It'd been three weeks since I'd moved in to the cave.
Out of all of the weeks, the first was the hardest. I had to stop thinking about everyone else and just hope that I was able to survive.
I had to find food, and apart from finding a relatively in-tacked fishing rod, I'd had to live off the crabs I'd caught at the beach. It was dangerous as hell, and I nearly got spotted by some locals, or sometimes, even pirates, who walked past, but, luckily, they were a bit too involved in whatever they were doing to notice my failed attempt at hiding.
After the first two days, I gave up on the crab hunting and went searching for something safer to eat. All the food in the house was either rotten or bug infested, and the only thing I actually found was a small tub full of, what I hoped was, aspirin.
I perused the cliffs near the house and found an entrance to another cave. Inside, I found some cave mushrooms.
I knew that a lot of the mushrooms on the island couldn't be trusted, and that some could even bring about death if eaten at the wrong time of year.
I'd also learned that if you cooked them, almost to the point of burning, all that hallucinogenic crap and fatalities of them was burnt out, leaving a very crisp, but edible food that was in abundance. Sadly, that was one of the things I had to experience to actually remember it.
I'd just found one of the mushrooms and had popped it into my mouth. It tasted a bit bitter, but the after taste was quiet sweet. There were no sudden side effects so I had another and gathered a few more up.
It was only an hour later that I realised something was up. All of a sudden, I felt funny... It was like a really happy but bizarre sort of feeling. Then, Murphy appeared at the entrance of the cave. I followed him out, my feet walking slower than I wanted them to.
When I got to the entrance, he was gone.
I'd been too slow, I'd missed him, but then I heard the sound of the boat. I turned my head to the water and spotted Murphy, he was waving at me from the fishing vessel. I walked forward, desperate to get off the island, but then I hit the water.
It brought me straight back to my senses, but I panicked and if it wasn't for the non-existent waves that night, there was no way I would have survived.
Fishing was near impossible. I'd even spent an hour digging up worms and only then, I'd caught the smallest mackerel possible.
I somehow managed, along with my mushrooms, to turn the fish in to two meals.
To help fill the days up, I'd retrieved some books from the Colonist's house and I'd just sat down, next to the fire, and read. I wasn't the biggest of readers, but I had nothing else better to do, and if I didn't do something, I was worried I'd go crazy.
I'd been reading in to a book about the human anatomy. I'd already imagined that the man who had lived in the house, and was now, probably lying on that porch, outside, had once been a doctor.
I was reading in to how the human hand worked, and it was pretty intriguing, but another book kept catching my eye.
It was some sort of journal. On the first page, the name written was Alec Eurnhardt.
It wasn't a recording of day to day events, and there were no dates on the pages, but it seemed to be in some sort of sequence.
Although, at first glance, they just seemed like thoughts muddled up on the paper.
On the second page of the journal, I noticed London was written in small font in the corner of the page, other than that one word, the page was blank.
On the next page, the first thought was written:
Agnes is gone. My beautiful, beautiful Agnes. I already miss her and it's been only hours since her little body took its last breath. I don't know how I will go on. If only I'd been there just a minute before...
After the first entry, the next page was much like the second, but instead of London in the corner, it was Rook.
The red berries have been perfected! The mushrooms seem to go wonderfully with mango and the pirates have offered me a deal. If I supply them with the product, they'll allow me my freedom.
The next few entries just spoke about the pirates visiting him daily, buying his product and giving him news on the outside world.
Rodrey, one of the newer pirates, was brought to my door this morning. The man had been attacked by a crocodile and was nearly dead. The men who had brought him just asked if I could take the edge off, just give him some berries and let him drift peacefully away. I decided to do better, and right now, he is recovering in the next room.
I hadn't decided whether he was mad, or just wanted to cling on to the fact that he could save people's life. That was the only entry about this Rodrey guy, and I never actually found out whether he lived or not. Alec seemed like an easily distracted man.
Most of the pages were similar, but they were more like thoughts, some lines, some a page, sometimes he was sad, other's he spoke of unicorns and dragons rising up from the ground. Then, there was another shift...
My dear daughter Agnes. She has been returned to me. I have a second chance to keep my little girl from harm's way.
In the next few entries, I found that Agnes had not been returned to him, and the girl was called Daisy. It was one of the Brody boy's friends, and to keep her safe, Alec had put them in to the cave beneath the house, the very same cave I'd made my home in.
He named the people as they were saved, giving a small description of them
Lisa, Jason's girlfriend,
Oliver, a very good pot chum,
Keith, a man from wall street,
Riley, the brother who died.
From what I had heard, Riley had in fact been alive, and was one of the reasons Jason had chosen to return home.
The last piece of writing looked as if it had been stopped suddenly:
They say that Jason has murdered the pirate lord and has gone after the tyrant. I do not expect him to return from such a battle, but I promise to guard his friends with my
The line ended in a squiggle and the small smattering of blood confirmed to me that he'd been attacked. By the pirates, or Rakyat, I wasn't sure.
The entries showed a man, lost, insane, but not completely gone. He had a passion, a humanity that clung on to his love of a dead daughter. You could almost call him an innocent victim in a war no one would survive.
I decided to bury him. It was the least I could do, especially as I'd scavenged his house and taken shelter in his cave.
It took me ages to write this because my keyboard is seriously broke.
Peppermintcookz - thank you