Okay, I'm updating a little early today so that I can spend the weekend working on other projects. I intend to update a few other projects on this profile, as well as working on a few personal pieces. Actually, I might be able to get chapter 4 up for this one! It's a little more than half-way written right now, but I don't know if I'll get it done. Eh. We'll see.
I do wanna mention really quickly that I have a link to my Tumblr account in my bio, so if you're interested, you should definitely check me out. And maybe help me get a better theme or something. (:
Okay! I don't own Danny Phantom, Lost, or anything else you recognize.
Enjoy! (:
Wide Awake
Chapter Three
February 27, 2014
Sam woke slowly that morning. Light trickled through the closed curtains of her bedroom, but it hardly bothered her. What bothered her was the insufferable heat she was currently cocooned in. With a huff of annoyance, she flipped her thick comforter down over her hips, just to find something was blocking the right side of the comforter, causing it to remain in position.
She turned and inhaled sharply. Dex was there. His blonde hair hung down over his eyes, moving every time a breath puffed past his swollen pink lips. She furrowed her brow, trying to remember when Dex said he was going to stay the night. Did we…? She lifted the sheets slightly before slapping them back down to her chest. Yep, I'm definitely naked right now.
Oh God…oh shit…what have I done? She pressed her hand to her forehead, suddenly feeling feverish. I've lived in Australia for four months and I've already managed to sleep with my only friend. Great. Perfect. Way to go, Manson.
Dex sighed in his sleep and burrowed down further beneath the comforter, tugging it up so that it was nearly over his chin. She grimaced at his sleeping face. Memories were slowly returning to her, though they were hazy with the fog of alcohol. I told him to not give me any more, and what did he do?
He poured another round of shots.
This is his fault. She felt the savage protectiveness she'd developed come tearing out of its' cave deep in her mind. He knows how I get when I have too much to drink. It's his fault, even if I came on to him. He's the one who let me get so drunk that I couldn't make a rational decision.
Right?
I need to talk to Tucker.
She rolled out of bed and seized the first article of clothing she could find, which happened to be an extra-large t-shirt that once belonged to her father, draped over the back of her computer chair. It fell to about half-way down her thighs. She tried not to look down at the carpet of clothing layering her floor; she did not want to see the physical evidence of the foreplay. She did not want to see evidence of any of it, actually.
The sight of the empty wine glasses, whiskey glasses, and shot glasses littering her coffee table nearly made her retch. She gripped the door frame tightly and closed her eyes, waiting for it to pass. When she was finally able to open her eyes again, she kept them carefully trained on the floor, glancing up only to seek her phone out on the couch before skittering to the front of her house.
It was still on half-battery, thank God. The clock read just past 10 o'clock in the morning, meaning it was just past five o'clock in the afternoon in Illinois. Perfect, she thought. He should be out of work right now.
"This is weird, I was gonna call you later. I've been worried about you," Sam's heart ached at the sound of Tucker's voice when he answered after the first two rings; she missed him more than anyone else she left behind. "Is everything okay?"
"Y-yeah," She exhaled shakily, desperately trying to keep her voice quiet enough to avoid waking Dex. "I just…you know…"
"I miss you, too, Sam," She heard him sigh. Tears flooded her vision and she had to blink rapidly to keep them from spilling over.
She laughed shakily. "How's work?"
"It's work. How's Australia?"
"It's Australia," She picked at the edge of her curtains.
"What's wrong?"
"Noth-"
"Sam, I know you better than anyone. I know something's wrong with you. What's going on?"
"I…" She exhaled again, and this time she could not keep the tears from flowing. "I screwed up."
"What happened?"
"I…think I slept with Dex last night,"
Silence followed her statement. She held very still, refusing to breathe. She could hear the distant sounds of traffic from his end of the line; he was sitting in rush hour, she was sure. "You think?" Tucker repeated.
"I mean…we were drinking…I don't really remember much, to be honest," She swallowed. "All I know for sure is that I woke up in bed with him this morning and I wasn't wearing any clothes."
"Seems like evidence enough. So…I'm sorry, but…I'm failing to see how this is a problem for you. Last I heard, you were into him."
"He's my only friend here! What if this messes everything up, what if he thinks I'm a slut now and doesn't want to be around me…or worse, what if he thinks I'm a booty call?"
"If he starts treating you like a booty call, you let me know. I'll be down there in two minutes flat and I'll kick his ass so hard he'll wish he'd never even met you."
"You're awful."
"Is that the only reason this is an issue for you?"
Sam seized a fistful of the curtain and squeezed. "It's a big part of it," She said weakly.
