Well, it's time to get set adrift! Thanks for reviewing, Pokemon FTW, Liz The Sweet Writer, Nicky Haugh, OmniPlanckInstant, RebelToasters12, SuperKitty4789, BluXRE, yeezynight14, Bloodylilcorpse, and the guest reviewer.

Also, you will soon find out who's stuck with Gwen. I'm actually shocked that no one guessed who it was!

I spent the free day with Dawn. We'd barely talked properly since Chris split us up, and I wanted to see how she was doing. "How's the team?" I asked. "Is Scott picking on you at all? How are the others?"

Dawn smiled. "They're all right." she said. "Scott's too busy trying to gain Zoey's trust to pick on anyone. I've warned her that he's not to be trusted, but I think she's not sure who to believe. And Anne Maria is...all right. She's been pretty quiet recently – at least, she hasn't argued with Zoey since I joined. Mike's aura has been pretty nervous for the last few days, but he seems to have calmed down a bit today."

I grinned. "I got him to spill his secret last night. But I said I wouldn't tell anyone."

Dawn gave me her "I-already-know-what-you're-thinking" smile. "It's good he felt he could trust you." she said. "Keeping it a secret was becoming a struggle for him, and I can tell that your reaction must have reassured him a little that not everyone would hate him."

"Did you know what his secret was?" I asked. "Like, was it in his aura?"

Dawn nodded. "It's like a rainbow, because of all the different parts." she explained. "I think he should tell Zoey. I can tell that she'll probably accept it and like him just the same."

I smiled. "I said that to him last night! But he said he'd had enough experiences that went wrong not to risk it again. Have you told Mike that she'll be all right with it?"

"Not yet." Dawn answered. "I've told Zoey that Mike is interested in her, but she's not sure what to believe. I wasn't sure that I should get involved."

"Well, if you tell him now," I said slowly, "He might think I broke my word. If you do tell him that Zoey will be OK with it, just make it clear that I didn't tell you and that you aren't going to tell anyone else."

Dawn looked thoughtful. Finally, she said, "I'll tell him, but not yet. I think I've figured out some of his triggers, so I'll try to prevent them from appearing. It'll be beneficial to the team, after all. Then once I tell him, he'll know I'm trying to help."

I gave a sigh. "Well, I guess whether you win or lose depends on how Lightning and I deal with being outnumbered."

"Good luck."

Around twilight, I asked Lightning if he wanted me to work out a bit, but he said "Not tonight. I'm kinda tired. Think I'll turn in after dinner."

We had a weird turkey pasta dish for dinner. I mostly tried to just eat the pasta without the turkey, but I don't think I succeeded. Thing is, I didn't remember that much after dinner. I noticed that everyone seemed to be half-dead on their feet...well, sitting on the benches. Lightning finished his serve first, and by the time I was halfway through, he was already slumped over the table.

The Maggots weren't doing much better. Mike looked as if he was struggling to keep his eyes open, Zoey was already failing, Dawn's eyes were only half-open, and Scott was almost lying on the bench. I didn't notice Anne Maria.

And then I remembered nothing.

When I woke up, it was late morning, and I started to realize what had happened. We'd had turkey. Mutant turkey. And we all knew from Thanksgiving that turkey caused drowsiness, so that meant...

I was suddenly wide awake, taking in where I was. I was on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Lightning was still asleep on the same raft, and there was a placard with our team symbol. And right beside us was another raft sporting the Maggots' symbol, and everyone on the team, except Dawn, was still lying there, eyes closed.

Dawn was sitting in the meditative position, but after a few seconds, she opened her eyes and looked over at me.

"I sensed someone else was awake." she said quietly. "I thought it might be a good idea to wait for everyone until they were ready to wake up."

"I can't believe this happened!" I complained. "I mean, seriously? Chef's food was always a killer for energy, but I can't believe he's making sedatives with it now." I paused. "But shouldn't that mean we should all wake up around the same time, since we all got the same portion?"

"You and I probably disgested less turkey than the others." Dawn explained. "I tried to avoid it, since I'm usually vegetarian. I probably just got the effect from the turkey's effects on the pasta, hence why I woke first."

"And I tried to eat little of it." I added. "I was hungry enough to eat some of the turkey with the pasta, but probably not as much as the others."I groaned. "No way! It's going to take hours to get Lightning to wake up!"

"It shouldn't be too long." Dawn reassured me. "That was fifteen hours ago. Everyone should be awake in the next hour."

