I know, I know, I said I was not going to write Bethyl anymore but then I started watching Naked and Afraid and there was a couple on there that was so much like Bethyl and they had this amazing chemistry and this idea formed and it just would not leave me alone so here we are. For the purpose of this story, I have created the island of Bjornak from an amalgamation of my imagination and several islands in the South Pacific that are similar.
This story idea intrigued me because I thought it would be super interesting to explore this particular dynamic that is very Still-esque while they are also naked and vulnerable. Warning though, this will be a slow burn, aka, they won't be immediately humping in the wild. Lol. Sorry but I have a bigger story to tell, but if you've read my stories before, you know the payoff on the smut will be worth the wait. ;) At least, I hope. Without further adieu I give you Day One of Bethyl Naked and Afraid. This chapter will alternate their points of view and chapters that follow will likely switch back and forth every other chapter.
Day Zero – The Day before insertion
Beth Greene considered herself in the mirror of the hotel room they'd put her up in before her insertion day tomorrow. She still couldn't believe she'd been picked. She pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and tried not to think about how snarled it would be by this time tomorrow.
At a petite 5 foot 3 she could hardly be considered hearty but somehow her 3 minute and 45 second YouTube video had apparently convinced the judges that she was strong enough for this challenge.
She was a tri-athlete and had competed in three triathlons over the past couple of years and the training for it was always extensive. To that end, she had always been able to stay in top form. Add to it that she was a third year medical student and she had been taking survival courses for years and she guessed it made her a perfect candidate. She hoped her partner wouldn't judge too harshly by her appearance and she also tried to clear her mind of her own prejudices before they met tomorrow.
Naked.
She swore her heart catapulted out of her chest onto the floor every time she thought about it. She was not a prude. Not by any standards. She'd had sex and plenty of it but she was still self-conscious about her body, especially in front of men who'd never seen her naked before.
Maggie had teased her endlessly about this fact while they were making her video for the judges to decide if she was going to be strong enough to survive Naked and Afraid. They'd had to start over many times because Maggie had insisted on narrating.
"Do Beth and Joshua have what it takes to survive Naked and Afraid?" while making obscene gestures out of the eye of the camera.
"God, Maggie you're so immature. We're both going to be naked. That's kind of the point." She'd huffed as she hoisted her frame over the rock climbing wall, one of the many exercises on the video montage to demonstrate her agility and strength.
Of course they didn't know the name of the person she would be entering the challenge with. That was something the producers of the show kept secret until the moment they met on camera. Maggie had made up at least a dozen names off the top of her head during the course of them filming the video that would convince a panel of judges that Beth has what it makes to make it, all of them more ridiculous .
"You look like hell baby sister. Hope your partner likes the hot and sweaty look." Maggie had laughed and then they both collapsed into giggles having to start the video all over again.
Beth smiled in remembrance of the moment. At the end of the day, by the time they'd shot all the video they'd need for the entry, Beth looked like she'd already survived something.
Sighing before the mirror, she dressed for bed and settled down for sleep, hoping it would come. This would be the comfiest night she would have for 21 days.
Damn Merle, anyway, Daryl Dixon thought for the hundredth time since arriving in the South Pacific. He'd made a bet with him, a stupid one at that and since he'd lost, here he was. Because Dixons might be a bunch of nothin', no-good rednecks but they had a code and you just didn't cop out on a bet. No matter if it was something that could send him to his death.
They'd done the video. That was all he'd agreed to. Leave it to Merle to hire some fancy videographer to make him look better on camera than he did in real life. Even if he did have to admit a little that he looked like a badass in the final cut. He guessed that's why the judges had picked him.
He had to admit that he'd balked when it came to the psych evaluation that all contestants were required to undergo before participating in the challenge. He didn't want some head shrinker poking around his brain at things in his past that were better left alone. He'd made his peace with his past.
Merle had been an alcoholic for years and tried to take Daryl down the same path. It had been a bitch but he'd talked Merle into AA and went with him to make sure he complied. He'd found him a sponsor and in working through the 12 steps with Merle, he was slowly able to let go of his past and the shitty childhood they'd both left behind in rural Georgia.
But as it turned out, he had handled himself quite well in the interview and it wasn't nearly as bad as his mind had made it out to be. He was hoping he felt the same way about being naked in front of another person.
It wasn't that he hadn't been around women. It's just that he'd never really been around one for any long period of time. Certainly not camped out with one for 21 days in the wilderness. At least not any that weren't clients and there were usually 5 other clients with him so that really didn't count anyway.
