Prologue
Her eyes shot open as mouthfuls of thick, humid air rushed into her aching lungs.
Gasping involuntarily with every breath, her body shuddered violently in relief as oxygen graciously began to return to her body.
Her eyes, dilating and constricting wildly, darted around as her senses came rushing suddenly back.
Sand. She was lying on sand, she deducted, her fingers grasping at the coarse grains in bewilderment. She flinched as rain drop after rain drop pelted her face, feeling like thousands of sharp needles piercing her skin. Despite the weather, drops of sweat trickled down the sides of her face and down her neck, disappearing into soaked folds of fabric. Raising her hand to wipe it away, she found that it wasn't sweat, but blood. Feeling around tenderly, she frowned as her hand came away entirely red.
Her mouth was dry, her lips cracked, and there was a distinct metallic taste at the back of her throat. She swallowed several times convulsively, feeling as though there was cotton lodged in her esophagus.
She smelled salt. Vague familiarity told her that she knew the smell, had smelled it very often before.
Ah, yes, she thought hazily. Ocean salt.
She was on a beach.
The revelation fell from her thoughts as she slowly became aware of sound. Her pulse quickened as they gradually became louder, more intense.
Screaming. Crying. Waves, water being splashed. Deep, vibrating booms of thunder she could feel in her ears. Sporadic strikes of lightning, cracking like a whip.
She turned her head in the direction of the noise quickly, her stiff neck protesting. Getting to her feet, she stumbled a few steps through the sand as she took in the horrific sight before her.
A large passenger boat lay broken in two parts, one half half-sunken in the waves, the other splintered in pieces across the vast shore. There was smoke everywhere, streaming heavily from the blazes of fire engulfing the boat pieces on land despite the heavy rain. Rolls of thunder seemed to erupt mercilessly from the heavens, where they hid behind dank, dark clouds. White lightning lit up the sky, casting the entire scene in white.
There were people everywhere she could see. Running back and forth, screaming for help. Lying limply on the beach, unmoving. Standing at a distance, watching. Crying. Some were still in the water, their arms flailing. Names were being called in desperation, with frantic hopes of hearing an answer. The mass hysteria could be felt; a senseless feeling of panic was invoked within her as she ran into the midst of the insanity.
Adrenaline pumped through her body in waves as she sprinted across the sand, radiating across the entire span of her body. Her body tingled lightly as she became breathless, everything become vivid and sharp.
"Help! Help, please! Somebody, please, help me!"
She swiveled in the direction of the plea, her ears ringing.
It was a woman calling, her face contorted into a painful grimace. She ran over, assessing the situation in a matter of seconds. The woman was caught halfway beneath several planks of wood, her legs completely hidden.
"Please, help me, please. It's my legs, please help-"
"Hey! Somebody, help me! I need a hand, please!" She screamed hoarsely, her throat raw.
A nearby man, dragging himself through the sand, looked up at her screams.
"C'mon! We need to get her out!"
Without hesitation, he ran to her side, kneeling down beside her.
"On the count of three…You lift up the planks, and I'll pull her out," she directed, trying to be heard over the crowd. The man nodded, a glint of determination flashing in his dark eyes.
"One…Two….Three!" she hollered, before pulling on the woman's arms with all her strength. At the same time, the man elevated the boards enough so that the woman's legs were freed.
Her heart sank upon seeing the condition of her legs. While they were both still intact, there was a substantial amount of blood soaked through the bottom half of the woman's dress.
"Okay…okay, we need to staunch the blood flow," she said, swallowing her panic. Quickly she thanked whatever it was that made it so she wasn't the squeamish type.
Dismissing the thought, she looked to the man for help, only to see him untying a purple bandana from his head. Brown curls spilled out, and she found herself wondering how could possibly see, among other things.
"Tourniquets," the man said, moving down toward the woman's legs. "The pressure will stop the bleeding." He glanced up at her briefly, before averting his eyes towards the woman again. "Give me your bandana."
Quickly, she untied her own bandana from her head, handing it to the man. He shot her a toothy grin before resuming his tying.
"Hey! We need some help over here! Somebody, please!"
She was on her feet within seconds, sprinting away again.
Following the screams, she found two middle aged men standing in the waves, looking out to sea. They were both calves deep in the water, their faces horrorstruck. Another man lay several feet back on the sand, his eyes closed. She ran to him, fearing the worst.
He was pale, incredibly so, but as she listened she could make out a heartbeat. Faint and a little slow, but there. Convincing herself he was in fair enough health for the time being, she raced out to the men in the water.
Following their gazes, she watched as two children clung weakly to a part of the dismembered ship, about fifty meters out from shore.
