The next day, Sun came up to where I was sitting and asked me if I had seen her wedding ring. I gave her a polite no, then watched her shoulders slump as she walked away. My eyebrows furrowed, and I got up to follow her.

"Kate," I called. She nodded at me. "Did Sun lose her wedding ring? She looks really upset."

"Yeah. We've been looking for a little while now, but so far…" Kate shrugged. Pity darkened her green eyes. "Nothing." I watched Sun ask another person the same question, and when they shook their head no, she moved on to another.

I joined the search, but still we couldn't find Sun's precious ring. Eventually, I found her sitting on the fringes of the camp, staring out into the ocean. I plopped down next to her, the heartache emanating off of her making my throat close up.

"You know," I began uneasily. I had the feeling she wasn't in the mood for the talking, but I went on anyways. "I had an older brother who died last year. I loved him so much, and I packed one of his shirts in my bag to remember him by. But I lost it when we crashed on the island." Words eluded me, and I had to pause for a moment before I went on. "I hated that I lost the shirt, but it wasn't really the shirt I'd lost. It was my brother that had gone," I explained as Sun stared at me.

I clasped one of her hands in mine, trying to give her my most reassuring smile. "You'll find it," I said. "And when you do, you'll stop feeling so empty and helpless inside." A light of understanding seemed to appear in her eyes, and I got up and walked away, feeling that my work was done.

A few hours later, I heard that Sun had found her wedding ring. Well, I thought, smiling sadly, that makes one of us.

I noticed that night when Sayid and Shannon disappeared together. They were spending more and more time together, and to tell the truth, I was feeling a little jealous. I had no Sawyer, and now Shannon had taken Sayid away from me. When I saw them laughing, however, I felt like the worst person in the world, and tried to banish those thoughts from my mind.

Screams woke me up, but I was too late in getting to the person who screamed to figure out what caused them. I did, however, get there to find out that it was Shannon who had been screaming, and Sayid was now calming everybody down.

I went back to my tent and slept soundly for the rest of the night. No weird dreams, no interrupting mayhem, nothing.

I woke up to a rumbling sky, grey and uniform. Great, I thought bitterly. Now it's gonna rain all over me. As if life didn't suck already.

Sayid trodded past me, looking very upset. "Hey, wait up," I said, going after him. "What's wrong?"

"Shannon's gone off into the jungle to find Walt," he explained. I slowed for a second. There were about three or four things wrong with that sentence.

I didn't ask questions, though. "I'm coming with you to find her," I said decisively, as if daring him to say otherwise. He didn't, and I walked with him into the dense jungle.

We soon began to run when we couldn't find Shannon. Finally, we broke out of the jungle into a clearing on a high hill. Shannon stood there, Vincent's leash entwined in her fingers. She was casting about, visibly distressed.

I hung back when Sayid went to go talk to her, not wanting to overhear anything personal. They started to move again, and I followed at a slower pace. It started to rain, and Shannon began to run. We followed her, until she fell on her face.

Sayid tried to comfort her, but she was breaking down. He managed to calm her down, but she was focusing at something over his shoulder.

"Walt!" She cried. She darted up to go, but I managed to catch her wrist.

"Shannon, don't! It could be dangerous!" I shouted, but she managed to twist out of my grip. She plunged through the undergrowth with me hot on her heels.

Very suddenly, a gunshot tore through the air. I jumped maybe a foot, and looked around wildly for the source of the noise, heart hammering in my chest. I couldn't find anyone holding a gun, but I saw a flash of pink as Shannon stumbled out and into the nearby arms of Sayid.

I noticed the blood blossoming on her shirt a second before he did.

"Shannon?" He cried, shaking her. She didn't respond. "Shannon! Shannon!"

I looked up, and through my blur of tears, saw a person standing in front of us, holding a gun in her hands. Rage clouded my thoughts, and I launched myself at her.

A strong arm caught around my waist right before I got to her, however, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't break free.

"You killed her!" I screeched, clawing at the woman's face. It was a centimeter out of my reach, which angered me even more. "You killed her!" The person holding me tried to drag me away, but I fought against him like a wild animal.

I was still trying to fight my way to the woman when I was knocked unconscious.

When I came to, I was tied up to a tree, right next to Sayid. Shannon's body was nowhere to be seen. I tried to get out of my bonds, but Sayid shook his head at me.

"It's no use," he murmured. "They're too tight." He fixed his gaze on his shoes, and I saw that his dark eyes were even darker.

"I'm sorry," I managed to say after a moment. "If I had held my grip on Shannon's wrist tighter, she wouldn't have run…"

"It's not your fault," Sayid replied in a monotone. I wondered if, after this incident, we would ever be able to have fun like we did a few days before.

The woman who had shot Shannon warily walked up to us, and I fixed a gaze on her face. I didn't know who she was, or how she had got here; all I knew is that she had killed the woman my friend had loved.

"Your friends are going back," she said to us.

"Are you going to kill us?" Sayid asked her in reply. Her mouth twitched, but other than that, she didn't move a muscle. "If I were you, I would do precisely that."

Thanks a lot, Sayid, I thought. When the woman didn't answer, I thought for sure she was going to shoot us. However, she stepped forward and undid our bonds instead. I watched in surprise as she dropped Sayid's gun at his feet. He stood up, pulling me up with him.

"Now," she said. "Are you going to kill me?"

I suddenly felt very afraid, and took Sayid's hand in mine, looking uneasily up at him. Don't, I silently prayed. Sayid's eyes darkened even more, until they looked almost black, and I squeezed his hand. He glanced sideways at me, the tears in my eyes making him hesitate.

"Why should I kill you," he replied, "when we are both already dead?"

He began walking towards our camp, stopping to pick up Shannon's body on the way. I held the dead girl's hand, and when I looked at her face, mouthed I'm sorry.