a complete lack of windows or any light source at all she saw cleary. Her mind was clear, her body were done sleeping. Her body wanted to be awake.


"SARAH!" She heard someone shout from above.


Jessica carefully put her feet down on the wooden floor, trying to avoid to make it squeak and disturb the others. As soon as she left the bed she noticed the ticking. Strangly how she hadn't even heard the sound that the clock made, especially since it was so...distinct. Loud, even. Noisy. She tried to not think about it, and she put on some clothes to get her mind of it, but it was impossible. The horrible tick-tock, tick-tock were boring into her ears. She started to get a headace. She tried to cover her ears with her palms that were starting to get sweaty, desperate to close out the noise but it didn't even help the slightest. The tick-tocking continued, without being muffled at all.


She lowered her hands and stared at the hellish timekeeping device on the wall. Was there something wrong with it? There had to be something wrong with it. She went over and picked it down from the wall. She held it in her hands, and the ticking were so loud that everytime the second hand jumped over to the next dot, she could feel it vibrating. She looked over towards the door. She could still hear vague, sleepy breaths. How could they sleep in this cacophony!?


She flipped the clock over, searching after a way to turn it off, but couldn't find anything. She were starting to feel really sick, her pulse were pounding in her head and fingertips in sync with the ticking.


She didn't care if she would ruin her family's sleep. It had to stop.


Jessica threw the clock to the ground.


The noise stopped when the class hit the wood and shattered into a million sharp little pieces, many of them cutting her legs. She could hear the others sitting up rapidly from the sudden breaking glass, and herself letting out an relived sigh.


"J-Jessica? Are you-?" Her moms voice was interupted by the room suddenly tilting. Her scream blended with the others, just not her family members, but a lot of others too. Jessica was thrown into the wall. She struggled to get out of her room, and saw the others awake in the other. Her dad had been thrown out of his bed. "What's going o-" Dave started but he stopped talking when they all felt how the boat continued to tilt. "We have to get out of here!" Shouted her dad.


They had been quick, the corridors where still pretty empty as they ran through them, but they could hear the panic behind them and in the rooms they passed. It didn't take long time before they managed to get up on deck. The boat were now in a way too steep angle, and the other half of the boat was...gone. She looked up towards where the other half should be, but there was nothing.


What the fuck was going on!?


She crawled up and looked into the water that was now covering the lower part of the deck. She could get a glimpse of bodies in the black liquid. Oh god. She spotted a post that she tried to cling onto, but before she could get a good grip a wave crashed in over the deck, taking her with her and slamming her into the railing. She looked around, trying to find the others but she could only see Dave, holding a post close to the one she tried to hold. She stood up on shaky legs and tried to climb upto him. "Dave!" She screamed.


Jessicas eyes met his.


Then another wave came, and she dissapeared into the cold, wet darkness.

 

[Swoob]

Lucas drifted back into consciousness to the soft sound of waves lazily lapping the shore.


A cool sensation washed over his lower body as he slowly opened his eyes. Sand. There was sand. As his vision focused, he took better notice of his surroundings. It was morning. Head turned, he was laying down on a beach of soft white sand and the water was calmly brushing up against the shoreline. A myriad of bodies lay scattered around the beach, wet and splotched red, lifeless and tangled in every which way. A couple limbs lay spread over Lucas's body, but he didn't have the strength or orientation to panic. He gripped at the sand, feeling the minuscule grains running through his fingers.


Then his body kicked into gear.


It started with a small cough. Water bubbled up into his cheek. His airway was blocked and he couldn't breathe. Panic gripped his chest hard enough for him to vomit, and adrenaline soared through his veins. Lucas shot upright, coughing and hacking as water burst from his mouth. He fell back onto his arms and began slowly dragging his body up the shore. Pain exploded in his lungs and kept increasing every time his body shivered with convulsions. Black spots appeared in his vision and everything began to fade. Finally, he was able to take one wheezing, agonized breath. He collapsed onto his back, exhausted and breathing heavily.