He'd been teaching survival courses in Texas for going on ten years. Merle had started the company when he'd gotten sober and Daryl tagged along and now they were a two person team and they did quite well for themselves, especially for Dixons.
He was 39 years old, owned his own home, a truck and a motorcycle. He didn't live extravagantly and didn't figure he ever would. He was just a simple man living a simple life. Except for now. Now was complicated as hell since he was literally putting himself buck ass naked in the middle of the wilderness with a female he didn't know for 21 days.
All he could hope was he had a worthy partner that would pull her own weight and didn't look like she walked off a runway.
Day 1 - Insertion Day
Video log / Beth Greene/ En route to insertion point.
"I'm really excited to do this challenge. I think I might have something to prove maybe. People look at me and I know what they see. They see a tiny blonde who looks more like a Disney princess than a survivalist." Beth smiles into the camera, talking loud over the din of the motorboat that would carry them to the island. "But I've been taking survival courses for years and I'm a tri-athlete so I think I am a lot tougher than I look. But we'll see. This island poses a lot of risks but I'm ready to face them. I hope my partner is strong and is ready to pull his weight."
The boat stops short and she guesses that's her cue to exit the boat. Without her clothes. She looks into the camera again. "Sorry Daddy." She then explains to the audience while discarding her clothing on the floor of the boat. "My upbringing was pretty religious. My Daddy was a Protestant minister for several years so nudity isn't something I'm all that comfortable with. But I'm here and this is part of the challenge so here goes."
Beth sheds the last piece of clothing she was wearing, her black thongs and stands back up, already feeling the sun beating down on her bare body in this sweltering heat. She was probably going to burn quickly as she was quite fare and knew her SPF 80 moisturizer she'd applied at the hotel was likely worn off after such a long boat ride.
If they happened upon any mud on their travels today, the first thing she was going to do was cover herself in it. The last thing she needed was sun poisoning.
She jumps into the water, thankful for the at least temporary covering of her body, providing her some respite from the perpetual blush she seemed to be sporting naked here in the wild. It was just going to take some getting used to is all, she reminded herself. Her partner would be naked too. Hopefully they could just laugh about it and all would be fine.
The boat guide hands her diary cam and she continues to record the rest of her insertion onto Bjornak. She can already tell that the environment is hostile by the feel of the jagged coral beneath her feet as she made her way onto shore.
Video log/ Daryl Dixon / En route to insertion point.
"I don't know anything about my partner but I know they don't put people in this challenge that they don't think would make it. I've been a survivalist my entire life and most of what I've learned is self taught. Truth is, I entered this challenge as a bet against my brother that I wouldn't get picked and yet here I am." Daryl is speaking to the camera and he isn't sure what he's supposed to say, so he's just talking off the top of his head. This part definitely wasn't his forte. He thought Merle maybe should have entered this challenge; he was a lot more social than Daryl. He decided to be honest with the camera because he figured being naked in the wilderness was about as real as a person could get.
"'M not a very social person. I tend to be kinda quiet." He shrugs and looks away from the camera and then back again. "But I know that won't work out here. That might be the hardest part of this challenge for me. 'M used to doing everythin' on my own. I ain't used to dependin' on anyone, so maybe this place has somethin' to teach me that I haven't learned yet." He doesn't say anything else and the director nods his head as if that might be enough for now and he cues the cameraman to shut off the video recorder.
"That's good, Daryl. You gave us a lot to work with for the final cut. Just keep being honest." The director was a nice woman, in her mid thirties, dark hair that she wore up in this heat, which was already rivaling the hottest day in Texas and Georgia combined, to his memory.
The island of Bjornak was coming into full view and it rose up like a vision on the horizon. He'd researched everything he could on this island before he came. It looked like they were putting in on the North side of the island, which was a rocky embankment that was coral encrusted, whereas the South side was covered in fine white sand.
Figured they'd dump them out on the most rugged part of the island as far as terrain goes. His feet already ached thinking about walking across the craggy coral that was likely already heated from the sun high in the sky. He guessed it to be about 95 degrees but the humidity was almost stifling out here. The boat came to a full stop and the cameraman cued him again.
"I guess this is it." Daryl said and stood up on the deck of the boat, moving his hands to his waistband of his pants, undoing the zipper and letting them fall to his feet. He then proceeded to pull his shirt over his head, leaving him standing there in just his skivvies. He tried not to think about the scars on his back and what anyone might say about them.
He fought the urge to put his shirt back on and hoped that no one asked. He was never prepared for what he could say about the man that put them there.
