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 Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:06 pm
"Damnit!" Skye stumbled and fell for what must have been the 6th time in that 15 minute timespan. The youth's hair was plastered to his face, large amounts of of sand and dried salt clinging to it - the rest of him was in no better condition. In his arms he juggled the bundle of canvas, a large stick, and several yards of rope he had salvaged from the wreckage. The precious yet incredibly waterlogged notebook and writing supplies were stowed in an equally wet satchel that he had found hidden inside the boat. Why hadn't he just died? It would have been much easier.
Without a word, he stood up from the sand, gathering his fallen objects. His eyes stung and his lips quivered, just about ready to start bawling. Skye took a deep breath, mentally chiding himself for for being so weak. He had been given a chance to live, and by God he would take that chance. He stumbled forward again, intent on reaching the large gray masses in the distance. They seemed to rise out of the sand, and Skye was sure that they were buildings were he would find shelter.
What if they're all abandoned? Then you'll be all alone. The murderer, dying all alone on an abandoned island.
Skye gritted his teeth angrily, mentally forcing that little, snide little voice to the back of his head. He concentrated completely on the task at hand and in what seemed to be a million eternities, finally got close enough to see the buildings in detail. He furiously ignored the fact that they looked like they hadn't been inhabited by anybody for many, many decades. Just to prove the voice wrong, he shouted out in a quavery voice,
"Is anybody there?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:12 pm
For the first few days of his quarantine, Leonard had settled into a small clearing, though his camp was terrible, even compared to the main camp. He had no shelters built, and no way to make a fire.
He'd stumbled across the abandoned base while looking for food. While some area of chainlink were still standing, mosted had rusted and collapsed. Most of the windows had long since been shattered by the fierce island storms, though a few remainded intact. It was something he really should have tried to tell the others about, but there was no way he was going to go back. Not while he was still normal anyway.
A small office type building had been perfect to make a new camp in. The furnishings were gone, but it kept him dry. He was busy trying to sharpen his letter opener (which he'd taken back from Jessie's stuff when he left) when he heard a voice. Despite his bad attitude towards others, two weeks alone would make anyone starved for contact.
He rushed out the door. "Hey! Over Here!" He waved his arms.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:42 pm
Skye nearly leapt for joy when he heard another human voice answering his own call. It all seemed so surreal, this island, finding someone else... His pace quickened, nearing a run but being held back by all the objects in his arms. Perhaps this island really was inhabited! There might be people here that could get him home! Then, suddenly, he realized something. IF he was to get home, he'd probably be imprisoned for life on account of murder. Skye's panic came washing back. Trying to calm himself, he simply figured that if he played it cool, maybe they wouldn't know who he was. Better yet, perhaps word of an escaped fugitive hadn't reached then yet. His mind set, he went to go meet the other man.
Upon getting closer to the man, he let his items fall to the ground so that he could see the man better. He seemed to be standing in front of one of the buildings, which clearly looked deserted. The man himself seemed to be a bit older than Skye, anywhere from his mid-twenties to mid-thirties. He seemed to have a very aloof air about him, and he looked rather... unfriendly.
Undaunted, Skye casually walked up to him, as if he wasn't stranded on a deserted island and looked like he was about to die of starvation and/or thirst. "Hey, who are you? Are there any other people here?" His voice let out a bit of his anxiety, though he tried hard not to show it.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:22 pm
God, another young kid. Why did he have to be one of the old guys? The kid looked as though he had just washed up, which he probably had. Leonard didn't really look much better though. Two weeks on your own will do that.
"I'm Leonard." He replied. "And there others, but, they're...sick. You don't want to meet them. I'm afraid it's just you and me at the moment."
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:39 pm
"Sick?" Skye's voice turned even more anxious with the mentioning of sickness. "L-like chicken pox or something sick? I-is it contagious? You don't have any medication or anything?" His hands twitched anxiously, a habit he had whenever he was nervous or scared.
"Uh, I'm... uh..." should he tell this guy, Leonard, his name? What if he turned him in? This guy didn't seem to know... "My names Skye. Skye Montgomery." He finally managed to choke out. "Nice to meet you." Trying to be polite, he meekly stuck out his hand.
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:53 pm
"Yeah. Real sick. That's why I'm by myself. I don't want to catch what they have." He had laugh at the mention of medication. "Ha! We don't even have electricity. We're all stranded here. And besides, I don't think they have a treatment for what they have. I don't think there's even a name for it." For the nervous Skye, it must have been quite the welcoming speech.
Leonard shook the kids hand, if only out of habit. "Skye? Is that some sort of girl's name? Crap, I'm not going to go around calling you Skye. How 'bout I just call you Monty instead?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:17 pm
"Oh." Skye's voice was hardly over a whisper at this point. "Ah, h-how would I kn-kn-know that they have they disease?" At the mention of his name, his gaze went directly from Leonard's face to the ground, a blush instantly creeping its way into his cheeks. "I'm not, n-not quite sure if it's a girl's n-name... but....ah, sure. I d-don't mind if you call me Monty..." his voice trailed off and only after he was quite sure that his face wasn't bright red anymore did he look back at Leonard.
