A reddish-orange glow filled the spacious room. The last rays of the sun
broke through the open door and windows as it seemingly slipped into the
depths of the sea.
On the farthest side of the lobby area, a young man sat lazily perched on a barstool. He reached for his drink with his right hand while using his left to swipe through his sun kissed hair. The fact that the young man had yet to reach his twenty-first birthday did little to dissuade him from quenching his thirst with alcohol. Furthermore, it was not as if he was in any danger of legal repercussions; nor did his companions ever bother to try and influence him to behave differently.
Turning away from the indifferent bartender, the young man allowed his gaze to drift across the rest of the room. Though the furniture was not boastful, each piece was clearly expensive and hinted at a traditional elegance. To an outsider it would look like nothing more than an upscale tropical resort. Yet, he found it to be much closer to a tomb clothed in silence.
Even on the rare occasions when more than a handful of the islanders were together, he still found it to be excruciatingly quiet. Books were read in silence. Meals were eaten in silence. Even conversations seemed to occur in silence. Since his arrival more than a year ago, the man had gone onto the beach on numerous afternoons and screamed into the endless ocean. His only goal being to break the silence.
At the youthful age of twenty, Jason Masters had fallen into a restlessness that most individuals are unable to reach until their thirties or forties. He had only two things in common with the others: he was trapped in paradise and he was all but forgotten by the outside world.
It had been the third week of August in 2002, the day before he was scheduled to board a plane and finally be free of Salem. He had foolishly thought about all the fun that awaited him once he was away from his hometown. He had been so eager to leave all his friends behind.
Quickly tossing a tequila shot down his throat, Jason bitterly recalled that heated night that changed the entire course of his life.
Just after nine o'clock, Jason had left Dotcom by himself. He had told his friend Hawk that he was going to book a room near the airport and would be leaving early the next morning. In a jovial manner, he vowed that vanishing from town would be the best thing to ever happen to him.
Jason had been twenty feet from his car when he had paused under the dirty yellow light of a street lamp. In retrospect, he could hardly remember the cause of his delay. He had only a vague memory of his cell phone being in his hand. No matter the cause, at 9:10 that Friday evening, Jason Masters stood bathed in the light, clearly visible to those who lurked in darkness. His attention had been caught by something in the alley to his left. Jason vividly recalled a man stepping out from the shadows' safety. From photographs in the local newspapers, Jason recognized that man as the supposedly dead Stefano DiMera.
From seemingly no where, two men grabbed Jason from behind. As he vainly struggled to free himself, Jason watched in horror as it happened.
Jason grimaced as he swallowed another tequila shot. Though he could not actually remember all the events of that night in August, he knew it would haunt him for a lifetime. From the limited stories he'd heard from his fellow islanders, Jason guessed that he had been brainwashed after witnessing something he never should have seen. And, should the brainwashing ever lose its grip on his mind, Jason would still be unable to tell the world Stefano's secrets since he was hidden away with the madman's other victims.
Near the window facing the beach, a dark-haired beauty sat curled up in a chair. In her hands was a classic novel by Jane Austin. Jason knew that the fallen princess had surely read the novel three times since she arrived on the island in the fall of 2002. Reading had become Greta's sole passion. Her communication skills had deteriorated as her literary knowledge increased. She purposely lost herself in a world of fiction.
The only other occupant of the room was a woman Jason would guess to be her in mid-fifties. Her light hair looked almost ablaze as the sun brushed over it, yet the simple white dress she wore made her appear nearly angelic. In her frail hands she gingerly grasped a set of needles and in her lap lay the latest of her quilts.
Four months after Jason's imprisonment on the island, he had returned from a swim only to find an intricate quilt carefully folded and placed on the bottom of his bed. It had been the first time since his childhood that he had allowed himself to cry.
Even when Jason had thanked the woman for her gift, she had not spoken. She merely gave him a reassuring smile and returned to her work. In fact, the only times she spoke was when she was with her children. They alone could coax her into moments of lucidity.
Jason watched Rachel Blake with eyes tainted by faint envy. More than any of the others, she was content. Rachel did not mind being forced to live separate from the world. She even seemed to welcome it. Besides, she had something that Jason truly wanted - the company of family. Both Rachel's son and her daughter had eventually been brought to the island. If Jason was not mistaken, the older woman had been a willing prisoner for three years before Stefano had forced Peter and Kristen to join her in the repugnant paradise.
