We are not alone
Based on this:
Only you and your mother remain on the island. Once a month you see distant lights out on the water. You are safe, she says, as long as you douse the fires at dusk. But tonight you accidentally fell asleep and now those distant lights are drawing nearer.
My first Frank x Hazel story!
Chapter 1 Vacation's don't last forever
Hazel still didn't understand why she and her mother had left their home and moved someplace so far away from the rest of the world. They had been happy, hadn't they? Were they in some sort of trouble? She didn't know.
At first she thought that they were just going on a family vacation, it was always just the two of them and though they didn't have much money, her mother had told her that she had been saving up for a special mother daughter trip somewhere nice.
Hazel had been really excited imagining some far off beach resort with a spa for them to be pampered in, maybe some sort of shopping trip like the other girls at school would talk about. She had imagined getting on a big plane and being able to see out the window and look at the ocean as they flew over it. Or the clouds so close she could almost touch them. She had always wanted to go on some kind of vacation like that.
But that's not how it had happened.
She sighed as she thought back on what had led up to this point.
Well there had been a plane, though it was one of those small ones that you heard about on the news that crashed into the mountains or something.
She had seen the ocean through the window, not much of a view because it was dark or overcast at the time.
And of course there was a beach, and she had it all to herself, because they weren't at some fancy resort or tourist hotspot, they were on some island in the middle of nowhere.
This mother daughter trip had not been what she had pictured in her mind and it was definitely no vacation, because vacations don't last for a year.
At first Hazel was confused but decided that she could still make the best of this, at least her and her mother were here together, but as time went on she began to worry because her mother had started acting very strange. She had set in place a list of strict rules that under no circumstances were to be broken. As long as she followed these rules they would be safe.
No fires in the open after dark
Do everything she was told without question
Leave no trace of their presence on the beach
If she ever saw a plane or boat, she was to hide immediately
Stay within the edge of the tree line after dark
No distress signals
Hazel had felt scared for both herself and her mother, were they in some sort of danger? Did they flee for their lives and her mother had only told her that it was a vacation so that she wouldn't worry? Were there bad people looking for them?
Hazel was so scared for her mother that she followed the rules faithfully and without question. She only ventured out to her beach when the sun was coming up or when it was raining so that if a boat or plane was nearby it would have been difficult for them to see her, and she would be able to take cover in the dense trees before they could be sure that she had been there.
What really worried her though was that once a month a ship, maybe a personal fishing boat or something would appear on the horizon and it seemed to be searching for something, could this be the ones that her mother was afraid of? Hazel didn't want to worry her mother but she couldn't help the curiosity that welled up inside her whenever she saw that boat in the distance, so when her mother was off on the other end of the island Hazel would set up camp in the trees near her beach and watched for that boat.
Every month she did this, and every month she would watch the water from morning till evening, only lighting a fire if she needed to. Today it had been very cloudy and it looked like rain so Hazel made a small shelter and because it was cold and the boats and planes didn't usually come by when it rained, Hazel decided it should be safe to light a fire. The warmth was welcomed and the flickering flames were something else to stare at besides an empty ocean and dark cloudy sky. The flames were so hypnotic and the warmth so comfortable that she ended up falling asleep, forgetting to douse the fire, one of the most important rules her mother had set in place.
…
Off in the distance a small boat sat on the water and someone stood on the deck peering through a pair of binoculars and saw a speck of light in the distance.
So what do you think so far? Please let me know.