Short first chapter, but they'll be longer from here on out, assuming I continue the story.

The newcomer washed up on the western coastline. Soaked to the skin and squinting in the bright morning sun, it took him close to an hour to completely come to. He wiped salt-encrusted eyes and sat up, blearily trying to gather his bearings.

First came confusion. He looked, but he processed little. He saw nothing but endless beach to both his left and his right. Before him was a dense jungle, with mountains cropping up over the heads of the trees.

Next came panic. He pushed himself to his feet as his gestures became frantic. He patted his pockets, hoping his wet trousers would provide some sort of solution to his blight. But he found no phone, and little else. A pack of moist cigarettes, a silver lighter, and a pocketknife. None of them were the means of contact he sought.

Then was despair. He cursed, kicking the sand before dropping to his knees. A few seconds passed, then he felt something dig into his side. With curiosity and apprehension, he dug further into his pockets, finding a palm-sized compass that he didn't recognize. He held it out and tried to find north.

But the red needle only spun in place, as if to reinforce that he had no idea where he was. Calm acceptance finally set in, and what little survival skills he had began to work. It was warm, and the jungle seemed tropical. Was he near the equator? Somewhere in Central or South America, perhaps?

Shaking sand off his sneakers, he started walking toward the jungle. He'd burn up in no time if he didn't seek shade. For now, he considered finding food and shelter his foremost objectives. If he ran into civilization while he did, then he was saved. But until then, he reluctantly thought that planning for the worst would be the best plan

The hunter watched the newcomer push into the jungle. His movements betrayed his obvious nature: clumsy and loud. The hunter climbed several branches higher, tracking the newcomer from the new vantage point. He kept his bow slung, knowing full well that the newcomer was no threat to him, especially not at this distance.

The hunter's body tensed. The newcomer was stumbling toward a cave, oblivious to the impending danger. The hunter rapidly ascended further up the tree, climbing with the agility of a monkey. When he broke through the canopy, he plucked a mirror from one of the pouches at his waist, angling it in a specific direction and catching the sunlight.

The veteran caught the glare from the corner of his eye. It blinked in a sequence, and the veteran's eyes widened. He jumped to his feet, grabbing his own mirror shard. He hastily flashed back a message of his own.

He waited a few anxious seconds, then saw two flashes. He forced himself to relax a bit. The matter was out of his hands, even if that very fact put him ill at ease. In his experience, little good ever came from sitting on the sidelines. The hunter would be fine, there was no question of that. What mattered was the newcomer, and how quickly the hunter could intervene. If he made it in time, they had a potential ally. If not, he'd be another body buried just under the island's surface. Or worse: he'd become a feral. The veteran unconsciously ran his hand over the steel cap that covered the stump of his left wrist.

It would be better if the hunter got to him in time. Or at least put him out of his misery.

The cave was dark, but it was a great deal cooler inside than it was outside. For the newcomer, that was enough. It was dark, but dark was acceptable if it meant being out of the scorching sun. As he pushed further into the cave, what little light there was faded to nearly complete darkness.

The newcomer looked down at his hands with surprise. Somewhere between the beach and the cave, he'd found a short branch and trimmed it with his knife. By the time he'd finally noticed what his hands had been busy doing, he'd already bound a clump of vegetation to the end. He stared at his crude tool in bewilderment, his free hand automatically straying to his pocket. He felt the lump there, finally realizing what he had made.

"It's a torch," he murmured, reaching into his pocket and flicking out his lighter. The dry material at the end went up in a matter of seconds, and he stashed the lighter as the torch slowly illuminated his surroundings.

He'd figure out how exactly he'd accidentally made an improvised torch later. For now, he just wanted to explore the cavern further. His basic survival instincts should have been screaming for him to stop, but pushing on just seemed…natural. Almost the same way he'd crafted the torch without being aware of it, he found himself exploring further even as he debated turning back or continuing.

He froze in place. He heard a clatter from the darkness, beyond the torch's reach. Something tapping against the stone floor, a paced one-two sound pattern. If the newcomer didn't know better, it sounded like footsteps, but the sound itself didn't match. It sounded most like dry wood against stone.

Whatever it was, it was difficult to tell how close it was. The echo made it nearly impossible to estimate the range, but it couldn't have been far. The newcomer took a risk and called out,

"Anyone there?" A moment later, the clattering stopped, but there was no reply. A moment more, and the sound resumed. One-two, one-two…

"Hello?" the newcomer asked again. Still no response. One-two, one-two…

"The hell with it," he muttered, turning around and taking a step back toward the entrance. But after a few meters, he lost his footing on the rock floor. He stumbled, but caught himself before he hit the ground.

It was the error that saved his life. Something hissed over his head as he righted himself, sparking against stone ahead of him. The object fell to the ground and into the torchlight. It was an arrow, crudely made with a piece of shaped flint at the tip of a hand-whittled shaft.

The clattering behind him stopped. The newcomer spun around, holding the torch outward to illuminate the source. His blood ran cold when he saw what stepped into the light, and his mind locked up.

The skeleton had no right standing, much less moving. It was completely stripped of flesh and muscle, and nothing seemed to hold the joints together. And yet it moved, stepping into the torch's range and somehow fixing the newcomer with a piercing gaze in spite of its lack of eyes. Even more frightening was the bow clenched in its bone digits, and the quiver visible through its empty ribcage.

The newcomer's eyes widened as the skeleton reached over its shoulder, drawing a new arrow from the quiver. It notched the arrow against the bowstring and drew it back with the same smoothness of an experienced archer. The bowstring snapped, and the newcomer was dimly aware of the piercing pain that suddenly infected his shoulder. And with the same frightening lack of hesitation, the skeleton drew another arrow to finish the job.

The pain of the arrow wound finally hit him. It compounded with the shock of his attacker's appearance, and the constant anxiety he felt since finding himself ashore on the strange land. It was finally too much for him, and his vision began to fade as his brain shut itself down.

The last thing he saw before passing out was the skeletal archer, notching its second and final arrow.

Well, that's it for now. Short, I know, but it'll be longer from here on out. This first chapter's short in part because I wanted to get it posted, and in part because it lets me finish on a cliffhanger ;). The characters won't remain nameless, either.

Anyhoo, love it or hate it, drop a review, anonymous are accepted.