Stranded: Day One

Five souls clung onto the very edge of life as the remains of their wrecked boat splintered and strained under the bubbling and frothing of the volatile ocean as the sea struck the remains with the force equal to a raging bull. The flat horizon was surprisingly and suddenly interrupted by a strange lump. As the lump came closer and therefore became more defined, the one conscious passenger saw that it was a large-ish island. To her eyes, the island seemed a tropical paradise compared to their half-a-boat: long golden beaches, luscious banana trees, towering coconut palms and the lively sound of wildlife.

In trying to wake her fellow passengers the girl nearly fell overboard in exhaustion herself. Slowly but surely, the others woke and – upon seeing the island begin to loom over them – suddenly found a last supply of emergency energy from somewhere to help steer the ‘raft’ towards one of the beaches rather than the rocky outcrops which were interspersed along the coastline. Upon arriving, the five managed to crawl further up the beach before the outgoing tide swept their boat remains up and threw it at a nearby rocky outcrop, causing the boat to splinter and collapse.

They remained on the beach, gathering themselves, for just over an hour. One of the boys woke suddenly as a small crab snapped at his left hand. He carefully – and painfully – got to his feet and turned a slow three hundred and sixty degrees, looking at his new surroundings, before waking the others. As the four gathered themselves, Jake – the first to awake – wandered a short distance along the beach to a banana tree he’d spotted; the need for food outweighed the need for rest as Jake tried to climb the tree. After failing and falling twice, he finally hit on a technique which worked.

Returning to their landing place, Jake handed everyone one of his bananas, warning them to eat slowly as their stomachs hadn’t had food for over two days. Heeding his advice the group took small mouthfuls while visually exploring their new environment. At eighteen, Jake was the youngest of the five, while at twenty three; Hayley – Jake’s sister – was the oldest. Used to being in charge at home, Hayley took over from Jake, who gladly gave up his position of responsibility to her. Hayley began by needlessly reinforcing Jake’s warning about eating slowly before asking if any had injured themselves in the rough landing.

Satisfied that the only casualty was Sam’s foot – a thin piece of one of the deck planks was part way through her foot – Hayley waited patiently while they all regained their energy before issuing orders; luckily the five had been firm friends since attending senior school together, the other four were used to this. Jake and nineteen year old Callum – Sam’s twin – were in charge of searching the beach for wood to burn. Twenty one year old George – Hayley’s boyfriend and the group’s medical man – had waded out to the wreck and was searching for a first aid kit so he could patch up Sam’s foot as best he could. Hayley herself said that she would try and find some more food for them.

Sam remained as still as possible as George searched the edge of the forest for items which he could create makeshift bandages from. She took her mind off the wooden intrusion by watching Jake and Callum try and fail to detach a large piece of branch from an old tree – the tree was quite thick and, despite Callum’s strength and muscles, he was going about it the wrong way while Jake had abandoned the branch and was searching nearby for other, more suitable pieces of wood. Soon George returned with two large leaves, two long straight-ish sticks and a length of thin vine. After a short while and a small amount of pain, Sam’s foot was bandaged and the splinter had become part of the fire.

While Callum was arguing with the tree and Jake was trying to reason with it, George had joined Hayley to help her search for anything which might seem edible, so far she had found some more bananas, a bunch of coconuts and a handful of unknown juicy looking berries. Despite their juiciness, both George and Hayley knew not to eat them till they had received the vote of confidence from their group’s resident cook, Sam.

Less than an hour later, the group were sitting round the fire, by which time night was beginning to fall along with the temperature. That night, they all slept under the stars next to the still lit fire. Not knowing who or what was on the island with them, George took the first night watch while occasionally re-stoking the fire, when needed. After two hours, George was relieved by Jake, who would be relieved by Callum in another two hours. The boys stuck to this rotation of night watching throughout the entire night.