A famous explorer once said that "the extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are". After everything I've been through, I can tell you all about extraordinary. It's strange looking back on everything and remembering who I was before. All the events before Yamatai, while far more pleasant, have proven to be painfully ordinary in comparison. As a recent archaeology graduate, little did I know I would soon be exposed a legion of unexplainable phenomena and peril.
The Nishimura family, which my best friend Sam was part of, had helped fund an expedition to find a lost japanese kingdom - after I had shared with them my theories on the location. Of course Sam came with to film our trip, along with Jonah and Alex. Alex and I had actually been dating for a while before this trip. Needless to say, I trusted them all immensely, but I still trusted Conrad Roth most of all. He was an ex-marine and close family friend for as long as I can remember. There was also Dr. James Whitman, a famous archaeologist that I had respected, and Joselyn Reyes, who was a mechanic that I was barely acquainted with. Angus Grimaldi was the helmsman of the Endurance whom we would become very familiar with.
I'd set out to make my mark; to find adventure - but instead, adventure found me. It was the twenty-second day of the trip and we were just south of Japan, at the dragons triangle, when all hell broke loose. I had just said goodnight to Alex, and I was laying in bed listening to music. Things changed suddenly and drastically; one minute I was enjoying my music in peace, and the next I was being violently jerked around my room. I could hear a storm of horrific proportions taking place outside as my earbuds were ripped from my head and it was thrust into the ground. The pain was bad but tolerable; I had other concerns like the rushing water I heard pouring into the ship!
I darted through the ship's corridors frantically until I was taken by the water. I couldnt see anything, but somehow I made it to a ladder. The hatch wouldnt open so I pounded on it trying to break the glass, but it was clearly futile as the water washed over me. I'm twenty-one, I thought, and I'm already going to die. But in our darkest moments, when life flashes before us, we find something that keeps us going. Something that pushes us. In my case it was Roth. He pulled me up out of the water and took off yelling for me to keep going. As I looked up and started running, I noticed the Endurance was falling to pieces all around me.
Ahead of me the ship was ripped in half! Roth was on the other side urging me to jump, and with my adrenaline pumping there was no debating my next action. I jumped and Roth caught me on the other side, but I slipped right out of his grasp. It's a good thing I was a good swimmer, because I plunged so far below the surface that I barely made it back. Desperately, I cut through the water towards the shore. When I made it everyone was gone, but I could hear Jonah and Reyes in the distance.
"Reyes! Jonah! Im here!" I belted at the top of my lungs. No reply. As I took in my surroundings, I noticed most of the beach was covered in ship wreckage, but it couldn't have all been ours. Could somebody else have discovered-CLUNK! In mid-thought I was bashed in the head with what felt like a rock.
When I regained consciousness, I was tied up and being dragged away. My vision hazy, I tried to figure out where I was. It appeared to be a cave, and there were candles everywhere and other shapes I couldn't make out. I blacked out again, but when I woke up again I felt blood rushing to my head. I was hung upside down, and I figured out what the other shapes were: skeletons.
Instinctively I started squirming around trying to get out of my encasing, but I couldnt get free. I was in some sort of cloth sheet, tied up with rope, but I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There was another one of these cloth objects next to me, which was dangerously close to a torch on the wall. Thank god. I figured I could knock the thing into the fire and maybe spread the flames onto my ropes, so I started swinging back and forth. This was going to hurt. When I gained enough momentum, I was able to accomplish my goal. When my ropes were on fire I thought I was going to burn when I started falling.
Down I fell into the deep depths of the cave, until I slammed right into the ground. The pain was excruciating, but I was too terrified to just lay there. I had to get out of here. I stumbled around trying to get up until I made it to my feet. Oh god, no… no, no… The ground was littered with human bones, and directly ahead of me was an indistinguishable corpse tied up by the hands as part of some sort of ritual. What is this place? What happened to you? I tried to keep moving, but there was a bunch of wooden boxes, planks, and barrels piled up preventing that. I looked around and spotted a torch, which I quickly grabbed to ignite the obstacle.
I heard quickly approaching footsteps in the distance behind me so I sprinted ahead. The cave walls came together in one spot, but I didn't care; I started squeezing through. Up ahead was a dead end, but I noticed what appeared to be a barrel of fuel. It was heavy, but I pulled it up against the wall and dropped my torch in it. I backed up a ways just as it exploded, completely destroying the rocks. The cave is collapsing! Rocks began shifting and falling everywhere as I leaped into the hole I blew in the wall. Suddenly, I felt a pair of strong hands grab onto my left foot. I turned and saw a very hairy man with crazy eyes.
"Let go you bastard!" I hissed at him.
"I want to help you!" he yelled back. Yeah, right. I kicked and kicked and kicked until I got free of my assailant, and I leaped backwards as the ceiling fell and crushed him. There was loud crunching sounds as his blood sprayed onto me. That was close… Oh shit, that was close. I was horrified, but I had to keep going. The walls were caving in and crashing down around me as I ran for an exit. The cave had a steep upward slope ahead of me, but there was light at the top so I clamber up the rocks rapidly. My arms finally reached a surplus of dirt and grass, which I never thought I'd be so happy so dig my hands into.
For a while I just laid there, face in the dirt, glad to be out of that hell hole. Oh. My. God. I slowly got up and looked at the island around me. There were some mountains to my right, and the shore was in the distance in front of me and to the left. As I turned the other way, my eyes caught a glimpse of something amazing. A Lifeboat! But where are they? They must have gone inland. I hope they're okay. As I walked along what was nearly a cliff face, I noticed the only way forward now was across a tree trunk but there was land on the other side.