Camp NaNo '22: The Players

"What does it mean to have a lonely soul? I have often heard people use the expression and have never understood it. Souls can't be lonely. Only people can."
She stared at him for a moment in the firelight, trying to find some fault in his thought that would allow her the opportunity to disagree with him and start another argument that would lead nowhere, but would still prolong this stolen moment between them.
But she was tired of using excuses to talk with him. For some inexplicable reason, they got each other. And being understood by someone even so vastly different from her, was a luxury she could not afford to lose in this place.
So she swallowed back her pride and nodded.
"You are right," she said, drawing his attention back to her once again, "People can be lonely."
And she was confident that he knew exactly what she was talking about this time.

There are moments in life that bring you unflinching clarity, that show you the truth in bold, pronounced ways to wake you up from whatever delusion you have convinced yourself into believing. And like on Monday morning when the weather is just right and your pillow is too comfortable, waking up is not always the rejuvenating experience that the world makes it out to be. And in Will's case, waking up to the truth was like a breath-stealing, life-altering punch to the gut.
He had been foolish to believe that all of this could have led to any other path than the one they were standing on right now. But now that he was awake and alive, Will knew that it was over; that it was done.
The moment had passed and all he could do now was stand and watch as his life crumble all around him.
He was a stupid man.

"You know? I just noticed, there is a little bit of green in the blue of your eyes."
He laughed, "And there is a little bit of gold in the brown of yours."
She nodded with a smile, "I guess, none of us can be defined by a single color."
He shrugged, "Well, if there can be so many different shades of a single color, why can't there be as many shades to us?"
She thought about his answer and the question inside it, and decided that he was right. She did not really believe that you can ever really know a person - who they are, inside out. You see what they show you and you build it into an image inside your head that you keep adding different colors to, as the years move on. But at the end of it all, the picture you come up with could be as different from what you started with, and it still wouldn't be that person.

There he was, with a problem to fix. Maybe his father had been right about him. Maybe he always needed a problem to solve in order to feel useful.

But he was a doctor. His life was measured by how many lives he saved, and how many people he fixed. It was his job. It was why he was able to come home every night and go to bed with a clear conscience. He was good at it.

His father had always been talented at one thing. He had this uncanny ability to twist a person's strength into something he felt he had to be ashamed of. He had done it all his life with him, with his disapproving eyes and scrutinizing stare. He had always felt the need to to prove him wrong, to show him that he was not who he thought him to be. In the process, he did not care who he became, as long as it was someone his father did not think him to be.

He looked up at Theodore as he waited for him to move. At least, this blessed damned island was one place his father could not follow him, but considering the number of times he had already heard his voice at the back of his conscience, Will knew that he wasn't gone. That he would stay, whether it was his choice or not.

"Lead the way," he said, starting across the sand.

She looked him in the eye, as he waited expectantly for her answer.
"He died."
Because of you, she wanted to add.
But she knew that wouldn't get that them anywhere. If they were to turn on each other for all the wrong decisions they hadn't made yet, then it was already over for them. They wouldn't last a chance.
Frank stood there with his eyes wide, realizing the weight of her words and there was nothing she wanted more in that moment than to tell him, to tell them all that it would be alright, that no one had to die. But she knew her words would not have any weight, not here on this island, where reality warped itself into whatever shape the creator chose for them. This was a game and the board was the island. They could run as far as they wanted to, but they would never escape the boundaries. Not until someone came and toppled the entire board over.
She looked at the man and wished she could give him all those empty reassurances she was so good at giving out in life, but she knew it wouldn't matter. They were the puppets in a play and until the man behind the curtain decided, they would keep on dancing and singing the same songs to his tune.

