On the beach of an uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean lay a dark-haired girl. She started coughing saltwater not so long after washing up on shore. The sun blinded her when she opened her hazel eyes, and a loud, strange ringing noise deafened her, but it was over before she could understand what it was. She lay there, face down on the sand, for a few minutes, processing her surroundings: the sweet swaying of the waves, the distant screech of the seabirds, the almost imperceptible crackling of the sand beneath her. Her throat and nose and lungs burned, her limbs were sore, her head throbbed. After deciding she was not dead, the girl started to move, kneeling on the wet sand and sitting on her ankles. What she saw made her gasp, which made her have another coughing fit: a bright green jungle that seemed to extend for miles, framed by equally vibrant-colored mountains in the distance.
A wave gave her a gentle push, as if the ocean were urging her to get up and going. Struggling, the girl walked out of the water and towards the palm trees. When she stepped on the hot, dry sand she noticed she had lost both her shoes and a sock. She examined herself once she was under the shade of a palm tree: she was bruised and scratched all over, her tangled hair was in a messy ponytail, and she had a shallow cut that ran from her left temple to her cheek.
It took her a few minutes of looking around to comprehend what was happening. When she realized no one was coming to get her, terror started creeping up in her heart. Tears began to flow as the girl staggered along the beach, crying out her family's names, over and over, until exhaustion knocked her down, and she dragged herself to the shade, where she sat and bawled.
Her clothes and hair and tears were completely dry by the time the girl got to her feet again. She was thirsty and hungry, and she decided that being miserable in the sand would do her no good. So the girl made a promise to herself that she would not cry for her family until she found them again. In the meantime, she'd try her best to keep herself alive.
The girl walked into the jungle, with one bare foot, seeking something to eat. She didn't dare venture too much into the island, worried that one of her sisters might really be on the beach and looking for her. She stayed at a ten-minute-walk distance from the tree line, always careful to stay parallel to it. She found mangoes and bananas, but no water. Carrying as much fruit as she could, the girl went back to the beach, hoping the water in the fruit would keep her hydrated enough until she found a lake or a river.
The sun was starting to go down in the distant horizon. It would get cold soon, the girl thought, so she tried to make a fire. She tried and tried and tried. About two hours later, when it was already dark and cold, the girl finally succeeded. She didn't give up until she had produced a decent fire, the kind of perseverance that would've made her father proud.
After feeding the bonfire with as many dry branches as she could find to keep it alive through the night, the dark-haired girl went to sleep. It was a restless sleep, for she had constant nightmares. She woke up crying several times, and she chastised herself after each, mad at her subconscious for betraying her like that. If she cried for her family, it would be as if she had already accepted that she would never find them again, that they were dead. She couldn't allow this, so she immediately forced herself to sleep again, only to wake up to the same result. It was an endless loop of sleeping, dreaming, and crying that went on for hours, only broken in the early minutes of dawn.
A hint of sunlight was just peering from behind the ocean when the girl woke up, not because of a nightmare, but because of the whispers. An unintelligible murmur came from the jungle, an eerie sound that seemed to be calling her name. The girl didn't move at all, slightly frightened and almost expecting someone, or something, to pop out of the trees. But nothing did, and the whispers faded, and the girl sunk back into a dreamless sleep.
It was well into morning when the girl woke up again. While she had a poor breakfast of mangoes and bananas, the girl reflected on the whispers she had heard a few hours earlier. She was sure that the murmur was of human voices, very creepy voices, but human nonetheless, and she was convinced that it meant she wasn't alone on that island. "I must find them," she said to herself, "my family might be with them or maybe they can help me find my family." Resolute, the girl set off for the jungle, carrying her leftover fruit in a rickety pouch made of palm leaves.
The next two days went by monotonously, with every minute seeming to stretch longer than the previous one. In the hottest hours of the afternoon, every step the girl took built up the regret of having left the beach. She was sweaty and smelly and tired and thirsty, and she soon discovered what a pain it was to be a woman on a deserted island.
The nights were no better. The girl slept on, and covered herself with, palm leaves. She didn't dare make a big fire, scared she might set the whole jungle aflame; instead, the girl lit some branches in a hole in the ground, which didn't really provide much warmth but at least prevented her from freezing to death. She didn't rest, for she kept waking up, either from nightmares or insects crawling on her. The night in the middle of a deserted jungle was terrifying. Strange noises, including the whispers, which infiltrated themselves into the girl's dreams, came from everywhere around her and being surrounded by pitch black darkness made being awake and asleep indistinguishable.
In was until her fourth day on the island that the girl found water. It was early morning, and she was exhausted after yet another sleepless night; she felt lightheaded, and her whole body ached from the lack of water and food. The girl had actually thought about lying down on the ground and letting Death find her. But the faint and distant sound of falling water sparked a light in her, and she almost ran towards the sound. She found a small lake with a little waterfall cascading from the rocks opposite of where she was standing, and she would've cried if she weren't so dehydrated. The girl drank and drank and drank, feeling alive again. She washed her clothes, and she skinny-dipped in the lake, washing herself for the first time in days.
A few hours later, the girl was aimlessly and peacefully floating when she noticed a particular smell in the air. It smelled like the dead boar she had found the day before. She looked around, and to the left of the waterfall, shaded by the vegetation, lay the decomposing body of a boar. Except it wasn't. Upon closer inspection, the bundle of bones and putrid flesh took the shape of a human. She screamed; she had never seen a corpse before, especially not one in this state of putrefaction. After the initial fright, she got out of the water and into her clothes and walked towards it out of morbid curiosity.
The smell was foul and made her gag. It wasn't very pleasing to the eyes either; the hot tropical weather had taken its toll on him. Next to the cadaver lay his clothes and a left shoe; the girl wondered why this man had removed all his clothes except for one shoe before dying. She had a nauseating idea. Her feet were injured from walking barefoot in the jungle for days. This man would no longer need his conveniently thick-soled combat boots.
Tearing up, holding her breath, disgusted by herself, she removed the right shoe from the dead man. From the pull, the man's rotten foot separated from the leg. The girl shrieked, stumbled back, and barfed.
It took her a while to recuperate and go back for the boots and clothes, which she washed thoroughly for an hour. She learned that the man belonged to the U.S Army and his army-green uniform had a label with his name, Fitzgerald. She laid the garments on the sun to dry and dedicated herself to have lunch.
It was way past noon when she was ready to resume her trek. She went back to Fitzgerald's body with the intention of saying a eulogy for him, but she only mumbled "I'm sorry," and covered him with foliage. She took a last sip of water and went on her way. But she didn't make it far.
"Don't move," demanded an accented voice with a click when the girl was merely steps away from the lake. She halted, surprised. A real voice! "Turn around," it ordered. Not just any voice, the voice of another girl!