He slid his thumbs into the hem and let his boxers fall to meet his pants. He guessed he'd get his clothes back at the end of this thing. It was weird to think about entering the wilderness with nothing. But that was exactly what he was standing in when he jumped into the water, feeling his dick slap against his thigh on impact of the water, which was cool but not cold.
He let his body adjust to the water for a minute, taking care to look around him making certain there weren't any dangers hidden in the waters. But the waters surrounding Bjornak Island were a clear cerulean blue that almost matched the same hue in the skies that hung over it. He could see straight to the bottom and there didn't seem to be any sharks or other predators in the water surrounding where the boat was dumping him off.
If nothing else, the place was beautiful. He'd see if he felt the same way after 3 weeks in its wilds.
Beth carefully took each step, trying to ignore just how badly her feet hurt walking over the jaggedly uneven beach filled with rock. The coral was like walking over hot coals and she had thought she would be prepared for walking barefoot after having spent half her childhood doing so on her family's farm, but the rough and tumble terrain of backwater Georgia didn't have anything on this place, she thought.
She painstakingly made her way up the beach on the North side of the island where she was to meet her partner she'd be spending the next three weeks with and wondered if he was having as much trouble as she was.
It was still weird to her, being out here stark naked with absolutely nothing to cover her. She was suddenly insanely glad for the Brazilian wax she'd gotten upon Maggie's insistence. "You're going into the bush, it doesn't mean you have to sport one." She had nearly spit out her soda at the time as they both dissolved into fits of laughter. She had to admit, it was funny and she would get an I told you so later, but she was really happy to have her sister's guidance on stuff like this, even if it was only to tell her to shave her lady bits before she came out here.
Beth could make out distinct figures ahead. Two of them. One was obviously the part of the production crew that would follow them to where they'd make camp and the other was very clearly her partner. He was carrying a rather large stick and well, he was as naked as she was. As she got closer, she tried to tell herself to keep her eyes trained on his face. And she was doing great with that until she opened her mouth.
They were now standing face to face. Woman to man. With nothing between them but the blazing heat.
"Hi, I'm Beth Greene." She said and extended her hand, looking straight into his crystal blue eyes. "You must be my partner."
He took her hand and shook it. "What gave it away?" His eyes crinkled up in a slight smile at the obvious elephant in the room that no one was mentioning but Beth opened her mouth and inserted her foot before she could stop herself. As usual.
"You were the only one out here with a big stick." She could hear the cameraman chuckling and she couldn't blame him.
God, why couldn't she have just said he was the only other naked person. That would have been so much better. Now she'd just drawn attention to the fact that she had indeed taken a peek at his "package" and it was a very nice, well, it was big. Dammit. Her face turned 9 shades of red that had nothing to do with the heat out here. Why hadn't the ground swallowed her up already?
"I'm Daryl. Daryl Dixon." She let his name slide around in her mind while he looked straight into her eyes. He laughed good-naturedly while shaking her hand firmly. Her eyes met his again and there was a warmth there she wasn't quite expecting. Feeling her lips curve into a smile, she shrugged and finally laughed too and that was it. The ice was broken. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
They'd been warned of all the dangers. Daryl had looked up a lot of him himself when he found out their destination for the challenge after all the rigorous testing and paperwork had been completed. He had to sign his life on the dotted line in a lot of places and he figured with all the hazards of the island, he may as well be signing his name in blood. The fine print was not even fine, in his opinion. They pretty much had spelled it all out for him in bold letters: The show and its constituents would not be held responsible for any injuries or illnesses, up to and including death.
The dangers were many, the first of which being the dozens of poisonous vipers that lived in the trees of the jungle. But those didn't worry him nearly as much as the Papuan Taipan, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. Add to it that it was an aggressive creature and it pretty much had Daryl with his nerves on end. Give him a good old fashioned timber rattler any day. And that was saying something. They were mean little bastards if provoked.
But the Papuan Taipan was a death adder that was more common to the island of Papua New Guinea and how it had come to be found on Bjornak was unknown but it was there and it was real. A bite from one of them and they could kiss their asses goodbye. He was used to looking out for things like that hiding in brush but he was also used to trekking through the forest fully clothed with the ankles of his pants tied down to keep anything from crawling up his leg that wasn't supposed to be there.
Out here, he was going to be stark naked with nothing to protect him except his senses. He was confident in his abilities as a hunter and trekker but the wild was just that: wild. It was unpredictable and he wasn't so arrogant to think that he was better than mother nature.
As for his partner, she seemed to be carefully stepping through the brush just as he was. They'd talked a bit about snakes and scorpions and it seemed she had done her homework just as well as he had.
