The Forgotten Island
GETTING STRONGER

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

GETTING STRONGER

-Arya-

The days were long and hot. Someone had started keeping count by putting notches in one of the walls after the third day at sea, and the tally was now up to twelve. Fifteen days we have been floating, without another soul in sight. Little by little we got to know one another, mostly because there wasn’t anything else to do. There were seventeen of us left; all from various backgrounds. There were nine fire-born, six air-born, and one each of water and earth born. I was saddened to learn that the older woman who had helped me make the ropes did not survive the roof being ripped off, and neither had the man and the little girl. The woman with seasickness also didn’t make it, for which I couldn’t help but feel guilty for feeling relief that we wouldn’t have to deal with the constant vomiting. About seven days in, a water-born woman named Lottie had woken up in the night and stepped off the boat, ending her life and her internal suffering. I suppose she just couldn’t cope with our reality and chose to go out on her own terms. Despite how bad it had first appeared, my head injury was slowly healing, and I spent most of my time watching Fish practice her power. She had started small, with little water balls that she would float around and manipulate into different shapes. On one occasion when the passengers seemed a little more down than normal, she put on a little mini show of otters swimming around and playing with one another in the air. It wasn’t something she had been able to do before, and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t remarkable to watch. Today I finally felt well enough to start working on strengthening my own abilities, and I sat on the edge of the boat where one of the walls was gone, watching the water intently. Fish was talking with Darnell, as she often did these days, and they seemed to have grown a strong bond with one another. Some days he spent hours helping her try new things with the water, and she reveled in the challenges he provided. On one such day Darnell had suggested that she team up with Phillip, a fire-born in his early forties that always seemed in a bad mood, to come up with a way for us to wash ourselves. Fish excitedly agreed and just like she always did, she was able to get even grumpy Phil smiling and generating ideas. They settled on Fish making a large sphere of water above her head, and Philip was able to harness a flame from a lighter into a furnace of sorts to boil the water and remove the salt and bacteria. The hot water was then placed in the two buckets and everyone was able to use it to scrub their bodies using a couple of donated socks. It was arguably one of the best days lost at sea, with everyone laughing and enjoying one another’s company as we washed and ate some food rations.

My reflections were disrupted when I finally saw what I was looking for floating along; a large patch of seaweed…and I knew just what I wanted to do with it. I reached my hand out and slowly called on my power, feeling it answer in waves of warmth under my skin. I willed the seaweed patch to come towards me, and I felt a stab of pride when it began to float to me at an increasing speed. I let out a triumphant cheer when it reached my fingertips, and I used my abilities to pull the patch onto the boat. “Uhh, Arya, what are you doing?” asked Valerie, a young woman with caramel skin and light brown eyes that made me think of a cat. I squatted down and excitedly held out some of the goopy mass in my hands and exclaimed “I am going to make pillows!!” My excitement quickly fled when I felt something crawl on my skin and I squealed, dropping the seaweed when I saw bugs swarming over my arms. “OH GODS, OH GODS, OH GODS, GET IT OFF ME!! GET IT OFF!” I screamed, swatting the bugs off as fast as I could while scuttling around the boat in a frenzy of panic. Half the passengers had found the whole ordeal rather funny as they laughed from their spots, some holding their stomachs with tears in their eyes. I glared at them half-heartedly before I too began to laugh, replaceing the whole situation indeed rather ridiculous. “I am serious though, we have all been sleeping on this hard floor for two weeks, and I think I can make us some floor mats and pillows with this. I just need to figure out the bug situation.” Valerie, still laughing, came up to the pile and eyed it suspiciously. “What if we boil it, like the bath water?” She asked, pressing her finger thoughtfully to her chin. “Val, you are a genius!” I gushed, grabbing her in a hug and then turning to Fish, who was watching us with a smile on her face. “Fish, think you can get another boil bubble going with Phil?”

