An approximate four hours had passed since Boone had headed off into the jungle to go hunting with Locke.
They had managed to take down only one boar in that time that had seemed like an eternity. It always did with Locke. He never spoke when they were hunting, never even took his eyes off the trail. He was intense, alright, and sometimes it was unnerving.
Boone had been lucky enough to earn the task of carrying the heavy boar on his back as they trudged along, so that Locke would be ready, should they come across an addition to lunch.
For the first time since they had left, Locke spoke.
"We should hurry back." He said casually, apparently oblivious to the large dead boar hanging over his companion's shoulders.
"Maybe we could, if you helped me with this!" Boone snapped.
Locke ignored him, but merely pulled out a cloth and stared cleaning his knife as he picked his way through the jungle, visibly increasing the length and pace of his stride.
"Ok, I'll bite." Boone consented, struggling with the boar to keep up with Locke's quickened gait. "Why do we need to hurry back to camp?"
Locke stopped and turned on the spot, staring Boone straight in the eyes with the unnerving gaze that seemed to look straight past your face and bore into your very mind. Boone looked away, disconcerted.
"The storm." He said, as if such a fact was so blatantly obvious that it was incredible Boone had not figured on it earlier. He then promptly turned around and resumed walking back to camp, head bent over his knife, continuing to rub it with a cloth.
Boone stood still for a few seconds in stunned silence, before hoisting the boar up higher (as it was beginning to slip off his shoulders) and started a lumbering half-trot after Locke.
"Uh… excuse me?" He asked, stumbling a few times in his haste to keep up, weighed down by the corpse.
"Look." Locke said, pointing to the sky.
They had entered a small clearing, so a few bits of blue sky were partially visible through the leaves of the jungle canopy. "Not a single bird." He turned to Boone. "Wouldn't you say that's odd, this close to the ocean?"
"Well… uh…" Boone didn't really know what to say, so he settled for an awkward shrug, illustrating his point mainly with his eyebrows, as his shoulders were otherwise occupied.
"They're sheltering." Locke elaborated. "Before the storm comes."
"But…" Boone trailed off once again, still staring incredulously at the perfect blue sky. There wasn't much you could say to that.
"Can't you feel the condensation in the air?" Locke continued, smiling as he raised a hand, palm upwards, as if feeling the droplets of falling rain. "It's thick… gonna be a big one."
He said this as though the idea of a monster storm was perfectly fine, even pleasurable.
On his face was the sort of smile he was often sporting, which made you think he knew far more about the situation than he should, but his predictions were often uncannily accurate, so Boone kept an open mind.
He shifted the large carcass again, and carried on through the jungle, continuing his staggering trudge.
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Locke's prediction had proved all too correct, as by the time they had arrived back at the beach, dark angry clouds had taken over the gorgeous blue sky alarmingly fast, and the wind had picked up significantly.
"I think we should move everyone to the caves!" Jack was yelling over the loud roaring of the wind, speaking to no one in particular.
It didn't matter that no one had heard him though. Most people were heading there anyway. As the only solid form of shelter so far discovered on the island, the caves were the new most popular place to be.
It was almost like the day they had first landed on the godforsaken spit of land the 40 castaways had since then come to call home. Everyone was running back and forth, each to their own, trying to move the important items into the caves so they wouldn't be damaged by the rain.
Charlie noticed Shannon sitting idly on a rock, cleaning some gunk out from under her nails which had, somehow, managed to remain perfectly manicured all this time.
"Would the fine lady care to give us a hand?" He shouted over the noise the wind was creating against the palm trees, whipping at the palm fronds, blowing them so that they were all pointing in one direction. His voice oozed sarcasm.
Shannon merely returned his gaze steadily, as though was he was suggesting was absurd.
Charlie sighed and left her to her nail-cleaning, muttering a barely audible 'Bloody useless' under his breath.
By the time they had moved all the valuables into the cave, the wind was blowing harder still, the black clouds occasionally lighting up with a bright flash, teamed with the ominous, low rumble of approaching thunder.
This clear warning was heard by all the survivors, and they didn't need telling twice. They dropped whatever they were trying to move into the cave so they could reach the shelter faster.
"This is crazy!" Charlie shouted to Hurley as they both ran to the caves.
Hurley didn't reply, probably saving his breath for running.
They finally entered the cave at the same time as Michael and Sawyer. Being out of the wind was strange; the stillness of the air was almost eerie, especially as the wind could still be heard and the palm trees, bent double, visible through the cave mouth.
An eardrum-shattering clap of thunder sounded just as the four had passed into the shelter, alerting everyone to the sudden downpour that began, creating such a heavy sheet of rain outside that it appeared to be a waterfall over the cave mouth, and turned the sand to slush.
A nervous half-grin crept across Charlie's face.
"How's that for timing then, eh?" He said, scratching the back of his head, mainly to give him something to do.
His sentence was capped off by the cave lighting up as a crooked fork of lightning zigzagged down from the dark mass of clouds, striking the ground outside the cave only about a meter or so behind where Sawyer was standing. He let out an uncharacteristic yell, jumping away from the spot where the lightning had almost kebabed him.
"Shit!" He swore, staring the small patch on the ground where the lightning had struck, and checking himself for burns. "Son of a bitch!"
The only person who wasn't staring at the ominous view outside the cave was Locke, who was busy building a fire in the center of the cave.
Finally, the two rocks created a spark and the wood was alight, the soft firelight dancing off the pale, anxious faces of the castaways.
"This is so random." Boone whispered to Hurley, as if afraid the storm would hear. "It just came out of nowhere."
Hurley nodded in agreement, not able to speak due to a mixture of breathlessness and awe.
"Locke predicted it." Boone continued.
"Yeah?" Hurley finally managed.
"Only about an hour ago, we were in the jungle outside camp." He told him. "He said it like it was so obvious, but the sky was completely cloudless. I thought the sun must be finally getting to his head, or something."
Both Hurley and Boone shared a fain chuckle over this.
"I'm freezing dude, this is crazy." Hurley said, moving closer to the fire. "Only a few hours ago, I would've sold some major limbs for an air-conditioning system."
"You and me both." Boone agreed, following suit and joining Hurley by the fire. "But you never know what crazy thing is gonna happen next on what my sister likes to refer to as Craphole Island."
Hurley looked miserably out the cave opening at their surroundings.
"I'll have to go with her on this one." He said. Boone nodded appreciatively, clearly not at home in 'paradise', either.
A sudden thought occurred to Hurley, and he looked around, scanning the faces of the people in the cave.
"Hey, speaking of Shannon…" He began anxiously.
"What?" Boone asked, following his gaze.
Hurley looked behind him to check he hadn't missed anybody, and then double checked again. A lump rose in his throat.
"Uh, where is she?"