Akari shivered and trembled. She was scared, so scared. She didn't know what was going on.
She tried to ignore the slimy liquid on her fingers and brushed her hands on her pants, breathing heavily and trying to slow her heart down. She felt like it was going to beat out of her chest. She was curled up in the corner behind the kitchen counter of her house, her knees tucked to her chest with her scrawny arms wrapped around her legs.
She yelped at the sound of someone beating their fists on her door. "Akari!"
She shot up from her position on the floor. "Luke!"
She sprinted to the door, wrenching it open. She didn't have time to take in his mangled appearance. Bo stood behind him, and in a crowd behind him, was Gill, Dale, Kathy, Luna, and Chase.
Luke grabbed her wrist and roughly yanked her out of the house. "Akari, there's no time. Pascal's loading up the ship. We're leaving."
So the entire island knew. She didn't lock the door, didn't grab her things. She just slammed the door shut and headed with the group down the path to the edge of the sea. She didn't look back to the bloody mess that had attacked her. She surveyed her friends from behind as she and Luke lagged toward the back so they could talk-he was her best friend. Everyone had disheveled hair and clothes, and some people had small bags or backpacks with them. Some had bleeding cuts and others didn't have a scratch on them.
Luke looked bad. A dark brown bloodline that had dried caked his hair to his forehead, and the bandage that normally covered his nose had been ripped off. His jaw was bruised and he had a few cuts on his arms. "What happened to you?" Akari asked.
Luke looked down at the path as they walked, lowering his voice. He waited before answering. "It was Owen. We were hanging out in the woods... He just started throwing up, and... He turned around and attacked me. I couldn't even take him. I had to run away, he's still out there."
Akari sighed, looking up to see they were nearing the pier. Pascal stood waving them over urgently. The group hurried along and hustled aboard the ship.
"Where are we going?" Gill asked Pascal.
"There's multiple islands I was planning to travel to and collect the rest of the survivors. First are the Sunshine Islands."
Akari kept close to Luke. "How do you know we got everyone?"
"We stopped by every house and looked everywhere. The rest of us-all nine of us-are the only ones that aren't sick. This is all we could do."
Akari could barely believe it. The sickness had spread rapidly throughout the island, having started only a few days ago. The symptoms only got worse and worse, and even Jin didn't know what it was. Then, on today, the sick ones seemed to have a switch flipped in their heads. As Luke said, Owen just attacked him.
Akari shuddered, trying not to think about the lumbering figure that came after her as soon as she stepped out of the door to water her crops. She wanted to forget.
Dale and Bo came over to spend time with Luke. In a group they discussed what was going on, and they all agreed that if the other islands were sick too, it had probably spread to the mainland by now, and they had little hope. What they did have, though, was each other.