She had also brought up the fact that the island was home to the Chinchua tree which looked fairly tame but what a lot of people didn't know was that that sap from the tree was highly poisonous causing burns and swelling to any area of the body it touched.
She was tiny. She was petite and looked about 5 foot 4 but he bet she weighed a buck ten soaking wet. He had watched her cautiously since they'd met and decided to start making their way to the part of the island where they were to make their camp. They had to walk across 3.5 miles of craggy shore before crossing into the rainforest on the South side of the island where it eventually gave way to soft sandy beaches. They were hoping to make camp at the edge of the beach just before the bush got too dense for any real clearings.
She kept up with him just fine so yeah, she was tiny but she seemed capable enough.
She didn't shut up. That was for sure. It wasn't that he minded it. In fact, it was kind of nice. She sort of carried the conversation and he was surprised that he was not annoyed by it. He had just never been around anyone that talked as much as she did.
She had talked for most of their trek except for the couple of times they were both too winded to keep up much of a conversation. It was getting more and more obvious that their first concern was going to be water. They were surrounded by ocean on all sides but with no filtration system, that water was definitely out. Their best bet would be to find a small stream or waterfall within the rain forest. Of course, going into the jungle meant having to constantly be on alert for predators. The rainforest was also home to a small group of puma. Fierce hunters, they could take down a human half his size. Like his partner.
He'd learned on their journey so far that she was an adventurist and was relieved to hear that she had taken several survival courses. She was not, so far, boasting of any of her skills, but she was a capable hiker and climber from what he'd observed so far. And for her small stature, she could cover just as much ground as him with seemingly little effort.
He accounted that to her experience as a marathon runner. She'd told him she won third place in a triathlon in her county last year.
Still, she resembled what he'd feared most: A runway model for a partner. Not that he was checking her out. That wasn't what Daryl was about and never had been. She was cute, he guessed.
Okay, so she was more than cute. She was very pretty. She had that sort of rare earthly beauty. From what he could tell she wore no make-up, which only seemed to accentuate her luminous blue eyes that lit up her whole face when she smiled. Which was often. To be out here in the brush, she was surprisingly cheerful. He wondered if she would be this chipper this time tomorrow.
He gave her kudos for her one item she'd brought for survival, a machete. He'd thought long and hard before he'd chosen his bow-drill. He'd wanted to bring his bow and arrow but he was told that it wasn't allowed. So he'd settled on his bow-drill for fire-making purposes and set his mind on making his own bow and arrow for hunting once they'd set up camp. He was very good at primitive survival and it was all self-taught growing up like he did.
More often than not, they'd had to live off the land since their old man usually gambled away any money they might have for groceries. So for as long as Daryl could remember, he or Merle used any means necessary to put food on the table and that often included wild game. Squirrel, deer, snake, rabbit; pretty much anything was literally fair game. He was hoping to put those skills to good use out here.
"How are you with meat?" Daryl asked. He wanted to know if she was one of those fancy vegan types that wouldn't eat anything with a face on it. That would be about his luck.
But Beth just smiled in his direction as they trudged through the thick jungle, her hacking away branches with her machete for a clearer path. They had been taking turns with that so neither one got too tired out. "I grew up on a farm. And my Daddy taught me and my brother and sister how to clean our own kills."
His eyebrows shot up at the last part and she laughed. Her laughter was never really expected and it just sort of bubbled up out of her like she couldn't help herself. He liked that about her, he decided.
"I'm pretty good with huntin'." He doesn't say anything more than that and leaves it at that. He can back his statement up by killing them a snake or lizard for supper come nightfall, he hopes anyway.
Beth speaks into her diary cam quietly. "My partner had to answer nature's call." She laughs at herself and then shrugs. "He had to pee, okay. Sorry Mama." She looks straight into the camera but she's going to be out here naked for three weeks and she could hardly act prim and proper covered in grime. Besides, it was closer to who she was anyway and if you couldn't be your real self out here in the wild, then where could you be?
They were still making their way through the forest and so far had seen about twenty different species of snakes, most of them pit vipers. So far they hadn't seen any signs of the dreaded Taipan. They hadn't talked about it yet, but days before their insertion, the crew was scouting the island and one of the cameraman had been bitten by the Papuan Taipan. He was rushed to a hospital, the closest one being 100 miles away.
After being taken out by helicopter he was taken to the nearest hospital 100 miles away and underwent immediate treatment. Thankfully they were able to save his foot where he'd been bitten, but he was still undergoing daily surgeries to remove necrotic (dead) tissue from his foot and Beth knew from experience that he had to be dealing with a considerable amount of pain.