A few minutes later we had all gathered around while Fish created another large water bubble over us, and Phil and another fire born named Jessica, began to get it boiling. Val lifted the seaweed mass with gusts of wind and dropped it carefully into the bubble, turning it occasionally to make sure nothing alive stayed that way. Tiny little dots began to float on the top of the bubble sphere, the small carcasses resembling pepper seasoning. Some small crab like creatures joined them, followed by what looked like a seahorse. Soon I had a pile of boiled seaweed in front of me, sticky and pliable. Everyone watched me expectantly, as if I had experience making seaweed mats before. I poked one of the slimy stems, reaching out tentatively with my power to see if I could form it into something useful. Unfortunately, the heat had killed the plants, and so nothing responded to me; looks like I was on my own here. A braid wouldn’t work, too thin. I wondered if anyone would care if we just sat on the piles, and pretended they were comfortable. As the passengers trickled away to their own private piece of floor, I remembered my mother teaching me how to make pie crust. I had stood beside her in the kitchen, barely able to see over the counter, letting the smells of butter and cinnamon overtake my senses. She placed the sliced apples in the pan with the mixture, the tangy aroma blending with the sweetness. When the apples became tender, she brought the pan to a prepared pie dish, filling it up almost to the top. She smiled at me as I watched her work, her hands moving quickly and efficiently. Flour coated her apron and she had been humming a soft tune as she flowed around in the kitchen. “Look here, my flower” she said “This is a lattice top”. She slowed down her movements as she placed strips of rolled out crust parallel to one another, then took separate pieces and began weaving them under and over till there was a checkerboard of crust. She let me weave in the last strip, making me feel proud and loved. I let the memory wash over me as I replayed the design in my head, moving the seaweed into strips and weaving them like she had shown me. The first one looked awful, and I was slightly embarrassed to present it to anyone; after that though they gradually improved and I was pleased with the overall outcome. The pillows were closer to seaweed rolls than a pouf, but surely a vast improvement over nothing. I passed the rolls out to everyone; glad I was able to contribute to our health and wellbeing as we floated out here in this wet wasteland. Tomorrow I will gather more seaweed to make some sunshades for us, the heat was miserable, and I knew many of us were dehydrated and burnt. None of us knew how long we would be out here, so I would do what I could to ease our struggles.

I slept fairly well that night and woke up in a cheerful mood. It seemed to be contagious as we all had an optimistic energy. Jessica, being a confident, large breasted, and curvaceous woman was flirting with one of the other fire born, and stripped down to her bra and panties as she sauntered towards the boats edge. “I feel good today ya’ll!” her heavy southern accent dominant in every word “I think I’m gonna get a little exercise this mornin, anyone care to join me?” her question mostly geared at Bram, the fire born she had been flirting with before. Her lips curved in a seductive smile as she glanced at him before turning and diving into the still waters around us. She came up laughing, swiping her hair out of her face and smiling wide. She looked so free, like we were on vacation instead of shipwrecked. I smiled at her antics, and it grew as I noticed Bram getting up to join her in the water. Throwing his shirt to the side, he got a running start before doing a cannonball right next to Jessica, who squealed in delight as the waves splashed into her. We watched them absentmindedly, letting their good mood and playfulness lift our spirits. Bram swan dived under the water, headed straight at Jessica in what seemed like an attempt to drag her under. Classic boy flirts with girl move if you ask me. She giggled as she tread water, looking for where he would surface. “Come on, Bram, stop hiding” she hollered, laughing as she continued to search. Her smile faltered as he failed to surface after a period of time. “Come on, Bram, it ain’t funny!” she spoke with the beginnings of fear in her voice, her arm movements jerky in the water. Those of us on the boat began to pay a little more attention as time continued without a sight of Bram. I was looking into the waters wondering if someone would need to go in and rescue him when Jessica began screeching. “BRAM” she screamed “BRAM!” the waters were getting darker around her, leaving a red tinge on her skin as she bobbed up and down. Darnell shot up “Jess’ee’ka, get back to da boat!” he said, his voice laced with urgency. “Phil, grab some rope, we ’ave to pull ’er in NOW” Phil scrambled to grab some rope while Jessica swam back towards the boat in a panic, flailing red water everywhere. On a forward stroke she grabbed something and pulled a severed arm from the water. Her screeching got louder while the passengers on board ran around, throwing rope out to her so they could pull her in. Fish moved with purpose, creating a sphere around Jessica and lifting her out of the water. Jessica was crying hysterically as she floated in the bubble, dropping Bram’s arm back into the sea. The boat suddenly quaked, rocking violently, causing all of us to fall over. When Fish fell her concentration broke, and Jessica tumbled back into the water below. I steadied myself against the rocking, frantically trying to figure out what was going on. There must be something under the boat, the waters had been completely calm just a few minutes ago. I watched Jessica start swimming back towards the boat, and I mentally urged her to swim faster. She stopped swimming and began to sweep her arms in large motions, as if she felt something touching her from below. Her face was coated in the bloody water, giving her an eerie glow as I stared. The waters churned around her, sucking her slightly down in a circular vortex. Jaws emerged from the depths, like none I had ever seen before. She was completely engulfed by them as they closed around her body, ripping her lower portion apart from the top. Blood sprayed from her abdomen as what remained of her began to sink. Her blank eyes stared back at me before the creature came back to finish its meal, the teeth pulling her into the monster’s gut. I heard some of the men cursing while backing away from the edge and yelling at one another. A woman named Tammy grabbed my hand and pulled Fish and I into one of the corners of the boat that was still intact, putting a wall between us and the creature. We propped ourselves against it as the beast swam under the boat again, rocking it violently back and forth. As fast as it had arrived, it was gone. We all stayed in defensive stances, waiting for it to return, listening to the water lap against the sides of our boat as the waters calmed. We stayed like that the rest of the day, until the blood-filled water was no longer in sight. As Bram’s arm drifted from view, only one thing kept going through my mind: what. the. fuck.