"Fuck," he whispered under his breath. Now that he was fully awake, he gave himself a bit more time to recover before attempting to stand on his feet. The first time, his vision tilted and he stumbled and fell. After a bit longer, he pushed himself off his arms and was able to rise. His head became light and he blinked a few times, waiting for the sensation to go away and his body to settle in.


He looked around and the situation began to hit him. His memories from the night before came crashing down on his mind: the dead bodies, the boat splitting in half, and... Sarah.


"Sarah?" He called, still tired. "Sarah!?"

 

[Plums]

Jessica lied on her back, and stared at the blue sky above her and the bright sun that was warming her skin. Her body had been sinking slowly into the ground beneath her, almost like she had melted into it, she had became a part of it. Her feet and lower legs were floating and moving rhythmically.


Her eyes were wide open but she weren't fully awake. Her senses were numb and her body refused to move. The only things that proved that she were alive were her light and unstable breathing and the slow blinking of her eyes.


A wave crashed in and covered her.


The cold water woke her. She kept her eyes open, she saw the sun shining trough the foamy liquid colored with splashes of red and she screamed. Her voice formed bubbles in the water and kept any sound from reaching the surface. She began to back up on the beach as quickly as she could, away from the water. She caughed to get rid of the water. She were shaking, and not because she was scared.


She were shaking because of chock. Terror. She looked at the lifeless bodies, and how the calm waves rocked them carefully in their neverending sleep. She backed up even further. The smell of death mixed with the salty sea breeze made her cover her face and nose to not throw up. She didn't want to look at the bodies. She was afraid to see a face that she would recognise. She looked around instead. Only a couple feet away from her were a couple of rocks that stood half in the water. If she had crashed into them she would've been dead too.


Behind her was a forest, and infront of her were the sea. Miles and miles and miles of open water.


This couldn't be happening. She started to feel tears rolling down her cheeks and down onto the hot sand where they dissapeared immediately. She hugged her knees and sobbed silently. They had survived, right?


She quickly looked up, and wiped her face with her arm. A voice? A voice! She stood up, her legs were shaky and her head was heavy. ((She's nervous, but on the surface she looks calm and ready. I'm sorry. xD I had to.)) She started to run/stumble/fall towards the source of the voice. She soon spotted a boy about 100 yards away from her, standing on the beach. She let out an relived sound that sounded like something between a sigh and a laugh.


"Hey!" She shouted between her heavy breaths and waved at him, and then continued to move closer.

 

[Swoob]

Lucas turned his head and stumbled over. A blonde-haired girl was walking over to him, shouting "Hey!" A pang of fear hit his stomach. She was pretty.


"Sarah?" He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. His head was spinning with a torrent of emotions. "Sister. Ha-ave you seen my s-sister Sarah?" His heart pounded. He was talking to a stranger, to a girl, but that didn't matter. He had to find his sister. She could comfort him, tell him that everything was a dream, that everything was okay. "B-brown hair, this t-tall, and... uh..."


And then he found her.


When Lucas looked behind the girl in front of him, he could immediately pick her out from the mass of bodies. She was his sister, after all. She was drenched with blood and water, her body twisted into a sickening tangle of limbs and grime from the ocean. That was it. The breaking point. The moment he saw her, he barreled over onto his hands and knees and puked. Strings of stomach acid hung from his mouth as he screamed in pain. Crying violently, his body shook with convulsions and screams.


His sister was dead. Lucas was washed up on an island with a dead sister, a stranger and hundreds of dead bodies. He looked up at the girl in front of him and yelled between his sobbing, "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"

 

[Plums]

When Jessica got close enough to the person she saw that it was a boy around her age. He looked pretty wrecked, but she guessed that she looked a bit messed up to.


He started going on and stuttering about his sister, Sarah. Oh god. Sarah probably wasn't...you know. Breathing. But how could she tell him that? She could barely accept that her own family had dissapeared, and now she were supposed to calm him down too? God dammit, this person was supposed to be their saviour, someone who could take care of and support her, not the other way around. She wouldn't be able to save them, and he didn't look like he could either.