"Would you mind if I joined you? I don't think it'd be a good idea for people to go around by themselves. I've got some supplies that -" he almost stopped as he started to tell the other man of his crashed boat but forced himself to continue, "that I got from my ship. It's totally broken, but I salvaged stuff."
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:57 am
How the heck do you tell someone about what had happened without sounding crazy? "I'm not sure if you'd believe me. You'd know it if you saw them though."
"I don't mind if you stay here, but you have to earn your keep. That means bringing water back from the stream, and helping to look for food. And if you come across a second stream out in the jungle, you've gone too far south. That the stream the infected people use."
He didn't say it, but it would be nice having someone else around.
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:34 am
"Water?" The very mention of water made Skye perk up quite a bit. Though it was true that he had had some water within the last several days, it hadn't been much. While Skye was on the boat, it had rained twice, and for no more than perhaps five minutes. The results of such conditions were apparent in the young man, who's lips were dry, cracked, and looked liked they had been bleeding.
"S-sure, I can g-go get water! No problem! Uh, a-av-avoid the second stream... right! Do you know if there are any fish around here? maybe we could catch some?" Skye smiled, his first real one since coming to this God forsaken island. He really like Leonard. He didn't seem to be the friendliest guy, but here he was, nice enough to let Skye stay with him!
"Hey Leonard," he started, his gaze going to the seemingly abandoned buildings, "are these places really abandoned? Have you got a shelter set up yet or anything?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:49 pm
Of course, the guy was shipwrecked. He probably was pretty thirsty and hungry. He even looked dehydrated at this point. "Hold on a second." Going back into the small building, he came out with a soda can filled with water. "It's warm, but it's pretty clean." He handed it to Skye.
"Oh yeah, there are fish around..." He muttered. Not very loud, but Skye might have heard some of it. "I hadn't really thought of that. I suppose we could try and make a spear or something."
He guestured to the building he'd gone into. "I've been living in there, but all the buildings I've gone to are empty so far."
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 3:24 pm
Skye stood around rather pathetically, waiting for whatever Leonard was going to go get. He perked up even more when he saw what Leonard returned with - a can of soda, though by the looks of it, it had already been opened and probably refilled with water. "Oh man," Skye stated. "So, you just keep the water in little soda cans or what? Do you have a big canteen or anything? How do you transport all the water?" H was practically babbling, so he shut his mouth, took the soda can from Leonard and drank some, making sure he didn't spill a drop of the precious liquid. He nearly sighed out loud in relief, but decided to refrain.
He did hear Leonard mutter under his breath about the large amount of fish, though he didn't quite understand why he didn't just say it outright. Jumping from the subject of water to the thought of making fishing spears, he replied, "I took this survival class once, with my cousins. I know how to make a pretty decent fishing rod, I don't know about spears though, but they can't be to hard to make, right?"
He didn't say anything about the buildings.
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:21 pm
So many freaking questions. What was this, 20 questions island edition? He fought to keep the exasperation from his voice, but he didn't succeed entirely. "Yeah, in empty soda cans. You have to fill up the cans at the stream."
The survival class was a bit more interesting. "Really? A fishing rod would be good. Whatever you can do would be helpful, really. I'm not the greatest at surviving by myself."
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:36 pm
Skye's blush crept back into his face when he heard the slight exasperation in Leonard's voice. Of, course, he had babbled for to long again, he always did that. "Oh, that's cool. Umm, s-so if we could go get some long sticks... I have some twine from the boat...ah, have you happened to see any big rocks near the river? There's probably some grubs we can use for bait..."
He trailed off and dug into his satchel, which he had forgotten about until that moment. After looking for several seconds, he pulled out a thin spool of twine, the basic stuff that you would usually find in any hardware store. "I found this satchel in the boat," he explained, not even realizing that he was probably giving away the fact that he had stolen the boat, "I think whoever owned the boat probably used this, for, I dunno, fixing stuff or something."
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:16 pm
Twine from the boat? It was a godsend. String and rope were one of the things you needed most while camping. Even moreso while being stranded. "There should be plenty of sticks in the jungle. We can go look in a bit. And there's probably bugs. I haven't gotten that hungry yet though."
His eyes lit up when he saw the twine. While it probably wasn't going to save them, it would certainly make living easier. He was a little taken aback by the next statement though. "Wait, you don't know who owned the boat? What'd you do, steal it?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:59 pm
"Yeah, okay, good idea." Skye was feeling much better than before - at least, before Leonard mentioned the boat. The now very familiar wave of panic washed over him, causing him to nearly drop his can of water. He quickly recovered, stuttering, "Uh, w-well, I uh... I bought it. Used. F-f-fr-from one of the rich k-kids at my school. H-he said that h-h-is family didn't w-want it anymore!"
He hoped his lie was half believable. It was still better for him if Leonard thought that he had at least bought the boat under questionable circumstances than outright stealing it.
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