Jason's gaze moved away from Rachel when he caught sight of someone walking into the room. Looking at the man, a dark-haired fellow in his thirties, Jason realized that he was the type of person that should be held captive by Stefano DiMera. It was the type of world that someone with the last name Brady should endure - not a young guy like himself without a single connection to the condemned DiMera clan.
As was the case on almost every evening at sunset, Frankie Brady indifferently walked through the lobby and disappeared out the open front door. Jason knew from his own time on the island that Frankie would sit on the beach until the sun completely faded away and the stars began to populate the darkened sky. Only then would he return indoors and make his way to his room. While positioned on the sand, Frankie would merely sit and watch the ocean. He would not bring a book or any other form of distraction. All the man needed was solitude as he kept his gaze focused on the water.
Though there was no need, Jason glanced at his watch. The action merely verified what time he already knew it was - the island's twisted, ritualistic version of happy hour. After all, if the sun was setting, that meant Frankie was heading out to be alone on the beach, Peter was reviewing the library's law books, and the two younger ladies of the island were each having dinner alone in their rooms.
One of the women, a dark-haired girl not much older than Jason, had lived in Salem for a short time. Jason knew little about her but recognized her as the younger sister of Nicole Walker. He was unsure when or how Taylor had arrived at the isolated estate, and he knew better than to ask. The girl had become somewhat anti-social since her kidnapping and preferred to not speak about what had caused her to be ripped away from the real world.
Jason guessed that if he went out the door and circled around to the back of the enormous home, he would see the other young woman eating alone on her small balcony. He knew very little about the blonde woman. He would assume that she was in her early twenties and had once been optimistic. Jason would not have necessarily described the beauty as now hopeless, but it was painfully clear that she no longer believed in any dreams she had once harbored. From their brief conversations, Jason knew that the woman's name was Sarah and that before being kidnapped she had been living in the small town of Aremid.
Sarah's misfortune had come when she had overheard Stefano speaking with doctors on the telephone. She had unfortunately learned that it had not been Tony who framed John Black but Andre DiMera.
Sarah had not ever offered Jason any further details, but he got the distinct feeling that she had accidentally unearthed much more about the DiMeras than she confessed.
Just before Jason turned back around on his barstool, he caught a glimpse of another of his cohabitants entering the building. He mentally chided himself for not remembering that particular part of the evening routine. It was always just at sunset that Ben returned from his run along the northern beach.
There was one thing that set young Ben apart from the others. Unlike Peter and Kristen, he was truly a DiMera. Known in his youth as Benji, the young man was the deaf son of the mighty Stefano DiMera. His maternal grandfather had protected Ben in his youth, but after his death, Stefano had forcefully claimed what he considered his. And, when Ben had refused to go with his father, Stefano had punished him with a trip to the island. That trip had begun in the summer of 1998 and showed no signs of ending any time soon. Despite his true DiMera blood, Ben was just as much a captive as any of the other nine prisoners.
Several minutes later, after Jason had returned to the unhealthy habit of nursing drinks, a figure sat down on the stool beside him. Wordlessly the bartender, who doubled as a guard, poured the man his usual scotch. The man was handsome in a rather rugged manner. He wore his hair longer than the other men, yet it was a look that fit him well.
The two men, separated by an age gap of twenty years, drank in an amiable silence. Yet, Jason was wise enough to realize that there was surely a reason for the man to actually approach him. And, after several more minutes passed, the older man began to speak.
"I've got a question for you, kid."
Jason kept his own gaze locked on his empty glass sitting on the counter. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"Do you know what today is?"
The world seemed to suddenly stop as Jason struggled to find the purpose of the question. Then, he realized that it was more than just another Thursday late in November. "Thanksgiving."
"Yeah," answered the man. "Sometimes I almost forget that holidays ever existed. It seems like a lifetime since I've seen my family and celebrated a damn thing."
Asking the question that was practically a taboo on the island, Jason quietly demanded, "How long have you been here?" Steve Johnson gave a wry smile that simply did not reach his hollowed eyes. "Twelve years."
