Stranded-(Paused-Accepting)

Miss Margret Tanner

The night drifted away and the sun slowly rose. I had finished with the last watch over the fire. Watching the sun rise, I sighed and began to cook enough rice for all of us. Everyone woke up at the smell of food. After everyone had eaten a small helping of rice, I began to assign everyone different jobs. “Kara and Josh, you look for food. Veronica and Josh, see if you can find shelter or a way to build shelter. I will stay here and try to get a help signal going.” I paused to take a breath. “Amaya, will you be okay searching for water by yourself?”
“Definitely.” She replied. I chuckled, noting how independent she was. She reminded me of my own spirit.
“Ok! Everyone split up and search for your assignments.”
I began to work on a S.O.S signal made of giant logs lain on the beach. Later at the end of the day, I began the fire again and again cooking rice. I calculated that the rice would last us two more days. I sighed and decided to take a short stroll along the beach. Soon the others began to stumble out onto the beach. Everyone appeared in a matter of minutes. Some were carrying piles of fruit, other’s giant leaves, and everyone except Amaya was here.
“Where’s Amaya?” I asked franticly.
Everyone shrugged. Someone piped up near the back of the crowd. “Uh... I saw her about three hours ago. She was that way.” Josh spoke quickly as he pointed off, directly into the heart of the forest. “She should be back by now though.” He mumbled.
Fear gripped my heart as I fell to my knees. Had a life been lost? Panic began to slowly set in among the group. Several stood solemnly as the sun set behind us. The rest fidgeted about, unsure what to do. The sun set with us all staring deeply into the forest, hoping that Amaya would appear.
After the first stars began to glow in the heaven’s I whispered two words’ that brought no hope, only despair, with them. “She’s gone.” At that moment all of us turned away from the forest. We all sat by the dying fire, quietly eating the rice and some of the fruits that others had harvested. After the meal, we silently propped the large leaves up against a tree, creating a large lean-to. Everyone piled inside, the girls on one side, the boys on the other.
Everyone silently drifted off to sleep. We have had our first tragedy, the first mishap. This did not bring any hope to our situation. I decided that sleep was impossible, and walked out to the fire. I sat by the glowing embers all night, mourning for the loss of Amaya.
The sun’s eerie, gray light began to shine, and Veronica stumbled out onto the beach, her steps heavy and her face forlorn.
We sat there in misery, witnessing the birth of a new day, which was sure to be filled with dread, despair, and silence.

The blazing yellow ball of gas was making me sweat, something I would have never admit that I even did if I were back in New York. I had noticed that from the moment I woke up beside the fire that morning, something from within my had definitely changed. By the way that I was the one who offered the three youngest the tent, knowing I was not part of those three, to the fact that I even helped Margret make the make shift tent in the first place. Since then, I had more often than none felt a warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach region whenever I had pitched in to help start a fire or cook dinner. Compassion, maybe? I shrugged. Whatever it was, it was unlike the Veronica that worried about one of two things: Boys and appearance. Not that I was self conscious or anything, because if there was anything I knew, it was that I was gorgeous. Drop. Dead. Gorgeous.


The smell of fresh cooked rice swarmed around my nostrils, resulting in my stomach growling loudly.
Margret began passing out orders. Josh and I were put in charge of either finding a new shelter or figuring out a way to expand the one she and Margret had put together prior. After wandering back into the forest for a bit, Josh and I had found an area with an abundant source of logs, trees and what appeared to be a half built shelter that had been run down for what appeared to be quite some time.


Everyone was carrying either fruits of some sorts or giant leaves. But, someone appeared to be missing.. In my mind, I began to do a check for everyone: Amaya was the one missing. A cloud of desperation, confusion and frustration loomed over my head as I began to pace back and forth on the sand, unsure of what to do. The air was heavy from the heat, and my heart was heavy with grief and despair as the thoughts of what might have happened to Amaya, and where she might have run off to.
As we all sat down with our warm bowls of rice and fruit, but with the idea of Amaya's body might be lying on some part of the island, I could barely stomach any of the meal. As everyone else drifted up off to sleep, I sat by the fire with Margret, unable to sleep.
"You know, I think I'm going to go take a walk and see if I can find her. Maybe she just got lost, or found something she didn't want to share with us."
I said, my voice trailing off slightly. I knew that the thought was unlikely, but I was pleading with god that it were true.

