Authors Note:-
Please note that this is the first story that I have ever written in my life. The language and grammar probably won't therefore be up to scratch, but i've done my best. Therefore please go easy on me in any reviews you write. But please do write me a review, I would love to hear your thoughts as I have really enjoyed writing it.
This story is set around 1990, when Ben had taken over as leader. I've tried to keep things authentic, although this hasn't quite worked out in some places, and I have had to bring in fictional day to day characters, as well as bring some forward in time that wouldn't have actually been around when the story was set (e.g. Juliette). I have also made some assumptions about how The Others had lived, which may not actually be true to the show.
The story is about Sophie's relationship with Richard, however, to get there it took me a while to set the scene. Therefore please forgive me that he doesn't actually feature in the first 3 chapters. He will appear in the 4th though I promise, and then feature heavily form then onwards.
Chapter 1 - The Beginning
My eyelids slowly opened, as I roused from my brief, restless sleep. It was now morning, and as the inflatable raft I was lying on silently bobbed along the ocean surface, an image came into focus on the horizon, that, for the first time in 48 hours, gave me a glimmer of hope. It was an island. I had no idea where I was. The boat I had been travelling on had met it's fate somewhere between a small island called Kiribati and Hawaii in the Pacific, but the raft had been drifting for two days, in which direction, I had no clue.
My name is Sophie. i'm nineteen years old and from England. I am slim, have wavy long brown hair and blue eyes. I grew up without a Mother, and my Father died last year after a long battle with cancer. I have no other family, and no real roots in the town that we lived in. After finishing school, with the small amount of money that my father had left me, I set out on a gap year and went travelling. I'd started out in Australia and New Zealand, before going off the beaten track and making my way around various small islands in the pacific. Few of the islands had airports, and I was travelling on a budget anyway, so most of my journeys consisted of small boats run by local operators, with very questionable health and safety standards. It was on one of these boats, whilst on my way to Hawaii that things went wrong. There were just four of us on board - the captain, and two other passengers, who's shady looking appearance and large number of holdalls made me suspect they were on a drug run, or perhaps guns or something else illicit. I kept my head down though, and did my best to avoid engaging with them, until an argument that had escalated between them became too heated to ignore. They were speaking in Spanish (I think), so couldn't follow what it was about, but eventually the captain stepped in, prompting one of the men to pull a hand gun out. Whatever the captain had said must have riled them, as large bangs started ringing in my ears, as I cowered in the corner of the boat. Next thing I was aware of was seeing the captain being flung overboard by the impact of a bullet. I can only assume that one of the bullets also caught the boat's fuel tank, as I became aware of flames engulfing the vessel. The gangster duo began pulling out the inflatable life rafts from a cupboard, and threw them into the water after activating the auto inflating mechanism. There were 3 in total. I decided my time was up on the boat and jumped overboard. Still wary of my fellow passengers, I tentatively clung to one of the rafts, but didn't presume to claim one as my own immediately in case they had other ideas. My luck was in though and they loaded one of the rafts with their bags, and both clambered onto the other. By this time the distance between mine and theirs had widened, and I climbed in, collapsing breathlessly, as the sheer horror of my situation sunk in. There was nothing I could do. The boat was ruined, together with any communication equipment that would have been on it. I had nothing, no possessions, nobody, and no idea which direction any form of land was. After staring out to sea for what felt like hours, exhausted, I fell asleep.
For two days my routine consisted of sleeping, and staring out to sea at nothing. My fellow travellers were long gone out of view. There was nothing on the horizon, there weren't even any birds in the sky. The silence was eerie, just the gentle ripple of water, and if it weren't for my situation I would have considered it relaxing. I was hungry, but more then anything thirsty. I longed for it to rain, but other than 1 brief shower there was nothing. My head throbbed, and I was weak and delirious. When I finally saw the island, I feared my mind was playing tricks on me, but as it became clearer, and closer, my spirits finally started to rise. The tide must have been pulling the raft in, as slowly I got closer, until I ran out of patience and decided to swim the rest of the way. Half and hour later, I collapsed on the sand.