His heart taking an almost imperceptible leap, Jason closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment before speaking. He had known that Steve, known to his loving family as Patch, had been on the island longer than any of the others. However, hearing the number of years come from the man's own mouth seemed to hit Jason especially hard. He felt as if he were going insane after merely one year. Jason was not sure if he would be able to physically survive more than a decade of detention.
As though he were reading Jason's thoughts, Steve said, "In the beginning I would try to escape every other day of the week. I came up with all kinds of schemes to get away from this place."
Looking at Jason, he continued, "Like you, I tried building a raft so I could sail away."
A look of utter surprise washed over Jason's face. He'd been certain that his confiscated vessel had been a secret to everyone but the guards who had discovered it.
"In fact, I tried that method on eleven different occasions." His face becoming quite darker, Steve added, "On the last time, a couple of DiMera's henchmen shot me in the leg. They told me if I tried it again, they'd do the same to my wife and kids - only it wouldn't be a wound they'd recover from."
Jason had no words to offer in response. After all, what could he possibly say to a man that had been held against his will and threatened for twelve agonizing years?
"You should probably know that the little blonde girl cries herself to sleep every night. My room is next door to hers and that's the last thing I've heard before going to bed for the past seven years. I'm not sure how much longer she can get up every morning and act as though she's not about to go over the edge."
"I didn't realize that things were that bad for Sarah."
"They're worse," Steve mysteriously commented. Offering no elaboration, he commanded, "Do me a favor. Don't let Christmas be as bad as this holiday. Besides the princess, you've been here the least amount of time - you have the most recent experience with really living."
"What do you want me to do?"
"There's a good chance none of us will ever leave this island. Just do what you can to at least make life here less than miserable."
Jason, slightly stunned by Steve's blunt words, asked, "How exactly do I do that?"
"My first thought? Quit relying on alcohol and start depending on yourself. You're young - figure out a way to use that to your advantage. Let's face it, you won't be able to make this a happy place. Just do what you can to keep the people here alive. Because, I've been dead for too long to be of any help."
Jason watched Steve rise from his barstool and head toward the staircase. His words of advice echoed in Jason's mind. And, he could not help but wonder one thing.
Could he really make a difference?
He prayed to God that he could.
THE END . . . for now.
On the farthest side of the lobby area, a young man sat lazily perched on a barstool. He reached for his drink with his right hand while using his left to swipe through his sun kissed hair. The fact that the young man had yet to reach his twenty-first birthday did little to dissuade him from quenching his thirst with alcohol. Furthermore, it was not as if he was in any danger of legal repercussions; nor did his companions ever bother to try and influence him to behave differently.
Turning away from the indifferent bartender, the young man allowed his gaze to drift across the rest of the room. Though the furniture was not boastful, each piece was clearly expensive and hinted at a traditional elegance. To an outsider it would look like nothing more than an upscale tropical resort. Yet, he found it to be much closer to a tomb clothed in silence.
Even on the rare occasions when more than a handful of the islanders were together, he still found it to be excruciatingly quiet. Books were read in silence. Meals were eaten in silence. Even conversations seemed to occur in silence. Since his arrival more than a year ago, the man had gone onto the beach on numerous afternoons and screamed into the endless ocean. His only goal being to break the silence.
At the youthful age of twenty, Jason Masters had fallen into a restlessness that most individuals are unable to reach until their thirties or forties. He had only two things in common with the others: he was trapped in paradise and he was all but forgotten by the outside world.
It had been the third week of August in 2002, the day before he was scheduled to board a plane and finally be free of Salem. He had foolishly thought about all the fun that awaited him once he was away from his hometown. He had been so eager to leave all his friends behind.
Quickly tossing a tequila shot down his throat, Jason bitterly recalled that heated night that changed the entire course of his life.
Just after nine o'clock, Jason had left Dotcom by himself. He had told his friend Hawk that he was going to book a room near the airport and would be leaving early the next morning. In a jovial manner, he vowed that vanishing from town would be the best thing to ever happen to him.
Jason had been twenty feet from his car when he had paused under the dirty yellow light of a street lamp. In retrospect, he could hardly remember the cause of his delay. He had only a vague memory of his cell phone being in his hand. No matter the cause, at 9:10 that Friday evening, Jason Masters stood bathed in the light, clearly visible to those who lurked in darkness. His attention had been caught by something in the alley to his left. Jason vividly recalled a man stepping out from the shadows' safety. From photographs in the local newspapers, Jason recognized that man as the supposedly dead Stefano DiMera.