"Hey...C-Calm down." She said carefully and slowly stepped closer to him, but his eyes were fucused on something else, something behind her. She could see his body tense up, his eyes going wide. Before she could ask him about it he was on all four, and throwed up in the sand.


She quickly looked back, searching for what he had spotted, but all that she saw was more dead bodies. But he had probably seen his sister in there somewhere. She had to try hard to not start gagging to from just thinking about it.


She looked back at the boy. He was screaming like he was in serious pain, and shaking and sobbing to. What should she do? She should do something, but she didn't know what she could say or do that could make anything better. He suddenly looked up at her. His eyes were red from crying and his face were wet. He yelled at her.


"I...I don't know!" She didn't mean to raise her voice. She couldn't panic now, she had to help him. She walked up to his side and crouched down besides of him. She took a deep breath and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him so he sat up and faced her. She didn't know if it was her that was shaking or him. Probably both. She put her other hand on his other shoulder. "Listen. Everything will be fine, a-alright? We'll get away from here, and...and...We'll make it. But I'll need your help. Okay?" She weren't exactly good to help people calm down but she really hoped that it would be enough.


"And please breathe. You're hyperventilating." Technically he was breathing way to much and way to fast, but her words just slipped out of her mouth. "I mean...Breath less. Slower."

 

[Swoob]

Lucas nodded frantically and tried to slow down his breathing. Closing his eyes, he focused only on his lungs, trying to take in air through the shaking and sobbing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. A small, anguished noise escaped him every now and then. Finally, his body stopped shaking and he slowly rose back up onto his feet.


"Th-thank you," he said, voice quivering. "Do you know whe-ere we are? Are we... stuck here?" He peered out into the endless blue sea surrounding them and knew the answer. It was unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. Lucas had always played with the idea of living a life like the main characters in video games or movies. Maybe some incredible circumstance would save him from his shitty life and he would be thrown into a fantastical adventure. He could trek through the jungle, kill enemies with enormous skill, and be a hero. He would be adored by everyone! And he would talk, he would talk to everyone and they would all realize that he was an okay person.


Well, here he was. And his sister was dead.


"What do we do now?"

 

[Plums]

Jessica also stood up, very relived that he seemed to be okay. Well, as okay as one could possibly be in the circumstances. "Well...It sure looks like an island but if we're really lucky it isn't. Or maybe there's people who live here that can help us. But yeah. It looks like we're...stuck here." She said slowly, trying to get her own words to sink in, but it was hard to accept the truth.


"B-But it can't just be us, right? Somebody else must've survived to." She tried to put it like a statement but it sounded more like a question. If somebody else was alive they would be pretty easy to spot, and she couldn't see anybody.


She cleared her mind. They had to survive. Survive until they got help. Even if this island were uninhabited someone would find them soon. Like, a whole cruise ship had sinked. They had to be searching for survivors. But until then they had to make it on their own. She thought about what she had learned about surviving. What her father had told her to do if she got lost in the woods.


"We have to make a shelter. Somewhere to sleep. And...we should also find some water. Drinkable, not-salt water. But we shouldn't build a camp here on the beach, if the tides comes in. We have to find a place in the forest." She looked up at the giant, green trees. It didn't seem very safe to go in there but they didn't have a better choice.


"A-And I'm Jessica."

 

[Swoob]

Lucas drew a sharp breath, nerves on alert. "O-oh." His voice shrank. His palms began to sweat and he hurriedly brushed them on his soaking pants, having the opposite effect. "I'm Lucas." For a moment, he hesitantly raised his hand a few inches, then dropped it immediately. Heart racing, he moved his eyes around wildly, trying to find an inconspicuous thing to look at. Dammit, why does this have to happen now? Even on the edge of death, he couldn't escape his anxiety.


Without another word, he turned and led the way into the dense forest. Beyond the tangle of vines, trees and bushes, there was only darkness and a strange, eery foreboding. He gulped. Something about this island was off. Subconsciously, he slowed his pace down and came to a stop at the treeline. He peered into the endless darkness. Were they really going to set up shelter there?