After what seemed like days, my legs growing weak from beneath me as I came back to where the fire laid beneath the ever-glowing stars. My eyes told a tale of despair of words I couldn't muster up the courage to say. The sun crept up on the early morning sky, a new day forming in front of their worn-out eyes.

Kara

We sit around the campsite watching the fire we built burn, in misery, thinking of the girl who had died.
The last 4 hours are playing on re-run in my head.
Volunteering for the first watch.
Seeing the girl, looking as tired as any of us stumble into camp saying her name was Amaya and then collapsing next to the fire.
Everyone (except for Josh) waking up and meeting her.
Someone else takes the next watch as we sleep.
Waking up and being sent off to find food, noticing as she walks off in the other direction as eager as any of us to help.
Coming back to camp and finding everyone there except for her.
Blowing it off, assuming that she’s okay. (hoping that she is.)
Then 12 hours ago being informed that the girl I met, who could’ve been my friend… is dead.
Everything seems so hopeless now.
I push myself to my feet and someone looks up to me.
“Where are you going?” they ask and I can’t focus on who that face belongs to.
“For a walk,” I mutter, looking away.
“But…”
“I’ll try to find more food or water or something while I’m gone,” I say walking away, knowing that it is a pretty lame excuse but right now I just have to get out of here.
I can’t stand just sitting here anymore.
I walk through the forest, past vines and spinally tree’s until I find a path I haven’t been before.
As I walk I think about our situation.
I’m a girl who wants to be a doctor one day, stuck on a deserted island with a librarian, a little kid and another girl who I don’t really know much about.
Someone’s already dead so we know this place is dangerous.
How do we know we can even survive?
As soon as I think it I push that thought from my head and the stronger voice inside my head tells me to calm down.
You will survive, I tell myself and while you’re at you will find some way to get off this damn island.
The path ahead of me is getting more and more overgrown.
That’s when I come to a stream- it’s a little small and doesn’t look like it’s flowing as strongly as it could but I know that it will be enough for just me and the others.
Then I almost hit myself for not bringing anything to carry water in.
Instead of standing there mentally yelling at myself like I felt like doing I knelt down and picked up what looked like a sharp rock, walking to the nearest tree and drawing what I take for a rather oddly shaped circle.
I walk all the way back the path I have taken, doing the same thing making sure that it’s in a decently straight line so that I can remember easily.
When I burst out to the decently cleared area where the campsite is I find everyone still sitting around in a circle grieving and the numbness I got from doing something starts to fade.
But I focus- I can’t let it get the best of me- not now.
“How much water do we have left?” I ask picking up the water container we managed to find.
Margaret looks up.
“Enough for another day if we’re lucky,” She replies.
I tell them about the stream I found and how we could get more fresh water from that, trying not to let thoughts of the previous day invade my mind again.

Richard Puller

He reaches for another banana. Almost...Got it..., he thinks furiously. He stretches another few millimetres, then with an ear-splitting crack the branch he's perched on breaks and he tumbles to the ground hitting with an almighty thud.
Dazed, with his ankle burning in pain, he looks towards his hand to see an especially inviting banana grasped there.
Success, he thinks proudly. He moves to stand up and yelps as his ankle caves under his - not inconsiderable - weight. As the birds sing around him, he gingerly hobbles to his new shelter: his pride and joy.
Constructed from a long branch wedged in the fork of the tree he first slept in which stretches to the ground, then straight branches leant against its sides, before finally covering these branches with banana leaves, it was large at the entrance but narrowed the further in you got. He could just fit inside comfortably and was sure that the first thing he would see when he woke up was the sun rising majestically over his lagoon.
My own little slice of paradise. he thought, a smile beaming from his wrinkled features. There were numerous fruit trees scattered around the area, plenty of trees and vines for raw materials and he'd even thought he'd seen some fish. Spying some rather fetching looking vines, he decided to build himself a grass skirt, which should take the rest of the morning. That, he calculated, should give him enough time to search along the stream which fed into his lagoon before nightfall.

Come on, is this dead? It seems like only a few of us are posting. Where are all of you? I'm going to pause this thing, and accept any new characters. We are starting again on June 13. Please post on the DT if you want to stay in, or if you want out. Any new profiles may be posted there, but I must accept them. I'll post first on June 15, then go for it!