In her first year as a medical student, she'd been involved in an incoming snakebite trauma during her rotation at Grady Memorial. The girl had been no more than 11 and they'd all thought she was a goner. A timber rattler had cornered her and she'd been struck several times on the arms, legs and torso. When she'd come in, she'd been near death but had pulled through.
Beth shuddered at the memory, glancing around her as she talked into the camera. "One of our cameramen was bitten by a Papuan Taipan a few days before Daryl and I came out here. We were given the choice to opt out of the challenge but we both decided to go ahead with our plans. We knew the dangers when we came but I can't help but wonder where any of those snakes might be hiding. They literally could be anywhere. Our camera guy was fully clothed and stepped on one hidden in a pile of leaves."
It was a sobering thought to realize that they could literally be seconds away from death from any one of the dangers out here. The first thing they were going to need to do was find water. "We're going to have to find water soon. We're burning a lot of calories out here and we risk dehydration if we don't get water in us pretty soon."
She shut the camera off and raked her hair back out of her face for the hundredth time and wishing she'd listened to Maggie and gotten it trimmed before coming out here. Her hair had a mind of its own and in its untamed state, it was currently a mess of curls and frizz. But her hair was sort of her signature feature and she was always reluctant to cut it any shorter than it was now, which was midway down her back.
Her partner came back around the side of the bushes where he'd gone to relieve himself and she handed him her camera to take her turn. "I am still getting used to using the diary cam. I am trying to get in the habit of recording something every stop, otherwise, I'll just end up turning it back in empty at the end of the three weeks."
Her partner didn't say anything to that. Just nodded. "Keep a watch out for snakes. I thought I saw one dart behind the rocks in behind those bushes."
She smiled her thanks to him. "Be right back."
Beth walked carefully around the bushes, making sure every step she took was clear and calculated and free of any dangers. Twice she stepped on the prickly brambles that were sticking up out of the ground at odd angles from whatever mudslide had happened here in the last few weeks. The mud was now caked and dried but the debris remained and it was not easy on the feet and as such she had to stop every few minutes to pull bits of thistle from the bottom of her feet so it wouldn't pierce her skin. She already felt like she'd worn off the top layer of skin on the bottoms of her feet.
Stepping clear of the big boulders, she crouched behind the bush and took care of business. It was so odd not having to worry about pants or panties and just being able to crouch down and go. She prayed while she was going that there were no spiders or other critters down there. It made her nervous thinking about going to sleep tonight so unprotected and she thought ahead to the shelter they were going to have to try to construct before nightfall, which was really only hours away.
Had it really already been relatively six hours since their insertion and they weren't even to their camp yet. Beth sighed with exhaustion and stood back up after taking care of business, taking the same steps she took on the way in, just as carefully.
She knew she looked small and incapable so she felt she had more of something to prove than maybe her partner did and she would be darned if she would get taken down in the first day because of one careless misstep in the jungle.
"Careful." Daryl reminded her again as she stepped back into view and he had one hand held up. She stopped walking immediately, sensing that his tone was a warning that danger was near. She looked in his line of sight and followed it down to where he was watching a pit viper sunning itself on a rock. She stood absolutely stock-still as it wasn't even 50 feet away from her.
Daryl was even closer to it than that and he already had the machete in the air ready to wield the blow that would sever the snake's head from its body. It was over before she could even blink, the snake's mouth open in a strike that would never land, its head dropping to the jungle floor while its body remained twitching on the rock.
"Holy crap, that's a big snake." Beth remarked. "Good catch."
"Dinner." His voice was gruff, she noted, not for the first time. It was sort of gravelly and not together unpleasant, she decided. She beamed at him.
"Shall we continue?"
He picked up the snake and dropped it into his satchel and motioned for her to lead the way.
It wasn't her fault that they got lost. She thought she knew the way and since he was following her so diligently, she had assumed that she must be going the right way, otherwise why would he let her lead them. But then it seemed that they got right back where they had started with the snake and when they saw the blood on the rock, they knew they'd just gone in a full circle for the last hour.
"I'm sorry." Beth muttered. Her partner was not saying anything and she guessed he was mad at her. Which, she guessed she deserved it. She should have been paying better attention to where the sun was overhead.
As he turned around to survey their surroundings, she got a glimpse of what she'd seen earlier a couple of times and had trained her eyes to not focus on them for too long. His back was a patchwork of long silvery scars. Her heart had pained in her chest at the time and it did again now as she considered what they were.
