"Nate, are you sure this is the place?" I ask, blocking the sun with my hands. "According to the map, it is." Nate says, looking up from the paper in his hands. I climbed off of our rental boat. "Well, the temple should be around here somewhere." I say, walking forward. We approached the line where hot sand became think jungle. We slowly started to make our way. A few hours passed and still no temple. "Nate, are you sure the temple is here?" I say, wiping my forehead. He pulls out the map. His eyes widened. "What?" I ask. "Uh, I may or may not have grabbed the wrong map." He states. "What?!" I ask. He nods. "Yeah, wrong map." He says just as we heard something explode.
"What the hell was that?!" I say as we rush back to the ocean. Our boat was in pieces and smoke lingered from the recent explosion. I quickly climbed on board to see what the damage was. "Well?" Nate asks. I shake my head. "There's no way we're getting off of the island with this." I say, worried. "Good thing it's a rental, huh?" Nate joked. I scoffed. "Nathan, this is not something to joke about! We are stranded on a deserted island with no food, water, or shelter! I know for damn sure we aren't alone, either!" I say. Nate raised his hands in surrender. "Just trying to lighten the mood, Natty. Come on, we've handled things much worse than this." He says as I search through the salvage. I picked up two walkie-talkies. I tossed one to Nate. "Here, somehow these didn't get blown sky high." I say.
"Sweet." Nate says as we attach them to our belts. Just then, an arrow whizzed past my head. We turned to see tribal looking men running towards us. "Oh, crap. Run!" Nate says as I jump off the bow. Nate grabs my hand and we ran back into the trees. We ducked behind a fallen tree and peek out. We got a closer look at the men. They had war paint all over them and wore strange hats. Some had clothes that smelled like rotting flesh. "Is that….human skin?!" I whisper in disbelief. One snapped his head over this way and we quickly ducked down.
I made the mistake of moving my foot back. The twig that had been right behind my snapped, causing the whole tribe to look towards us. "Run!' Nate yelled. We stood and took off. I ran like no tomorrow until I was out of breath. I stopped and put my hands on my knees. "That was a close one, huh?" I ask. No response.
I turned around. "Nate?" I call out. Nothing. I grabbed my talkie and turned it on. "Nate, do you hear me? Nathan?" I ask. My only reply was static. I walked a few steps forward before a rope latched onto my foot and I was pulled upwards. My gun fell out of my holster and hit the dirt. "Dammit!" I yell, reaching for it. It was just out of my grasp. I began to hear rustling in the trees. I stretched my hand as far out as it would go and I managed to grab the hilt of it. I point and raise the gun towards the sound, finger on the trigger. It was Nathan!
"Whoa, whoa! Easy there, killer." He says as I sigh in relief as I toss the gun beside me. "Thank God! Why didn't you answer me?!" I say, annoyed. "Sorry, I had to turn it off. A couple of them were on my trail." He says as he walks over "They got the whole island booby trapped." He says as he pulls out his machete. "Oh, really? I didn't know. All of the blood rushing to my head must be making me forget." I say as he slices the blade through the rope and I crash to the ground. I push my hair out of my eyes and glare up at Nate. "Smartass." He says as he puts out his hand and helps me to my feet. I grabbed my gun and placed it back in my holster. I noticed how dark it had become and I looked up. The once light blue sky had transformed into a dark gray that began to block the bright sun. Nate and I glanced at each other. "We better find shelter soon. It looks like it's going to get bad real quick." Nate says. I nod as I looked around, seeking potential places where we can make camp for the night. That's when I spotted a cave. "Hey, what about in there?" I ask, pointing.
We carefully approached the entrance. Nate peered inside. "Anything living in there?" I ask. "Doesn't look like it." Nate's voice echoes. I sigh in relief. "Good. Now, we need to find some supplies to make a fire." I say as I head out into the woodland. After a few minutes of searching, we found all of the items we needed and met back inside the cave. Nate patted his pants. "Now, where did I put those matches?" He asks as I pull them out from my cargo pants pocket. I light one up and toss it into the wood. The flame shot to life.
"Nice." Nate commented. I tried my best to hide my yawn. Nate chuckled. "You get some rest. I'll take the first watch." He states. I nod as I lay down on the cold ground, using my arms as a pillow.