"Are you sure it has nothing to do with you-know-who?" It was her turn to fall silent. "Because if it is…if you feel guilty over him…if you feel like you betrayed him…I'm gonna come over there and kick your ass."
Her laugh was choked and watery. "I can't help it, Tuck," She murmured. She wanted to bury her face in the curtains. "I dated the guy for seven years. It's been four months since we broke up. It's gonna take a while for my thinking pattern to adjust."
"Has he called you anymore?"
"He'll call me every now and then. But it's only if he's drunk now, and he only leaves messages. If I answer, he hangs up on me."
"At least it's an improvement."
"Have you seen him?"
"Not since a few days after that night. I've tried, but Jazz says he doesn't wanna see me."
"Why wouldn't he want to see you?"
"He blames me. He says it's my fault you left, that I was the one who suggested you move half-way around the world to hide from him. And...let's be real, I'm not too torn up about it at this point."
"He's an idiot."
"Well, I did suggest you move to hide from him for a while. What was I supposed to do? He was getting dangerous."
"He's not anymore?"
"Jazz made it seem like he's starting to realize he's why you left. She made it sound like he's trying to improve so that you'll come back." The thought of returning home sent a jolt of excitement through her system; her fingers tightened around the curtain. "But I made it clear that you weren't coming back until you wanted to."
"You're the best." She murmured. "I should have packed you when I was moving out."
"You almost did." He chuckled. "Listen, I gotta go. There's a wreck up ahead, traffic's creeping by. I'll call you in a couple hours, okay?"
"Okay."
"Let me know how it goes. Is Dex still over there?"
As if on cue, shuffling footsteps echoed down the hall, coming closer all the time. "Uh, yeah," She said. "I'll talk to you later."
"Who the hell else would be here?" Ced demanded. "Why wouldn't they come down to the beach after that crash?"
"It could just be part of the plane," Gwen offered quietly.
"Look at the way the roots have started growing around it," Sam pointed. "It's been here for a long time. Years, maybe. That's not part of a plane that crashed here yesterday."
"But that doesn't mean that there's someone else here," Mark said rationally. "It could be something left over from a science expedition from years ago. There's no telling how long it's been here. Whoever laid it could be long gone."
"I don't know…" Sam said slowly. "It just seems a little odd, don't you think? The light and the siren from last night, now this cord…it just seems like a hell of a coincidence, that's all I'm saying."
"I've felt like we've been watched since the moment we got here," Gwen whispered, glancing over her shoulder as she spoke. "Like there's something out here in the woods that's watching all of us."
Sam felt Ced shuffle closer to where she crouched. "I doubt anyone's watching us," Sam said calmly, ignoring the prickle on the back of her neck. "I think we're all still in shock from the crash. It's not every day people survive plane crashes on a deserted island."
"Possibly deserted island," Ced corrected. Sam shot him a dirty look over her shoulder.
"D'you think we should follow it?" Gwen asked, her tone hushed and reverent.
They all turned to Mark, who had a hand on his chin and was gazing down at the cord thoughtfully. "It's only gonna get hotter the longer we stay out here," He said after a moment of silence. "I think for right now we should focus on finding fresh water for everyone. Maybe after the sun starts to set and the temperature drops a little, we can come back and follow this thing. See what we find, you know?"
"What if we can't find it again later?"
Sam stood and peeled her flannel shirt off, only just then noticing that she was sweating profusely. "We'll just look for this later," She said, tying one of the sleeves around a low branch so that it was dangling almost directly over the cord. "Try to pull a little slack up so that it's easier to spot."
The girls straightened. They stood there for a moment longer, watching the breeze that managed to snake between the tree trunks caress the flannel shirt and force it to sway slightly, before turning and starting back in the direction they were originally heading in.
"Did anyone count how many survivors there are back at camp?" Ced asked as they picked through the roots.
"Close to fifty," Mark said. "I've got enough empty water bottles in the backpacks to give everyone two."
"Wait…this thing is full of empty water bottles?" Ced swung his backpack around and unzipped the first zipper. "That means it'll be fifty times heavier on the trip back!"
"I can hold it on the way back, if you want," Gwen offered. Ced grimaced.
"I can't make you take it, what kind of man would I be to force a woman to carry such a heavy thing back?"
"Um, a sexist one," Gwen said sharply. "Women are just as capable of physical labor as men are. Right, Sam?"
"Just let him carry it back," Sam said quietly. "It'll shut him up."
"But that makes us look weak!" Gwen protested.
"Only to them."