She was a medical student and as such, she'd seen more than her fair share of child abuse cases. The scars that marked her partner's back were consistent with those and she wondered at his gruff nature and if that was what made him the way he was and she couldn't blame him.
She was not going to ask, but maybe he would tell her about them. She doubted it though. Because right now, he looked madder than a hornet and for the first time since deciding to enter this challenge, Beth felt like she'd maybe made a mistake.
Her partner wasn't speaking to her and didn't say anything of her apology to them getting lost and now she just felt like crying.
Daryl knew exactly why they were lost. He had let her take the lead and he literally had no one to blame but himself because though he'd tracked in a dozen different conditions on dozens of terrains, he'd never had to do it naked and damn it all to hell, he had never had to do it with a naked companion.
It was-. It was distracting, he finally settled on that word, not really liking any of the other thoughts he had in his brain.
They were lost because in following her and getting caught up with her chatter, he also had been caught up in checking her out.
He felt like the worst kind of pervert for doing so and it wasn't like he hadn't been around naked females before. He had. Just none quite this pretty. And young. She said she was 26, but she didn't look a day over 18 and he could just hear Merle in the back of his head.
Merle.
If Merle could see him now, he'd be laughing his damn ass off. He then reminded himself that Merle would see all of this eventually and would be laughing his ass off. Darylina Dixon, traipsing around some jungle with a girl half his age and checking out her ass is going to be the thing that gets them both killed. They could have wandered into a den of puma and he probably wouldn't have noticed until they were already half eaten since all his brain seemed to be able to focus on for the past hour was the curve of her backside as she climbed up one hill or another.
She had been humming too. They were tracking through miles of jungle, through the brush, beating off mosquitoes and picking brambles out of their bare feet and the girl was damn near singing. So when they got lost and she turned to look to him, the apology in her eyes, he knew he shouldn't have but he opened his damn mouth anyway.
"If you'd been paying attention to the signs instead of singing, we might not be an hour out of our way." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. It wasn't fair and he knew he was the worst kind of ass for saying what he did. But what's done was done.
"Lead the way, then, Mr. Dixon." Her lips were pressed into a thin tight smile, nothing like the one she'd greeted him with earlier in the day.
She wasn't singing anymore. She wasn't smiling. In fact, he bet if he turned around she'd turn him to stone with the death stare she was sending straight between his shoulder blades.
Hell with it anyway. He'd told Merle he shouldn't come, but it was too late now. He just had to suck it up and get through the next 21 days. Hopefully with both of them alive.
Fucked. Everything was fucked and he'd said it more than once and his partner had tried to remain cheerful but in the face of what they'd just encountered, he could tell that even her positive resolve was slipping. This place would make a preacher want to cuss as his mama used to say, God rest her soul.
He just hoped Merle was happy when they shipped him back in a body bag.
He took account of their current situation. He had managed to make good on his boasts of hunting prowess and had bagged them a snake, a pit viper but as yet they had not been able to make a fire so they probably wouldn't be able to eat the damn thing.
It had also started raining just before they'd arrived at the opposite side of the island. This part of the island as far as he could tell was most ideal for setting up camp. They'd stopped at a small stream on the way in and had toted some water with them in some coconuts they'd found but since it was raining, they'd as yet been unable to get a fire started.
Beth was making herself busy gathering palm fronds to begin construction on their shelter and he was still working on the fire, the sawing motion of the bow-drill already putting blisters on his fingers but trying to get anything to catch a spark in this messy drizzle and sticky humid God-forsaken jungle seemed beyond hope.
He caught her watching him out of the corner of his eye a couple times, as if she was praying for him to get it started. He wasn't a praying man and never had been, but maybe it was time to start. The sound of wood grinding on wood was grating in his ears at this point since it was doing nothing but wearing through the base. The smell of the friction of the wood rubbing together was just taunting him that a spark would start just any minute now if only he kept sawing.
"I'm gonna go see if I can find something to help out." Beth called out and he nodded in her direction, not wanting to break his concentration on what he was doing. He took note of her intended direction and saw that she was heading back into the jungle. He didn't call out for her to be careful. She had made it clear that she could take care of herself.
Six hours in and they'd had their first disagreement. It wasn't her fault that they'd gotten lost but he'd made sure to blame her and he felt like an ass for doing it. But it was like he couldn't help himself. Something about her unnerved him.
Once they'd found their way back on the right path eventually, they'd found a stream. They badly needed drinking water. As it was, they were both wobbly on their feet with no nourishment and no water.
"Do you think we can just drink it?" Beth inquired.