She was right. Mike was the first to wake up. For the last half-hour before he woke up he kept mumbling stuff in different voices – both ones I'd heard and ones I'd hadn't. I picked out five different voices – Mike's normal voice, the old man Chester, the gymnast Svetlana, the annoying Vito, and one I hadn't heard – some character with an Australian accent. It was lucky for him no one who didn't know about his disorder didn't hear that. Zoey woke up only a few minutes after that, and Scott soon followed.

I managed to rouse Lightning myself after Scott woke up, but it took him ten minutes to get his bearings properly, within which time Anne Maria finally opened her eyes and started complaining about not being able to fix herself up.

We'd all worked out most of what had happened. Once the turkey had sedated us, we'd been set adrift. Sort of like last season, when the groups were dropped out of the plane while they were still asleep and then nearly died via Niagara Falls.

"Great." Scott muttered, eyeing the water. "Now we're gonna be some stupid shark's dinner."

"How about we call Fang, then?" I teased. Scott still owned a shark tooth Fang had left stuck in him when he first tried to eat our team. Now, it seemed that Fang was constantly going after Scott. Oh, he'd probably eat one of us if we were unlucky enough to get in the way, but Scott was his prime target.

"Don't worry." Mike reassured him. "They'll never find us in the middle of all this junk." It was true – a lot of random stuff was floating around our rafts. It was worse than the Boston Harbour after the famous Tea Party.

That was the moment Mike spotted a fedora. "Hey, sweet hat!" he exclaimed, putting it on. Then his eyes bulged for a second, and he inhaled sharply.

And I knew. I knew before he even opened his mouth, that I was seeing someone else – I guessed the Australian guy I'd heard talking before he woke up.

My thoughts were confirmed when he spoke to Zoey. I wasn't sure exactly what he said, but it was a clearly flirtatious remark.

I started making signals with my eyes to Dawn, and she nodded. She ran over to whatever-his-name-was-right-now, and pulled the hat off, throwing it further away. Instantly, Mike's eyes bulged again, and he went back to normal. "Sorry, Mike," she said apologetically, "I kind of dropped the hat into the water."

And finally, Chris and Chef decided to make an appearance on little water-scooters.

"Morning, suckers!" is how Chris greeted us.

"Morning, sadist." I shot back. Look, I was annoyed, okay? "You know, you could've just set us adrift while we were asleep naturally. You didn't have to knock us out."

"I couldn't leave it to chance." Chris said casually. "And just be grateful I left the method to Chef. I wanted to slip you actual sleeping pills, which means you'd have to do this in the dark, since there's no way you'd be awake for 24 hours. And we know for a fact that Dawn doesn't sleep much cause we checked out the cabin footage." The host grinned for a moment, and added "By the way, it's pretty sad that you need a hug so much that you hug your pillow. Waiting for someone real?"

"Hey, leave her alone!" Lightning defended. "Just tell us what the challenge is so we can win it!"

So Chris explained. Our first task was to get to shore. After that, we'd start the second part.

Okay, obvious thing to remember – there were five Maggots and just two of us Rats. "What about this," I suggested. "You use our team placard to row, and I swim and kick to get the raft to shore?"

"Sure, sounds good." Lightning said. Then he added "But I'm still team captain, right? We would've done that idea even if you hadn't come up with it!"

I didn't argue. I just dived into the ocean and began kicking and pushing.

As it was, we still didn't get to shore first. Mike, Dawn and Scott all swam and pushed like I was, and then we got waylaid by a squid. Okay, it went for the Maggots, too, but they managed to make it hit their raft so it acted as a lever, sending them flying straight to shore, while Lightning and I got soaked and struggled to shore for nothing.

Then Chris finally explained the rest of the challenge. "The second part of today's challenge started as a practical joke involving Total Drama classic competitor Gwen, but it's turned into more of a rescue mission!"

I frowned. Gwen had been a pretty cool competitor during her three seasons. Well, I liked her in the first one, where she made it to the finals. I felt sorry for her in the second one – yeah, she had to dump Trent, and it wasn't her fault the other team blackmailed her. I didn't like her as much as I had in the third season, mainly because I just didn't get why she didn't just tell Courtney about her and Duncan's kiss before someone else did. She said she'd tell Courtney if it happened again, but she should've just done it from the first – I mean, she made it clear how guilty she felt.

But anyway, Chris was hanging out in a helicopter by this point, but he switched on a monitor that was standing on the shore. It showed Gwen in a dark space. She lifted her head, but hit a...wait, was she in a coffin?

"What the..." she began. "I'm buried alive? Again?!" She pounded on the top. "CHRIS!"