"It's that kind of mentality in women that's causing the decline in feminism! We can't afford to think like that, we're still struggling as an entire gender -"
"Gwen, trust me. I'm all for women's rights. But you've gotta learn to pick your fights about these things. Carrying a heavy backpack back to camp won't prove anything. It won't change the world. Just let Ced carry the bag."
She could feel Gwen's glare on her face, and Mark's curious stare over his shoulder tempted her gaze upward, but she kept her eyes focused on the uneven ground beneath her feet. It was very quiet after that.
Ced heard the river before the other three. "It's over this way!" He said excitedly, jumping over a thick patch of undergrowth before reaching back to help Sam. The river ran parallel to their path for about ten yards before gracefully curving away, toward what Sam assumed was the center of the island. The water was crystal clear and Mark groaned when he brought a handful of it to his lips.
"That's definitely fresh water," He was panting as he scooped more up and splashed it over his face. Sam fell to her knees beside him, Gwen falling on her other side, and for several minutes the only sound between them was slurping, splashing, and panting.
Sam fell backwards so that she was sitting on the gravelly river bank and propped herself up with her arms extended behind her. "I didn't even notice how thirsty I was," She sighed. Her belly was full and sloshing slightly, and her hair was plastered to her forehead beneath rivulets of water running down her face.
"You'd be surprised at how fast a human body can dehydrate," Mark said conversationally, unscrewing the lid of an empty water bottle he pulled from the open backpack beside him. "I know that scientifically speaking you can go three to five days without water, but in an environment like this, it could be as fast as a few hours. Especially if the person's over-exerted themselves, by, oh I don't know, dragging people away from a plane wreck?" He replaced the lid and pulled another bottle out. "It's an incredibly dangerous environment."
"Not to put a damper on this little success," Ced murmured as he filled a water bottle, "but what are we gonna do about food? Water's great and all, but eventually people are gonna be starving,"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Mark said firmly. "I'm hoping we won't be here long enough to have to worry about that."
"I'm an ultra-recyclo vegetarian," Sam offered. The statement was met with blank faces; she sighed. "It's a form of veganism. I know what's edible out here and what isn't. If it comes down to it, I can find stuff for us to eat."
"Perfect," Mark gestured to Sam, raising his eyebrows at Ced. "Sam can take care of us."
A little over two hours later, the four finally broke through the trees on the beach. The survivors sat right on the edge between the sand and the trees, where the shade offered some shelter, in small groups. Jesse was standing almost in the water; his jeans were rolled up so that the waves slithered over his ankles without wetting his clothes.
"We found water!" Mark announced. Cheers rippled through the group as the boys unzipped their backpacks and began passing water bottles to outstretched hands. Sam watched with a small smile until she felt something touch her shoulder.
"I'm sorry if I came off a little bitchy in the woods," Gwen said softly, eyes wide and apologetic. "I just…my dad was abusive to my mom, so…it pisses me off when men act like they're better than women."
"It's okay. I used to be like you. I understand where you're coming from."
"What do you mean, you used to be like me? What made you change?"
Sam opened her mouth to respond, but hesitated. "It's complicated," She said finally. "A lot of things happened and…I just realized…I don't know. It's just how things are gonna be. There's not a lot I can do to change it."
"But there is," Gwen said urgently. "You don't have to be a victim. You can do something, you can change things…" She touched Sam's arm gently. "Have you been abused?"
Anger exploded through Sam's chest. "No," She spat, ripping her arm out from beneath Gwen's touch. "And even if I have, it's none of your business."
"I'm just trying to h-"
"Well, stop." Sam snarled. "I don't need your help. I don't need anyone's help."
Without waiting for Gwen to respond, Sam turned on her heel and stormed further down the beach. She could feel Ced watching her departure, his head turned toward her while he held his backpack open for the other survivors, but she ignored him and headed for the trees.
She was about six feet away from the tree line when the bushes began to shake. She froze, eyes glued to the swaying branches. Before she could take a step backwards, a terrible roar burst through the sounds of the beach and the bushes were ripped out of place. Sam had just enough time to process a blur of sickly green skin before she stumbled backwards, sprawling out in the sand. She felt her stitches stretch and protest the movement, but that did not stop her from scrambling backwards.
They were at least seven feet tall, with the head of a boar and the body of a seasoned body-builder. Their black tusks were as long as Sam's forearm, curving up around their mouths and glistening in the sunlight. Their eyes were red and pupil-less.
There were three, three identical beasts, three identical glares, three identical snarls.
"Sam!" a male voice screamed.
Yeah...so...I've got chapter four a little more than half-written, remember...I might be able to get it posted before the weekend is over...maybe (:
Thanks for reading! (:
- Tori
