Walt finds out what the Others want him to do, and meets someone new.

After about twenty-three hours, Walt woke to find himself starving and staring at an unfamiliar cave ceiling. He had hoped that the events of the past night only comprised the worst nightmare of his life, but as he became fully conscious, realized that was not the case. His next observation was that there was a manacle, attached to a chain connected to a bed leg, on his right wrist. To his surprise, the inside of the manacle was padded, so that the edge didn't cut his hand. Perhaps the idea was to ensure he wasn't hurt while being restrained.

Not expecting success, Walt rolled off the bed, and tried to pull the chain loose from the bed leg to which it was attached. The noise attracted the attention of the Others, and two of them entered. One spoke:

"I see you're up. Come, it's time to tell you what you're going to do for us."

"I'm not going to do anything for you! You just left my father and friends to die!"

The Others unlocked the manacle, and told Walt to wash up and have some fruit that had been placed on the table in his room. At this point he wouldn't have minded if the fruit had been drugged, so he wouldn't have to face the Others again, but soon came to the conclusion that they wanted him well rested and awake for whatever it was to come.

When he was finished eating, the Others grabbed Walt's arms and marched him up the corridor they had traversed early that morning, around a corner, and into another room fashioned out of a cave chamber. Walt shuddered at the sight of various chains, and a whip in a holder attached to the wall. He was led to a position facing a wall. As two of the Others held his arms straight up, a third secured a manacle, each attached to a chain and padded on the inside again, to each wrist. Next, that Other pulled down on the chains, which evidently ran over pulleys, and caused Walt's hands to be raised high over his head, to the point where his heels were just able to remain on the ground. Turning his head to the side, he was able to see an Other remove the whip from its holster. Walt shuddered as the Other lightly stroked his back from top to bottom with the tip of the whip.

What Walt didn't know at the time was that the Others needed him in top physical condition, and never had any intention to whip him. This was just an act to scare him into submission. They pretended to argue:

"You don't need to whip the boy. Let's show him the raft instead, and he'll cooperate."

"The only way he'll cooperate is if he tastes the sting of this at least once and learns we mean business."

"Give him one chance. If he doesn't cooperate, then you can let him have it."

The voices grew more inaudible, and Walt agonized over his fate. He couldn't believe this was happening. He reflexively tensed for a blow to his back—which never came. After a couple minutes of silence, Walt dared to turn his head. He was alone in the room.

Walt found he could turn his back to the wall, feeling better if he could see what was coming. But apparently nothing was coming. He felt ridiculous stuck there standing with his hands straight up, and now perspiration started streaming down his body. After fifteen minutes he got the idea of pulling down on the chains, but nothing budged. In an attempt to alleviate the increasing aching of his arms, he got up on his tiptoes, moved his hands enough to grab the chains above the manacles, and jumped into a pull-up. He held the raised position for several seconds, again noting the mechanism holding the chains in place was immobile, and then lowered himself slowly to the floor. It was an improvement, with the blood circulating more freely in his arms, although it did make him more sweaty.

In another quarter hour Walt mitigated his discomfort with another pull-up, and then a third about another fifteen minutes later. He started to think if he was going to get whipped, they might as well get it over with. But another possibility was that the Others were messing with his mind. He would have to watch out for that. Finally, after an hour of being confined to that humiliating vertically stretched position, the Others returned.

"We had a little discussion, and took a vote. Turns out there was a tie, so we're gonna let you decide. Half of us think you should be whipped now. Half think it's better that we let you promise to cooperate fully if we take you to see your Daddy's raft to show that he and your friends are okay. You cooperate, no whip. You cross us, and … ," the Other holding the whip cracked it a little to one side of Walt. "So what's it gonna be?"

What kind of a choice was that? The Others were indeed probably messing with his mind, but Walt had to go along. "I promise to cooperate if you let me see my Dad and friends."

"All right then, let's go." But before releasing Walt's hands, the Others clapped more padded manacles connected by a chain half a meter long around Walt's ankles. This would allow him to walk, but not run. Walt was sure they were overdoing it, but the possibility of seeing his father and the fear of the whip prevented him from saying anything. Next, his right hand was released, but promptly placed in a more conventional handcuff. When his left hand was freed, Walt immediately brought it down next to his right hand, in front of him. As Walt hoped, his left hand was quickly cuffed, so that his hands were in front of his body instead of behind his back. What a thing to consider a victory.