From seemingly no where, two men grabbed Jason from behind. As he vainly struggled to free himself, Jason watched in horror as it happened.
Jason grimaced as he swallowed another tequila shot. Though he could not actually remember all the events of that night in August, he knew it would haunt him for a lifetime. From the limited stories he'd heard from his fellow islanders, Jason guessed that he had been brainwashed after witnessing something he never should have seen. And, should the brainwashing ever lose its grip on his mind, Jason would still be unable to tell the world Stefano's secrets since he was hidden away with the madman's other victims.
Near the window facing the beach, a dark-haired beauty sat curled up in a chair. In her hands was a classic novel by Jane Austin. Jason knew that the fallen princess had surely read the novel three times since she arrived on the island in the fall of 2002. Reading had become Greta's sole passion. Her communication skills had deteriorated as her literary knowledge increased. She purposely lost herself in a world of fiction.
The only other occupant of the room was a woman Jason would guess to be her in mid-fifties. Her light hair looked almost ablaze as the sun brushed over it, yet the simple white dress she wore made her appear nearly angelic. In her frail hands she gingerly grasped a set of needles and in her lap lay the latest of her quilts.
Four months after Jason's imprisonment on the island, he had returned from a swim only to find an intricate quilt carefully folded and placed on the bottom of his bed. It had been the first time since his childhood that he had allowed himself to cry.
Even when Jason had thanked the woman for her gift, she had not spoken. She merely gave him a reassuring smile and returned to her work. In fact, the only times she spoke was when she was with her children. They alone could coax her into moments of lucidity.
Jason watched Rachel Blake with eyes tainted by faint envy. More than any of the others, she was content. Rachel did not mind being forced to live separate from the world. She even seemed to welcome it. Besides, she had something that Jason truly wanted - the company of family. Both Rachel's son and her daughter had eventually been brought to the island. If Jason was not mistaken, the older woman had been a willing prisoner for three years before Stefano had forced Peter and Kristen to join her in the repugnant paradise.
Jason's gaze moved away from Rachel when he caught sight of someone walking into the room. Looking at the man, a dark-haired fellow in his thirties, Jason realized that he was the type of person that should be held captive by Stefano DiMera. It was the type of world that someone with the last name Brady should endure - not a young guy like himself without a single connection to the condemned DiMera clan.
As was the case on almost every evening at sunset, Frankie Brady indifferently walked through the lobby and disappeared out the open front door. Jason knew from his own time on the island that Frankie would sit on the beach until the sun completely faded away and the stars began to populate the darkened sky. Only then would he return indoors and make his way to his room. While positioned on the sand, Frankie would merely sit and watch the ocean. He would not bring a book or any other form of distraction. All the man needed was solitude as he kept his gaze focused on the water.
Though there was no need, Jason glanced at his watch. The action merely verified what time he already knew it was - the island's twisted, ritualistic version of happy hour. After all, if the sun was setting, that meant Frankie was heading out to be alone on the beach, Peter was reviewing the library's law books, and the two younger ladies of the island were each having dinner alone in their rooms.
One of the women, a dark-haired girl not much older than Jason, had lived in Salem for a short time. Jason knew little about her but recognized her as the younger sister of Nicole Walker. He was unsure when or how Taylor had arrived at the isolated estate, and he knew better than to ask. The girl had become somewhat anti-social since her kidnapping and preferred to not speak about what had caused her to be ripped away from the real world.
Jason guessed that if he went out the door and circled around to the back of the enormous home, he would see the other young woman eating alone on her small balcony. He knew very little about the blonde woman. He would assume that she was in her early twenties and had once been optimistic. Jason would not have necessarily described the beauty as now hopeless, but it was painfully clear that she no longer believed in any dreams she had once harbored. From their brief conversations, Jason knew that the woman's name was Sarah and that before being kidnapped she had been living in the small town of Aremid.
Sarah's misfortune had come when she had overheard Stefano speaking with doctors on the telephone. She had unfortunately learned that it had not been Tony who framed John Black but Andre DiMera.
