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Chapter 5
A few days passed since the incident with Sawyer in the jungle, and life on the island wasn't exactly quiet. When we'd got back to camp, Kate told Jack about the French woman's distress call, and then as I talked back towards my tent I'd heard heated words between the pair; I don't know what was said but they didn't seem happy with each other.
Sawyer and I seemed to avoid each other and to be honest, I needed the thinking space, I needed to clear my head. But that didn't stop me from checking him out every time I saw him, or to stop my heart from beating out a samba as he walked past.
Although we'd agreed not to tell anyone about the polar bear, I had to tell Jack. He hadn't believed me at first but when Boone and Kate confirmed it, he laughed bitterly and shook his head. That was the end of it.
It seemed there was a system starting on the island of who did what job. Some people ventured into the jungle to collect fruit for the group. Jin caught fish, even Hurley and Charlie had a go when they'd fashioned pointy sticks – however the less said about that the better. Jack, Boone, myself and a few others, took on board the more gruesome task of moving the dead to the fuselage. It was Jack's idea, we didn't really want bodies lying everywhere, it sounds horrible, but who wants to be stranded on a desert island surrounded by bodies? It sounds like the stuff of nightmares when you put it like that.
It was late that afternoon when the scary stuff happened – or at least it seemed scary at the time. We'd heard this rustling, beast-like sound coming from the fuselage. We thought it was the monster from the jungle – even that sounds pathetic, 'monster'. But that's for another day. Anyway, we were all pretty scared. Someone, and I don't know who, shouted 'run!". We all began running around like idiots; Locke was the only one who kept his cool.
"It's just a wild boar" he told us later, our panic all seemed stupid then.
But this incident got us all thinking; we couldn't just leave the bodies rotting in the fuselage, acting as snacks for the local wildlife population. It was Jack who suggested we burned the bodies, and everyone, including myself, agreed with him. It was almost disrespectful to the dead not to. So we planned to set fire to the fuselage at sundown.
We were running out of food too. Locke, Michael and Kate were going into the jungle to find some wild boar for us to eat. Locke had shocked us all when he'd opened up his suitcase to reveal hunting knives, lots of hunting knives.
"Be careful out there" I told Kate as I hugged her goodbye.
"I will" she said and then with a wink, she laughed, "have fun with Sawyer".
I blushed tomato red.
I spent the rest of the day sitting around the camp with Claire and Boone. Alongside Jack and Kate – and probably Sawyer – these two were my favourite survivors. Claire was so nice and friendly, and so like myself in many ways; while Boone was just a nice guy who I could talk with easily. I tried to make myself think of him in a more romantic light, but every time that I tried, an image of sawyer would pop up in my mind.
It wasn't long, maybe a couple of hours before Michael and Kate turned up at camp. Michael was hurt but it wasn't too bad. Jack patched him up as best he could. Everyone was pretty shocked when Kate said that Locke was going after the boar alone. I doubted that he'd be back; I'd seen some of the things the creatures of the island could do.
We shouldn't have doubted Locke, he returned, limping a little, with a dead boar for us to eat. It wasn't an ideal meat source but we were all ecstatic at actually having some food to eat.
After our food, and when the sun was going down, I stood on the beach with the rest of the survivors, the darkness lit by the wild flames of the burning fuselage. Claire was reading the names of the dead of the planes' manifest. She looked like she was about to break into floods of tears at any moment. I too felt like crying.
It seemed like every day brought a new problem for us, on the sixth day, the problem was fresh water. We didn't have much left, in fact we were near enough out of all it together. We only had four small bottles between just over forty survivors. My mouth seemed to be constantly cracked and my throat constantly dry. Locke offered to go into the jungle to search for a fresh water supply, I offered too but after Jack ran off I knew it was best I stayed in case anyone needed medicine – Jack had sort of trained me up a little so in case the worst happened I'd have at least a little knowledge on what tablets to give to people.
Really, it was a good job I stayed behind. Claire collapsed, it was beyond scary. One minute she was talking to Kate, then the next she was lying on the floor.
"Claire! Claire!" we both shouted, shaking her.
"Get her some water, Kate" I said as Claire's eyelid fluttered.