The Others led Walt along another corridor and up a long flight of stone steps. Along the way, Walt thought about how he had wanted to be treated like an adult on the island, and why he preferred the company of Locke to that of Michael at the beginning. Several of the adults had been handcuffed—Jin, Kate, Sayid, Sawyer, where there others he didn't know about? And now he was getting his turn. He made a mental note to be more careful what he wished for.

After perhaps fifty meters of climbing, the group entered a small room They must have been part way up the mountain the raft crew had seen from the ocean the day before. A small opening was in a north-facing wall, and incredibly enough, the raft was in better shape than he thought possible, and was visible through it! However, it was too far away, maybe two kilometers from shore, to determine if any the people were on it. Walt said as much, and the prepared Others gave Walt an old-fashioned but operating spyglass. Aiming it to the left, or west, Walt's heart leapt as he could make out the figures of his father and Jin paddling away, although Sawyer was just sitting, leaning against something, maybe a remnant of the cabin. The mid-afternoon sun danced off the waves, and gave Walt an idea. While pretending to be focusing on the raft crew, he angled the spyglass halfway between the sun and the raft, and quickly turned it back on the raft. For a split second it appeared that the sun's reflection caught Michael's eye, as he suddenly flinched, and looked away, but there was no further reaction. That was all Walt could risk attempting. He would now go into his obedient act. Handing back the spyglass, he said, "Okay, I'll do what you ask now."

As a show of good faith, the Others released Walt from the manacles around his feet and the handcuffs. Walt guessed that he was being tested, and an attempt to make a break for it now would result in something very unpleasant. They retraced their steps down the stairs, and right at the bottom stood another of the Others, one that he hadn't seen before, just waiting for any captive to make a run for it. Walt gave himself credit for analyzing this situation correctly.

The group proceeded into the corridor that connected to the stairs, but this time turned right into a new room, which appeared to be some sort of laboratory. Walt was instructed to sit in a heavy steel chair, and groaned inwardly as the twins were at it again, tying him securely to it. It seemed to Walt that the twins were having a race to see who could tie up one side of him the fastest. Within a minute Walt found himself with his arms extended downward and his hands tied to the back chair legs, pinning his shoulder blades to the back of the chair, with more ropes around his ankles and knees connected to the front legs of the chair. The Others then told him to try to get loose, for his own good. That didn't make sense, but those twins had done their job very well. Actually, it appeared that they got a kick out of watching him struggle. Fishermen were supposed to be good with knots, if they really were fishermen, or at least part time. Walt thought, "Isn't all this unnecessary?" He sure wasn't going to be able to do anything for the Others in that position.

Then the leader of the Others entered the room, announcing that he had the explanation. "We were part of a scientific expedition investigating rare and valuable minerals found only in this part of the world. Something went wrong, and we were exposed to something that made us, let us say, unwelcome anywhere else in the world. You don't need to know the details. What you do need to know is that there is an antidote mineral that is present in sufficient quantities in the mines here, but that is impossible to detect with ordinary equipment. However, with suitable preparations, children who have been living here can detect the presence of the mineral. We have conducted enough experiments on animals over the past several years to determine the required substance."

As if on cue, the middle-aged female Other from the boat took a couple of jars and walked over to Walt. She took a cotton swab, moved it around in one jar, and then swabbed Walt's left shoulder with iodine. Next, she filled a syringe from the other jar, announced, "I'm going to be honest, this is going to hurt," and injected the full contents into Walt's defenseless shoulder. In a second he screamed at the pain, and thrashed about wildly, but the only part of his body he could move any significant distance was his head. He strained mightily at the ropes, but they held fast. The reason for the restraints this time was now evident; without them Walt could easily have hurt somebody, including himself. After a minute the pain subsided, and Walt was left with a strange feeling in his head.

When his breathing had returned to close to normal, the Others untied Walt. He promptly set about rubbing his sore wrists. The leader continued, "There is a peculiar property about this mineral. When you are in contact with any infected person, you will lose your ability to detect it for about twenty-four hours. Thus you will start mining it tomorrow. Fortunately, we have someone who is not infected that you can be around, and will serve as your guide. All of our orders will be relayed through her, and you must follow all of them without question. She will show you everything else you need to know.

"Her? She? Who could this be?" thought Walt.

Another Other then escorted a teenage girl through the door.

"Here is your guide now," said the leader. "Her name is Alex."