Mike glared up at Chris. "Burying someone alive is seriously dangerous, even by your standards!"

"And Gwen's already been buried alive." I added. "Phobia Factor, anyone? Wait – that's why, isn't it? Because that's Gwen's worst fear?"

"Just a coincidence." Chris shrugged. "And we know it's dangerous. That's why we're using the Buddy System."

And at that moment, we heard another voice from the monitor, just as familiar as Gwen's. "What's going on?" muttered the voice sleepily.

Gwen's eyes widened. "Courtney?"

Yes, Courtney. We all knew who she was. Preppy, competitive, whiny, bossy Courtney, who'd been Duncan's girlfriend for almost a year before he dumped her for Gwen. Understandably, this made her furious. Unfortunately, it also made her unfocused, and most of her anger was directed at Gwen. Her lack of focus also caused her to become the first member of Team Amazon to let a guy get to her (that being Alejandro, by the way, since I wasn't talking about the break-up).

And now, the two girls were locked up in a wooden crate together. Oh, Courtney and Gwen had bonded briefly, mainly because Heather was on their team and neither of them could stand her, but once Duncan decided he wanted Gwen, all that was sent flying out of the plane before either of them were.

The monitor zoomed out to show Gwen's former teammate and former almost-friend lying next to her. Her eyes widened too, but not in fear. "All right, what's going on?" she demanded angrily. "What did you do, Gwen? Why are we here? Is this some kind of stupid revenge thing for last winter, because if I recall, that was your fault!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't spent every moment with Duncan trying to make him perfect, he might not have turned to me!" Gwen shot back. "And besides, you two weren't dating when he kissed me!"

"We were so!" Courtney yelled. "Now tell me how to get out of this! Don't make me call my lawyers again!"

"Will you stop with the threatening me with your lawyers?! It wasn't marriage! And besides, this is clearly something to do with Chris – my phone doesn't get service here, so we have to be somewhere on Camp Wawanakwa. Underground." Gwen's voice had temporarily gotten stronger when she'd been arguing with Courtney, but now it went all tight and terrified again.

"Do you want two contestants to die?" I yelled up at Chris. "Because you know that the longer they stay in there, the more likely it is that Courtney will strangle her."

"I said it was a rescue mission." Chris pointed out.

So, the Maggots got a map to the place where Gwen and Courtney were buried. Lightning and I got the penalty of heavy belts that chained our hands to our sides, and Lightning even got a metal detector. Weird, right?

"I was going to make Danni wear it..." Chris admitted, "But I thought it would be more amusing to see if she could do cartwheels in chains."

I scowled, and I would've folded my arms if they weren't chained. "Whatever, McClean. I can backflip with no hands anyway, but I wasn't planning on cartwheeling or backflipping to the location."

The race to the crate was really VERY boring. We actually got there just as the Maggots were already digging. I'd rather explain what happened after our metal detector made us win.

Yeah, we won. We found keys that undid our belts, and then one to unlock the chest the girls were in.

After a few seconds, I heard banging and screaming.

"Lightning, dig here!" I pointed, and the two of us scrabbled at the dirt the chest was buried under. Then Lightning unlocked it, and I helped pull the two girls out. "Hi, guys." I said cheerfully. "By the way, thanks for keeping control, Courtney. I was worried you were going to kill Gwen."

"I should..." Courtney muttered ominously. "But I'm not jeopardizing my career for that."

I smiled at Gwen, next. "Hey there, Gwen. Sorry you had to go through that again. Guess you won't be coming back next time the show asks?"

Gwen's trademark scowl appeared, but it wasn't directed at me. "Yeah, definitely not." she muttered.

So yeah, Lightning and I actually won the challenge. Two against five, and we still won!

But as usual, the one good thing about the day had to have the edge taken off it by something. When I sat on the steps, watching the Maggots come back from the campfire ceremony, I saw four figures, which I expected. But I noticed that the shortest silhouette had little bunches. Not long fair hair.

I didn't waste time, running over to the Maggots' cabin. I knocked on the girls' door, and when Zoey answered, I didn't have to ask. I could tell instantly that I was right.

"You guys voted Dawn off? Why?"

"You gonna come in or what?" Anne Maria said from the inside. I came in, to find her spraying her hair as usual. "'Course we voted her off. Gal's a threat. Gotta vote someone off."

"I didn't vote for her." Zoey said softly. "But no one really screwed up this time. I actually ended up voting for..." she cast a nervous look at her roommate. "...someone I knew no one else would vote for, because I couldn't decide."