He'd just shook his head. It was too risky. There weren't enough rocks and pumice in the bed the stream was flowing through to provide any good sort of filtration system so they'd have to boil it to make it safe to drink.
He'd told her to be careful and then she'd gone and fallen in the water and he could tell it bruised her pride more than anything else and she'd gotten up, seemingly like the fall had never happened in the first place, though her body was covered in water from head to toe and her hair was dripping in her face. He couldn't help it then. "Told ya to be careful, girl." He didn't mean it as a slight to her capability but they were tired already and both of them cranky and on edge and that's just the way it came across. He wanted to reel the words back in as soon as he said them but it was too late. He thought again of his social ineptitude and how this challenge was going against the grain of his very nature. He was pretty much a lone wolf.
Then she had looked at him as if she could shoot daggers from her eyes. "I can take care of myself."
He was not going to argue with her. So he just shrugged and that seemed to make her even madder and she'd stormed off. Now she's gone off again and he can't but think she doesn't want to be around him and who could blame her. He hasn't exactly been nice to her today.
She's gone awhile. He has an idea to hollow out the bark of a nearby fallen tree and to scrape out the tinder from inside it. He busies himself with that for a bit.
Then he remembers he's supposed to be recording something on his diary cam every few minutes and he's not touched the damn thing since they'd crossed the island.
"We're still trying to get a fire started." He points to the area of the copse of trees where he and Beth have decided to set up camp just inside the jungle, on the far side of the dunes where the beach started. They hoped to be able to keep the winds that might come off from any tropical weather at their backs, or rather the back of their shelter. They'd built a base sawing limbs from nearby bamboo trees and stringing them together with cordage Beth made from some long grass she'd found. It was good binding material and she'd remarked that they'd have many uses for it.
"This here is the start of our shelter. We had to stop to see if we could get fire started before it really started raining hard, but so far it ain't happened." He shuts off the diary cam and knows that the cameraman standing nearby will fill in the rest later.
He then goes back to sawing, hoping the scraps of tinder he was able to collect from within the fallen tree are dry enough to catch a spark.
Beth pulls out her diary cam, ready to rip her partner a new one. "Jerk." She says into the camera. He'll see this later but at the moment she doesn't care. She's so angry. He'd said practically nothing to her on their hike on the way in and she'd felt like she had to carry the whole conversation. At first it was okay but then more and more she realized that she was doing all the talking and he was doing little to contribute to the conversation.
He'd told her he was a hunter and that he lived in Texas and made a living teaching extreme survival courses to business executives and that was pretty much all she knew. He'd mentioned a brother briefly in talking about what had driven him to enter the challenge and it was clear that he saw her as just another dumb blonde whose weight he'd have to carry. She was going to prove him wrong.
When he'd made the jab about her singing getting them lost, it had stung a bit but it hadn't really hurt her feelings. It had irritated her more than anything else.
When she'd fallen in the creek, she was mad but not at him. At least not at first. It wasn't until he'd called her "girl" that she'd really snapped. He may as well have called her half-pint. Or kiddo. It was just as insulting. She knew she didn't look like much, but dammit she was strong.
She thought of all she'd overcome and spoke into the camera. "I know that people look at me and probably just see another dead girl. A girl who won't make it through this challenge and will tap out on day 3 because she's not strong enough." She looks away from the camera for a minute, recalling the times in her life when she wasn't strong and willing herself not to cry.
When her mama died. She fingers the scar on her wrist that she can't cover out here. She truly thinks she knows now why they call this show "Naked and Afraid." She speaks into the camera again. "But I am strong and I'm going to prove it." She shuts off the camera and figures that's enough. She cringes that she called him a jerk. Not that he didn't deserve it. He was being a jerk.
The mood between them was tense so when he dropped his fifth F bomb in five minutes, she decided to see if she could find something that might help. She tucked the camera in her bag and went foraging. At first, it was nothing but the same misty wet jungle she'd just left and then as she walked a little further, taking each step carefully, sidestepping a lizard that skittered off just as scared of her as she was of it. She contemplated going after it and killing it but they already had a snake they couldn't eat yet. No sense in adding insult to injury.
Gradually, the jungle grew denser and as such, the canopy overhanging was a good cover from the misty rains that had started falling a couple of hours ago. Beth swept her wet hair back off her face, breathing a sigh of relief that it was relatively dry here. She scavenged for a few minutes around a fallen log, poking with her machete, careful of any lurking predators and found what she was looking for. She nearly clapped with delight. Tucked into a bush was an abandoned bird's nest. It was dry and thus, she knew it would be good for tinder. The next part would be easy.