 

[Plums]

Jessica raised an eyebrow at Lucas' strange behaviour. Was he...shy, or something? Really, now? Didn't they had greater things to worry about? She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but before she could say anything before he turned around and started walking towards the forest. She closed her mouth. Maybe it was better not to mention it.


She followed him, and when he suddenly stopped she walked up besides him and gave him a questioning look, wondering why he didn't continue. She followed his eyes and saw what he was looking at, and then she understood why. Some kind of an animal screech came from the lush jungle. Maybe it was a monkey. Or a bird. She had no idea. "Whoa." She said under her breath. She had never even been close to a rainforest before. She wondered what they would find in there. But her sense of adventure was small compared to...something else. Something that didn't feel completely right. Something that sent shivers down her spine.


She quickly tried to shake of the feeling, because she strongly disliked it. "We need to find a glade or something." She said and moved away a tiny branch covered with leaves and walked into the jungle.


And it were like they stepped into another world.

 

[Swoob]

Lucas followed Jessica into the rainforest, each step striding towards a world he, unknowingly, would never be able to return from.


The sky was as dark as night, veiled by the myriad of leaves tumbling over each other in an attempt to get sunlight. What little rays of gold were left from the brawl above splashed onto the ground in front of Lucas. A bird's sharp squawking echoed through the expanse of trees and sent a shiver crawling up his spine. He tried following the ever-shifting jungle, but his eyes got confused and tangled in the vines. After a few seconds, he wasn't even sure if they had walked in a straight line at all. The jungle had a completely different gravity to it than the outside. It felt as if danger awaited them beyond every turn, encouraging them playfully from the shadows. Lucas didn't like the jungle. He didn't like it at all.


Right as he began to feel a burning sensation creep into his legs, a strong light appeared ahead and he burst through the treeline onto a circle of golden grass. The bright sun put him at ease a little, but he still felt as if the forest was pushing in on him from all sides. He turned to Jessica to try to take his mind off it - which only made his anxiety worse. He opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it and simply waited for her to make the next move.

 

[Plums]

If they weren't in such a dangerous situation Jessica would be amazed by how stunningly beautiful the forest was, but she was focusing on other things. Every little sound made her think that there was a tiger creeping in the bushes or a venomous snake slithering under the leaves on the ground. She told herself that it only was her imagination, but with no success. But she kept on moving, her legs putting one foot in front of the other even though her limbs were scratched by thornes and branches and even though her mind couldn't understand how she could keep on going. Even after all that had happened.


She stopped when they reached the sudden opening in the dense forest, and she was instantly relieved. It was almost perfect, far enough so that the tides wouldn't be a problem but also close enough so that they could get back pretty quickly. It would also be easier to build a shelter here than trying to do so in the forest.


"Great. It won't be very comfortable, but this will absolutely do it. We're gonna need some long sticks to lean against that big rock over there." Jessica said and pointed at it. "Then we can get some big leaves to cover it with, so it will be like a roof. We should also put some inside on the ground." She started to look for some big enough sticks.

 

[Swoob]

Lucas wiped the film of sweat off his forehead. The darkness of night had begun to blanket the glade, and they had built a small, but decent shelter. Although, Lucas had mainly followed Jessica's instructions. The shelter was a slanted roof that rested against a large boulder – barely big enough to fit both of them, but it was merely temporary. At least, that's what Lucas told himself. Building it had been a good practice for him. It helped him to take his mind off of the crushing situation he was actually in. Now that he was done, however.... He shook his head, trying desperately to hold back the wave of thoughts pushing against his mind.


"S-so, what do we do now?" he asked lightly. He looked up and saw the moon glistening brightly in the sky above. They would have to sleep soon, surrounded by this hostile forest that seemed intent on providing a sleepless night. Lucas shivered. The creeping suspicion he got from the jungle had always remained in the back of his mind. He had a very bad feeling about sleeping there.

 

[Plums]

"We should get a fire going, but we're not going to manage to do that." Jessica said and looked at the shelter they had built. There wasn't much dry wood, and they surely wouldn't find any now. It was way too dark. "We should probably go to sleep. Honestly, there's not much else that we can do, and we could need some rest." When she spoke she noticed how thirsty she was. It had been a warm day and she hadn't drunk anything since yesterday. "We'll need to find some water tomorrow."


