Five days had passed since the shipwreck. Amanda, hungry and tired, lies on the hot sand at the beach. She listens to the regular sound of crashing waves, soothing her almost to sleep. After not being able to catch any fish for five days, she’s about to give up and let the waves carry away her life and body.

Suddenly, she hears the thrum of a helicopter approaching.

Overjoyed, she finds the strength to get up and starts yelling. The life flows back into her every muscle. She may yet see another day.

From the chopper, her handsome fiancé, Rayan, waves his arm and calls out in excitement. He almost jumps from the helicopter once it lands, regains his balance and runs towards Amanda without wasting time.

They embrace each other happily, and…

A seagull’s depositions landed on the dirty notebook.

Amanda let go of her pencil, letting it roll down from her leg to the ground. She looked up at the blue sky and unforgiving sun. She knew her writing was overdramatic; she wouldn’t die of starvation in just five days. She did, however, doubt she’d be able to survive under the sun for much longer. Writers weren’t made for extreme conditions.

She got up from her spot sitting against a big rock that protected her from the sun’s rays during the early hours of the day. The shining orb was overhead, tilted somewhat to the west. She’d been able to determine cardinal directions thanks to the rock, and now its shadow was telling her the time. It was most likely around 1:00pm.

“Time to get a move on, right?”

The rock failed to answer. She trudged back through the palm trees and dense foliage to her inland camp. The thought of letting the waves carry her away was never too far. There was no guarantee she’d be found, and no guarantee she’d learn to hunt before her body metabolized what little muscle she had. Was there any sense in enduring the violent pangs of hunger and the endless torment of the ever increasing amount of bug bites on her skin?

But who’d stop Rayan’s weeping then? He’d start missing his deadlines and stop shaving. He’d look terrible in a couple of weeks were she found dead. He probably already did.

She sat down beside the fire and had a couple gulps of water she’d gotten from a river nearby. She’d head there again now, see if four days failing at fishing had taught her something new, then she’d scour the coast for supplies from the shipwreck. She’d found some clothes and chocolate in a case on the second day, but judging from the tags on it, it didn’t come from the Senopati Nusantara.

Someone else had been even unluckier than she had during that storm.

She slid down from the tree trunk she was sitting on. She had to go hunt or forage, but her muscles weren’t too keen on the idea. She was famished. Her body had worked more in the last five days then she had in the previous six months. She wouldn’t catch anything, anyway. There wasn’t anything on the coast but seagulls–flying, out of reach seagulls.

Her eyes were beginning to close when she heard a rumble in the leaves behind her. She turned around and saw a small animal. She couldn’t be sure without her glasses, but it had to be a mammal. A rat, perhaps? Or a monkey?

A good 300 grams of meat was the most accurate description she could give at the time.

She grabbed her makeshift hunting spear from beside the extinguished fireplace without taking her sight off the creature.The prospect of catching a healthy dose of protein energized her muscles once again. She threw the spear at it, missing by several feet. Startled, her prey ran back into the forest, and she ran behind it.

She ran through the forest, dodging branches and jumping over roots. Somehow, her malnourished body performed well enough that she managed not to lose the animal until they were almost at the beach. Then, it stopped for a second, looking Amanda straight in the eye before heading into a tiny hole under some palm tree roots.

Great. She would never see it again.

Amanda walked out from the trees. She was back at the beach with the compass rock.

Fatigued and defeated, she dragged her feet to the shore and let herself fall backwards on the sand. She stared at the sky for a while, until the regular sound of crashing waves started to make her sleepy.

As she closed her eyes, she could only think of Rayan’s Bubur Ayam. He’d be devastated if she died. At least at the beach she’d be found.

At least he could stop looking.

As she lost consciousness, the salty smell of the sea was replaced by the sweet smell of jasmine tea.

For a moment, she thought she could hear the regular sound of spinning blades.

Afterword

Ahoy, ye steeming scoundrels! We're back for another short story contest! Who would've guessed? This time, the good @steemfluencer is hosting it and I must say I'm EXCITED to keep participating in the following rounds of the Shipwreck Creative Writing Challenge. Hopefully I won't turn it in minutes before the deadline like this time around!

It's been a busy week. My laptop died, and I had a bunch of program malfunctions that had me working extra hours very often, but here we are! Still in one piece.

I want to thank the editors at The Writer's Block for their hard work helping me develop this piece. The things I'd be publishing without them! So many needless semicolons...

I'll leave you all with that and tell you about my love for ships and sailing when I'm not running out of time.

Header image made with resources from Fine Art America.

Steem on!