Without a single word to the adults, she launched herself into the water. Her arms and legs pumped wildly, despite her exhaustion, and as she reached the pair, she realized that one of the children was being held aloft by the other.
"Help!" the boy hollered, strong fear coloring his tone. "Help!"
"Grab onto my back," she ordered, trying not to swallow water. The boy hesitated, his bottom lip trembling.
"If you don't, we're all going to drown out here," she said, her limbs already burning. "Please. Get on my back."
The boy seemed to steel himself before letting go of the object, struggling to keep his own head above the water along with the girls. He made it onto her back safely with the girl, and she began the swim back.
The three managed to reach the sand successfully before she fell to the knees with exhaustion, every part of her shaking.
"Charlie! Eliza!" the men hollered, grabbing them tightly in their arms. They were all crying except for the girl, having woken up upon hitting the sand.
Listening to their sobs of relief, she got to her feet wearily and walked away from the rejoicing parents.
Wiping the salt from her eyes with a shaky hand, she walked quickly across the sand once more.
Out of nowhere, an unnerving sound echoed across the clearing, followed by a low groaning noise. Searching the wreck, her eyes widened as she saw one of the larger boat remnants dissolve in flames. Fire had ravaged the carpentry, weakening the boat's infrastructure beyond repair. But within the ruins, something else caught her eye. The fuel tank.
Below the up-ended wreckage, three people stood together, unaware of what was happening. The debris continued to incinerate, blazes spreading closer every second to the part holding the fuel tank. The realization of what would happen struck her like a bucket of ice cold water.
"Move!" she screamed, cupping her dirty hands around her mouth. "Hey! You need to move!"
They couldn't hear her over everyone else. She began running.
"Move! Get up, get out now! The wreckage, move!"
The group looked up at her, stricken by the panic in her voice. Looking up, their countenances turned from confusion to fear almost instantly. They began running as well, with her behind them to force them onward out of the way.
Within mere seconds, the fire reached the fuel tank. The derelict wreckage burst into a fiery inferno, setting the place where the group had been standing to flames.
The force of the collapse sent them off their feat, with the heat of the explosion licking their backs. Spreading her arms, she ducked into them as she hit the sand hard.
The screaming increased with the fuel tank's implosion, high keening and shrieks finding their way to her ears. She winced, her head already pounding with a steady throb.
Removing her arms from the back of her head, she slowly looked up at the catastrophe. Orange flames reached towards the sky, black smoking trailing from the tallest blazes. She could feel the blistering heat from where she lay, feet away. Another round of thunder reverberated through the beach, almost seeming the shake the ground. Manic flashes of lightning danced wickedly across the sky, seeming to enjoy the devastation.
Looking back at the three people to her left, she half-hearted smiled upon seeing that they were all alive and staring back at her in an awestruck silence.
"You're all okay," she said, relieved.
"You saved us," one of them whispered, a young woman who looked to be her own age. Other than some singed hair, she looked to be of health. Her eyes filled with tears, which she wiped away with a grimy hand fitfully. "Thank you."
Another person, a plump, middle-aged woman, said the same and smiled. She had a long cut stretching along her face, and seemed to be slightly breathless, but looked to be uninjured.
The third, a tall man wearing dark clothing, said nothing. He watched her with an inscrutable expression, his jaw set and eyes narrowed fractionally.
After catching her breath, she got back to her feet, slightly off-balance. Placing her hands on her hips, she looked out across the beach. People were beginning to gather away from the wreckage, some attempting to gather their remaining belongings while others deemed it a hopeless attempt.
An overwhelming feeling of dismay nearly sent her back to the ground as any remaining adrenaline left her body. Leaning over, she placed her hands on her knees and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
"Hey," a deep voice said. She looked up at the group to her left, suddenly dizzy.
"Yeah?"
"What's your name?" the man drawled, leaning on his knees. His voice carried the accent of a southern drawl. The other two women were looking at her as well, waiting for an answer.
Exhaling deeply, she turned to watch the others on the beach before answering. Swallowing thickly and resisting the urge to spit out a glob of what she was convinced was blood, she turned her head back to the group.
"Chelsea. My name's Chelsea."
Author's Note: Hello readers. I'd like to thank you for reading this, and hope you enjoyed the prologue. To clear things up in case you were a bit confused, instead of it just being the usual five (Chelsea, Taro, Felicia, Natalie, and Elliot) who crashed on the Island, I changed it so that every Island resident unlocked in the game were the ones who crashed. As is, I do not own the game or franchise of Harvest Moon, nor do I own their characters. Tell me what you think in a review! I'd love to hear some feedback from my readers. Thanks again!