She squated down at the opening of their creation and crawled inside and lied down in her side, looking up into the ceiling. "It's actually not that bad." She said silently. "But I gotta feeling that I'm not going to be able to get any sleep anyways."

 

[Swoob]

Lucas shifted his weight uncomfortably. Walking over to the shelter without saying a word, he bent down and plopped onto the cool grass. He wiped his sweaty palms against his pant legs. The presence of the girl lying down next to him filled up the whole tent and suffocated him. The smell of death from the shore permeated the whole island. How was he supposed to fall asleep, with her, the forest, and his dead sister?


Breathe, he instructed himself. Resting his back against the rough boulder, he intertwined his hands over his chest, feeling them rise and fall as he inhaled and exhaled. Feeling himself start to calm down, he moved onto the ground, grass pricking his limbs and neck. As he lay there for hours, he began to fade in and out, slowly drifting into an uneasy slumber.


Of course he couldn't sleep.


Once again, his eyes shot open as he remembered the image of Sarah laying mangled on the shore, pounded by the waves and soaked in blood. He shivered. How could he sleep after that? How could he sleep after everything? Reality already felt like a dream. He was stranded on an island. Only him and one other survivor. And if that wasn't worse, the whole island constantly loomed over him, as if poised to strike.


Footsteps.


At first, Lucas thought it was the sound of the forest. But his ears focused on a constant repeating sound, the sound of feet hitting the dirt and sticks being broken. He looked to his right, slowly, to find Jessica still lying next to him. With a scared, shaky hand, he touched her shoulder and shook her. "I hear something," he whispered.

 

[Plums]

It had taken a long time to fall asleep. But atleast she had actually slept a little bit since she was awakened by Lucas, but she couldn't remember falling asleep, and it didn't feel like she had gotten any rest either.


Jessica blinked quickly as the world started to become clearer and as her eyes were adapting to the darkness. "What?" She asked him, but she didn't realise that she were probably speaking to loud until she had closed her mouth. She turned to him and half sat up, supporting her upper body with her arms. She looked around, but couldn't see much outside of their shelter besides of blackness. She were still for a couple of seconds, and she heard them; the footsteps.


This time she wanted to whisper but she was too afraid to make anymore noise. Her body was frozen in the position she was in, except the hairs standing up on her neck and her eyes widening. Was it an animal? A lot of carnivores hunted at night. Anything could be out there. A tiger, a jaguar? Or...a person. Another survivor! Someone that could help them. But could they take the risk? There was only a little chance that it were a human and not a hungry beast...Calling out now could be either their salvation or doom.

 

[Swoob]

Lucas sat rigid in the shelter, eyes wide and muscles tense. What were they going to do? What was out there? He shivered, waiting with bated breath for someone to make the first move. Whatever was out there, he could sense that it had the intent to attack. So why wasn't it attacking them? Fear filled his lungs and chest, stomach doing somersaults. His hairs stood up. The footsteps continued to circle slowly, playfully, around them. He didn't know why, but somehow he just knew that going out of the shelter might kill him. So he waited.


Eventually, the footsteps faded out and Lucas hadn't felt bigger relief in his life. His body relaxed, sighing heavily. "Do you know what that was?" he whispered to Jessica.

 

[Plums]

Jessica slowly sat upright, when she heard the footsteps disappearing into the woods, but still carefull to not make a sound. When she finally couldn't hear anything but the constant jungle sounds she felt like she could finally breath again.


"No." She she whispered to him with honesty, and looked in the direction there the footsteps had gone away, almost expecting something to jump out of the shadows and rip them both apart. "Probably some animal." She wrapped her arms around herself to keep them from shaking. It were at that moment she realised how cold it actually was, not freezing, but still cold enough to make her wish that they would've made a fire before going to bed. "Do you think we're good? Why didn't it attack?" Jessica whispered. She didn't want to go asleep if something that wanted to kill them was still around.