Sarah had not ever offered Jason any further details, but he got the distinct feeling that she had accidentally unearthed much more about the DiMeras than she confessed.
Just before Jason turned back around on his barstool, he caught a glimpse of another of his cohabitants entering the building. He mentally chided himself for not remembering that particular part of the evening routine. It was always just at sunset that Ben returned from his run along the northern beach.
There was one thing that set young Ben apart from the others. Unlike Peter and Kristen, he was truly a DiMera. Known in his youth as Benji, the young man was the deaf son of the mighty Stefano DiMera. His maternal grandfather had protected Ben in his youth, but after his death, Stefano had forcefully claimed what he considered his. And, when Ben had refused to go with his father, Stefano had punished him with a trip to the island. That trip had begun in the summer of 1998 and showed no signs of ending any time soon. Despite his true DiMera blood, Ben was just as much a captive as any of the other nine prisoners.
Several minutes later, after Jason had returned to the unhealthy habit of nursing drinks, a figure sat down on the stool beside him. Wordlessly the bartender, who doubled as a guard, poured the man his usual scotch. The man was handsome in a rather rugged manner. He wore his hair longer than the other men, yet it was a look that fit him well.
The two men, separated by an age gap of twenty years, drank in an amiable silence. Yet, Jason was wise enough to realize that there was surely a reason for the man to actually approach him. And, after several more minutes passed, the older man began to speak.
"I've got a question for you, kid."
Jason kept his own gaze locked on his empty glass sitting on the counter. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"Do you know what today is?"
The world seemed to suddenly stop as Jason struggled to find the purpose of the question. Then, he realized that it was more than just another Thursday late in November. "Thanksgiving."
"Yeah," answered the man. "Sometimes I almost forget that holidays ever existed. It seems like a lifetime since I've seen my family and celebrated a damn thing."
Asking the question that was practically a taboo on the island, Jason quietly demanded, "How long have you been here?" Steve Johnson gave a wry smile that simply did not reach his hollowed eyes. "Twelve years."
His heart taking an almost imperceptible leap, Jason closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment before speaking. He had known that Steve, known to his loving family as Patch, had been on the island longer than any of the others. However, hearing the number of years come from the man's own mouth seemed to hit Jason especially hard. He felt as if he were going insane after merely one year. Jason was not sure if he would be able to physically survive more than a decade of detention.
As though he were reading Jason's thoughts, Steve said, "In the beginning I would try to escape every other day of the week. I came up with all kinds of schemes to get away from this place."
Looking at Jason, he continued, "Like you, I tried building a raft so I could sail away."
A look of utter surprise washed over Jason's face. He'd been certain that his confiscated vessel had been a secret to everyone but the guards who had discovered it.
"In fact, I tried that method on eleven different occasions." His face becoming quite darker, Steve added, "On the last time, a couple of DiMera's henchmen shot me in the leg. They told me if I tried it again, they'd do the same to my wife and kids - only it wouldn't be a wound they'd recover from."
Jason had no words to offer in response. After all, what could he possibly say to a man that had been held against his will and threatened for twelve agonizing years?
"You should probably know that the little blonde girl cries herself to sleep every night. My room is next door to hers and that's the last thing I've heard before going to bed for the past seven years. I'm not sure how much longer she can get up every morning and act as though she's not about to go over the edge."
"I didn't realize that things were that bad for Sarah."
"They're worse," Steve mysteriously commented. Offering no elaboration, he commanded, "Do me a favor. Don't let Christmas be as bad as this holiday. Besides the princess, you've been here the least amount of time - you have the most recent experience with really living."
"What do you want me to do?"
"There's a good chance none of us will ever leave this island. Just do what you can to at least make life here less than miserable."
Jason, slightly stunned by Steve's blunt words, asked, "How exactly do I do that?"
"My first thought? Quit relying on alcohol and start depending on yourself. You're young - figure out a way to use that to your advantage. Let's face it, you won't be able to make this a happy place. Just do what you can to keep the people here alive. Because, I've been dead for too long to be of any help."
Jason watched Steve rise from his barstool and head toward the staircase. His words of advice echoed in Jason's mind. And, he could not help but wonder one thing.
Could he really make a difference?
He prayed to God that he could.
THE END . . . for now.