Taking the machete, she chopped off a good sizeable piece of the log she'd found in front of the bush and went in search of the right tree. It would be harder to find cone-bearing trees in a jungle but she knew of a few and looked for the right signs on the ground that would lead her to the right tree, careful to keep her bearings so she wouldn't get lost. She made small carvings in the trees she passed so she would know which way to go when she turned back. It was a little trick she had learned in one of her survival courses and it worked as well as anything else since she didn't have access to a compass out here in the wild. She wished she'd thought to use it earlier before her and Daryl got lost.
Beth almost laughed when she finally found it. It was a small and a much younger tree than she would have liked, but it was producing cones so that had to mean it produced sap as well. She sawed into it with the machete midway up the trunk of the tree, finding what she was looking for. Thick pitch. She used the piece of log she'd chopped off and the machete as a knife, she scraped off a glob of the pitch onto the wood to carry back with her to camp.
She tried to keep the smile from her face as she made her way back into camp and caught Daryl's eye. He was sitting by his bow-drill, crouched down, his body covered in a fine sheen of sweat.
Good lord, it wasn't like she hadn't noticed it before but he was damn good looking even if he was surly and withdrawn. Daryl looked her way and she held up her spoils. "Maybe this will help."
She smiled softly in his direction. It was a peace offering that she hoped he would take and not take it as some sign that she doubted his abilities. She couldn't be sure but she thought she saw the corners of his mouth twitch in an almost smile. "That'll do. Good work, Greene." She was pleased that he was using her last name for some reason. If anything, it was better than "girl" or "kiddo", so she'd take it. Besides, it made her sound tough and she liked that for sure.
He took the bird's nest from her and placed it at the base of the bow-drill and then Beth took the pitch and rubbed it lightly over it. Daryl took a deep breath and began sawing while Beth reached down and helped hold the spindle.
With a two-person effort, and it seemed to be working. There was actual smoke coming from the base of the bow-drill now and that hadn't happened yet. Still, Beth held her breath, hoping and trying not to get her hopes up too high but they really needed this fire tonight.
"Almost." She whispered small words of encouragement. "You got this." She wasn't sure if Daryl could hear her or not. He was so intent on getting the fire to start, his jaw was set in a hard line and his brow was furrowed. She tried so hard not to notice how his arm muscles bulged with each motion but it was impossible not to see how his shoulders stretched with the effort his hands were making.
Good Lord, Beth, get a grip, she told herself. She was out here in the wild to prove she could survive, not prove she could catch some guy that probably wouldn't be interested in her in a million years anyway. Even if he did find her passably attractive, it would hardly be appropriate to start some on screen show-mance with him.
She wondered idly if he had a girlfriend and decided that he was probably one of those confirmed bachelor types. Still, he didn't strike her as the type that was a player either.
Sighing to herself, she concentrated on the task at hand which was holding the spindle as steady as she could while Daryl continued his sawing motions then, the screech of the board against the wooden base nearly deafening at this point and then it sparked and an ember formed to the tiny bit of birds nest covered in pitch and then flames shot up from that.
Barely daring to breathe, Beth fed the fire slowly with tiny bits of tree limbs they'd gathered while Daryl went and fetched the firewood they'd managed to find before it started raining too hard. Within a minute, they had a blazing fire.
She looked at Daryl across the fire and she couldn't be absolutely sure, but she thought she saw him smile.
"We have fire!" She exclaimed and ran over to him before she could stop herself, lifting her hand in the air, time suspending on itself for a minute as she wondered if he was going to leave her hanging. But then, finally with a definite upturn of his lips and a flash of teeth, he smiled at her and hefted his hand in the air, meeting hers in a high five, their fingers colliding together on the impact.
"Couldn't have done it without ya." It was honestly the best thing he could have said. She smiled at him a little shyly, their newfound camaraderie something she wanted to hold onto.
But then he was smiling back too and that's when she knew everything was going to be okay between them. "Let's get busy on the shelter. Full on dark is only about two hours away."
And with that, they turned to finish constructing the shelter they would live in for the next 21 days. It was going to be a long three weeks, but Beth couldn't imagine having a better partner for the challenge. She could only hope that after their current boost in morale, that Daryl felt the same way about her.
Well that concludes MOST of Day 1. There's a small bit left that I will get to in the next chapter but I had to cut this one for length and I figured this was a really good place to leave them. I hope you guys enjoyed and please be loves and leave a review on your way out. Thank you for reading! Xoxoxo