I gave a sigh. "I guess I see your point, and I guess there's no point in hiding this – a couple of weeks ago, back when we were first on here, Dawn and I made a pact to stick together until the final two. I mean, B was with us, too, but once he was gone, it was just the two of us. Guess I'm going to have to find a new opponent."

The two girls were staring at me, probably shocked I'd actually admitted it. Anne Maria spoke first. "That took guts, girl. It was also incredibly stupid to tell us outright, but it took guts. Just don't expect me to let you into the finale without a fight. This girl looks out for number one!"

I shrugged and smiled, which seemed to release Zoey's voice, too. She seemed just as cool about it. "Well, I've watched the show. Everyone does that, so I kind of expected it." She paused. "Although you were so friendly with both teams, I expected you to be the last person to make a long-term alliance."

I shrugged again. "Well, I don't have it now. Next order of business – make Scott disappear. There's only six of us left, and the merge is coming. If he stays, I'm dead."

"He doesn't seem that bad." Zoey ventured. "He was really upset back in the modeling challenge when the Sasquatch kidnapped Lindsay and Dawn. He was saying that if Dawn couldn't talk to it, they were doomed. He's an okay guy, deep down."

"And he didn't vote for Dawn tonight." I said sarcastically, but there was no point in arguing with Zoey. Instead, I went over to the boys' side, and knocked.

Thank heavens, it was Mike who answered the knock. "Danni?" He looked confused, as to why I was calling over.

"Hey." I smiled. "Mind if we talk? Like, without anyone else listening in?"

"Sure." Mike agreed. We went back to the campfire pit, since Chris was long gone and we could see each other in the firelight, plus there were plenty of stumps to sit and talk.

"I've just spoken to Zoey." I explained. "I'm pretty sure the merge is coming up, and I think we both know that if you don't give her a proper explanation soon, you'll be off this island and will have lost your one shot with her. I know I promised I wouldn't tell, but I think one of us will have to. So it has to be you."

Mike gave a sigh. "Dawn said the same thing. She said Zoey would most likely be able to handle it, but that means there's still a chance she won't."

I sighed too. "Mike, look at it this way. In Zoey's eyes, you're a nice guy whose 'acting' means that you can't be with her, because you're always 'acting' like you're into Anne Maria. That, or you're a guy with multiple personalities who can't do anything about it, but the real you is totally devoted to her. Which of those do you want to be?"

Mike smiled slighly. "I guess the second is better..." Then he frowned again. "But I need more time. I swear I'll tell Zoey at some point, but I need more time to win her over."

"Do you have any control over keeping your alters under control?" I asked.

"Well...some." Mike admitted. "Vito stays in as long as my shirt stays on. And Svetlana only comes out when I have to attempt a major physical challenge. The others-"

"What about the Australian one?" I asked. "I didn't get his name..."

"Manitoba Smith." Mike supplied. "He comes out when I put on a fedora."
I frowned. "Then why did you put one on this morning?"

"Oh..." Mike laughed nervously. "It's weird. I actually like fedoras. It's like I've forgotten its effect whenever I see one, and I just have to try it on. Maybe it's his influence, wanting me to try it on so he can come out."

I nodded. "Okay. Tell you what. Since I think the merge will be soon, I'll try to help when it comes and make sure those three don't come out unless you honestly need one to – because I'm pretty sure that Svetlana will have to come out at some point."

Mike shrugged. "Well, she usually goes away as soon as the physical challenge is over."

I paused. "Wait a second...she's a girl? I mean, I knew she had a high-pitched voice, but..."

"I'm actually one of the most consistent people with my disorder." Mike said. "I looked it up. Most people have male and female alters – so I guess I'm kind of lucky to only have one female. Plus I guess her trigger is kind of her way of looking out for me – you know, making sure I look awesome with her gymnastic skills?"

"Okay, this is going off-track." I said. "I'm kind of tired, so I'm going to go to bed. We can talk a bit more about this later on. Good thing we have a break tomorrow."

"Okay," Mike smiled a little, "Goodnight, Danni."

"Goodnight!" I called, walking back to my cabin. How was it that I'd become prime matchmaker and peacemaker on this island?
That's why you should work on your own love life for the rest of the competition, Danni. Hope you all liked this chapter. Yes, I know I practically skipped the whole challenge, but seriously, at least most of it was stuff you haven't all seen before! And yeah, I know most of the mergers were already there (just Anne Maria instead of Cameron and Danni instead of Jo) but that can still change a lotta things!