"There was a moment, you know," Daniel spoke calmly.
Will raised an eyebrow silently conveying the other man to go on.
"We were returning to the beach," he continued, "and we were scared and frustrated. We did not know where we were going or if we were going anywhere at all. I could tell that she was struggling to keep up with my pace, that the wound in her head was probably hurting her too much. But I was too frustrated, too angry. Seeing the woman and being tied down and held on the other end of a gun shook something in me. Memories that felt like dreams, I cannot explain them if I tried to, but I remember the feeling of helplessness, of utter despair pressing down like a heavy weight against my chest. I could not understand these feelings or where they came from, and so I took it out on her. I stopped us in the middle of the jungle and I unloaded on her just because she was there and I knew she could take it."
Will stared at him, trying to understand why he was telling him all this, but he just smiled a wistful smile.
"And do you know what she did?" he asked with a shake of his head, "She hugged me and told me that she knows and that she understands."
He then looked at him knowingly, as if he was sharing with him a conclusion they had both arrived at together. Will searched through his words inside his head, trying to catch something that he had missed, that explained why he chose to confide about a moment that felt rather personal to him.
"I don't understand. What are you saying?"
Daniel smiled, "I am telling you that I don't know her, but I trust that she is not an enemy."
Will nodded. He did not know what else he was supposed to do. Some part of him distantly acknowledged the fact that in no single moment during their short acquaintance, had he seen her as an enemy.
Daniel smiled at him, as if he had heard his thought and was providing his silent agreement. "And also," he said taking a few steps back, turning his body towards his tent, " I am telling you that its okay if you were worried about her. You don't have to wait for an appropriate hour in the morning to go check on her, you can do it now. I don't think she would mind."
Before Will could even begin to gather the meaning behind his words or proceed to follow that realization with a not so respectful reaction, Daniel was already walking away, with a purpose in his stride and a rather victorious smile on his face.

It was strange waking up in another's tent. For the shortest second, her mind struggled to catch up with her surroundings and fear gripped her once again as the memory of a dark shack and the cold end of a gun filtered through her subconscious.

She was quickly able to eradicate that image though, and she wasted no time in jumping up and out of bed. Her head swam for a second as she struggled to catch up with inertia. But the moment the objects around her vision stopped moving and settled into their normal inanimate positions, she walked out of the tent and welcomed the fresh air of the beach.

She had come to depend on it, she realized. It did not matter if she was lost or if she was just feeling the walls close in on her, the ocean had come to become her guide, her sole source of assurance that settled her and reminded her of the reality she was currently stuck in.

She did not know whether to feel comforted or alarmed by the fact.

"Hey James?"
Her call was unsure, his name having slept from her lips almost accidentally. But he had already paused in his stride and he angled his body slightly towards her, almost like he did not want her to see the curiosity on his face.
She cleared her throat, trying to remember what exactly she had been trying to say. There were several questions that she wanted to ask him, but somehow another question pushed its way to the front. a question that had nothing to do with the island and everything to do with them
"You don't really trust me do you?"
She could see the slight confusion on his face replaced with the exertion of trying to come up with a barb that would satisfactorily turn her question around on her. But then she watched as he switched gears, simple curiosity smoothening out the smirk on his face into an even more confusing neutral expression.
"Why do you ask that?"
She shrugged, "Just wondering."
He nodded, his blue eyes pinning her with its uncaring intensity.
"You know the people on this island are actually scared of you?" he laughed, "They hear you and depend on you, but they resent you for it just as much. Its comical really. I have seen the various ways they look at you, you know? The admiring glances when you get fired up and head into the jungle of mysteries like you are a one woman army of your own. The suspicious glances that they pass every time something goes wrong and they expect you to clean up their messes with that magic wand of yours. And then of course there's the grudging resentment and fear when they look at you and can't decide whether you are an enemy or a friend."
He smiled, "But you know something, Giggles? You may know things and you may lie and keep secrets, and all of that," he said with a wave of his hands, "might make you the most dangerous person on this island. But I have seen the way you look at them - the furtive glances you steal every now and then as if you are afraid that someone might just look back. But that's where your problem is, that's how I know that you are not pulling the wool over us or leading us to certain doom. Because you care too damn much. Because you are going to try and save every lost cause that comes wandering your way. So I may not know who you are or what your endgame is, but I trust that you don't mean us harm. I trust that you want to get off this island just as bad as I do, even when I suspect you don't have much to return to. Does that answer your question, sweetheart?"
She stood still for a moment, simply breathing and staring back at him, standing stoically against the night. And then she shrugged.
"It was just a simple question. You did not need to make a whole speech out of it."
He smirked.