Kate raced to where the remainder of the water was being kept. I turned away from the spray of the sand she kicked my way as she ran.
"Ollie, it's all gone" Kate shouted to me.
Panic coursed through me. No water, no water, ran through my head as if it were on a loop. What would we do without water? I didn't think I could bear thinking about the possibility of death from dehydration.
"What?" I shouted back "there were four bottles left this morning"
"Well there aren't any here now" Kate exclaimed.
"Watch her" I shot at Charlie, and jogged to the storage tent where Kate was standing.
I peered inside, and then crawled in, hurling the backpacks, bits of fruit and articles of clothing around until I finally admitted defeat. There was no water.
"Don't say I told you so" I mumbled.
"Sawyer!" Kate suddenly exclaimed.
Without explaining, Kate set off down the beach towards Sawyer's tent, enlisting the help of Sayid on her way. I straggled behind, not sure whether I was needed more with Claire or with Kate and Sayid. I'm ashamed to admit that I was too cowardly to go to see Sawyer with Kate and Sayid.
"I'll stay with Claire" I shouted before turning on my heel and jogging back down the beach towards Claire.
Claire was awake and sitting up but her face was as white as a sheet. Charlie and Sun were sitting next to her. I smiled softly and kneeled in front of her. I racked my brains, trying to dredge up something that my mom or Jack had told me that could help Claire. Unfortunately I couldn't come up with anything.
"Kate and Sayid are trying to get you some water, ok?" I told her.
"Thank you" she said hoarsely "I'm really hot"
"Let's get you into the shade" I said, gesturing to Sun and Charlie to help me move her further up the beach to the outskirts of the jungle where it was considerably cooler.
As we settled Claire, I saw Sayid and Kate walking towards us. They didn't have any water.
"Sawyer didn't have any?" I called.
"He says he doesn't" Sayid started.
"But he traded some with Jin yesterday, he must have a stash. He won't even share with a pregnant lady! How pathetic is that?" Kate exclaimed.
I didn't believe that Sawyer would keep water from Claire, he might be a bit of an ass but he wouldn't do that. Surely he wouldn't. But as much as I told myself this I couldn't help that little bit of doubt that was whispering in the back of my mind.
"So…what's the plan?" I asked nervously.
"We follow Sawyer to his stash; we get the water for Claire" Sayid stated simply.
"Sun, Charlie and I will look around the camp for any water we can find" I assured him.
Kate and Sayid left and I reassured Claire that we wouldn't be long. We set off separately, scouring the beach for any fresh water that we could find. We knew the search was pointless; we'd kept all of the water in one place. But still I hoped that Charlie and Sun were having better luck with finding with water than I was. When I exhausted my section of the beach I headed back towards Claire. Before I got close, Sawyer, Kate and Sayid came out of the jungle towards me.
"He didn't have the water" Kate sighed.
Sawyer glared at her.
"What I'd tell you, Freckles?" Sawyer said, shrugging, "it wasn't me who stole your damned water"
That's when the shouting started. Charlie was shouting at someone, Boone. Confused, I ran towards the shouting voices, to where Claire was sitting, drinking from a bottle of water. Another bottle of water was in Boone's hand.
"You stole the water, Boone?" I accused, glaring at him and putting my hands on my hip, "why would you do that? Those bottles were for everyone, why would you be so selfish?"
Boone glared right back at me.
"I didn't steal them, and they certainly weren't for me. I was keeping them safe for everyone. What with the likes of him around" he sneered at Sawyer
It all kicked off then, Sawyer leapt in, swearing and shouting; followed by Sayid who tried to restrain Sawyer. All of a sudden everyone seemed to be involved in this mass brawl. I got an elbow – from who I don't know – rammed into my face, sending me sprawling onto my back. I looked up just as Jack walked out of the jungle.
"Hey" Jack yelled and almost immediately the fighting stopped "we need to stop fighting among ourselves. I've found fresh water, but if we can't live together, we're going to die alone"
He spoke a little more and people murmured their agreement; the news of water lifting everybody's moods. If only my cheek wasn't throbbing, and Sawyer was holding my hand; that would be much better. But I'd take what I could get.