Shipwreck Creative Writing Challenge - Round Two

I realized there's something wrong with this island … After a month of having survived the shipwreck I still had the hope of being rescued. Living in that cave was not easy, but it gave me shelter. I got used to eating fish and fruits every day, drinking water from a fountain that flowed from an immense stone was what saved my life. The island seemed to be deserted, I went to explore it several times getting into its wild vegetation, I did it with the desire of finding some human being to talk to, shout or fight and even die. I got to know many parts of the island as well as its varied flora and fauna, but I never managed to see a trace of any man.

Each morning, when I got up from my makeshift bed, I carved a streak with my sharp stone pencil on the black and misshapen walls of the cave, each line was another day on the island. On the rock I also drew the face of my wife and my children as best as I could, at night I observed those figures and spoke to them as if my family were present and the echo of my voice was mixed with theirs, this relieved my pain caused by its absence. What I felt in that isolation and loneliness was painful, it was draining my will to live. I came to realize that I had to leave that island as soon as possible, otherwise I would go crazy.

I carved the streak number thirty. I left the cave and for the first time I did not receive the sea breeze as every morning, that's when I had that strange feeling again, there was something different on the island. The sea was excessively calm, almost no waves came to shore, it looked like a great blue floor that shone with the sun, the clouds didn’t seem to move, it was as if time had stopped; a plane was flying in the sky, I heard its distant sound, it was the first time I saw one from above the island.

Instinctively I started to raise my hands and shout as if to get attention, suddenly the plane started to descend, naively I started to feel some joy, as if they had seen me and it was coming for me. The size of the airplane began to increase as well as the intensity of its sound, it was falling. Its wings were moving from one side to another and my ears could not stand the sharp sound that was produced in the air. It passed near a small mountain hiding behind her, then a powerful blast shook the whole island and a ball of fire rose to the sky along with smoke.

I ran to the place of the impact, I moved as fast as I could. After fifteen minutes and as I was almost arriving at the scene of the accident, I could see on the ground and trees all kinds of remains of what seemed the luggage of the passengers, parts of the plane were everywhere. I managed to advance a little more, but I had to stop when I saw the gruesome scene before me: remains of human bodies everywhere, a lot of shattered materials scattered on the ground, the smell of burned flesh was unbearable. The plane was unrecognizable, it was destroyed, only a small part of the fuselage seemed intact. I put my hands on my face as if not wanting to see that dreadful scene anymore, I thought of running back to the beach. So long without being able to see a human being and now they were before me in those conditions of horror and death.

I tried to run away from the place of the catastrophe, but at that moment I began to hear the cries of a woman's voice, that voice came out of the fuselage of the plane. I went to where the drowned moans of pain came out, made my way through the remains and reached the metal frame, I could still hear the voice and I started to shout, "Where are you?, Where are you?", I saw a raised hand that barely moved, I ran to help her, it was a woman of about twenty-five years old. I took her in my arms and managed to get her out of the place, with much effort I took her to a safe place, I decided to take her to the cave, there I could attend her better.

Once in the cave I gave her water and something to eat, that night she boiled in fever and I tried to lower her temperature with water compresses, she just complained and seemed delirious; the next morning the fever had stopped, I knew then that she would not die, ironically I was happy to have her with me, to be able to take care of her and heal her wounds. Over time she just like me began to overcome this terrible experience, impressively adapted to the environment and primitive life that I knew well. With the passing of the days we inevitably became lovers, this was part of survival and to avoid madness.

Every night we talked about our families, and about our lives before the accidents. The days passed and she helped me mark them with the stone on the walls of our cave. One morning she marked on the rock the thirtieth day of the month and we went fishing, strangely I felt again that feeling I had felt exactly one month ago, something bad was happening with the island, my companion felt the same, the environment was exactly like that horrible day.

Suddenly we saw that a boat was sinking into the sea, we were very impressed when we saw people throw themselves into the water swimming in all directions, we made signs with their hands but they were far away, we could not do anything. The boat and the people submerged in the depths of the waters, I hugged my partner and we began to cry. That day we could barely fish, we could not hit the fish with our wooden spears, we went to sleep early and we talked about the sinking. Then in the middle of the conversation we started to hear a noise outside the cave, I took my torch and I went out to see what happened, I thought it was some wild animal.

In the darkness I could see something moving near a stockade, I could not see well, I raised the torch so that the flame shone more light on the black space, then I saw a man who was holding the wood, "help me, please," he said when he saw me before he fell losing consciousness. I quickly went to his aid, my companion and I took him inside the cave and there we realized that he was dressed in a captain's uniform.

The man was dehydrated and very sunburned, he was the captain of the ship that had sunk that morning, he was a man of advanced age but of strong build. We gave him water and food, he recovered quickly. As the days passed by, we began looking for a way to abandon the island, the captain was an experienced man, he knew the sea well and the location of all the islands in the ocean, however, he was surprised about how he didn’t know about this one. He told us that being on his boat minutes before the sinking, he kept looking at the island and had a feeling that he had never experienced before, so my partner and I looked at each other and with one voice said, "I felt the same".

My partner said that from the window of the plane she had seen the island and had that strange feeling, she tried to get her companion's attention but he said he did not see any island. That experience also coincided with the captain and me, whom we told those who swam trying to save themselves to swim to the island, but apparently none of them saw it.

Then we began to talk and to realize other coincidences, the three of us had seen the island minutes before the respective tragedies, and we ended up on that island being the only survivors. To top it all it seemed that every month this was repeated, month that we recorded in the rock with a gray stripe. Sixty days, three tragedies, mine being the one that started this cycle of strange events that the island produced in an incomprehensible way.

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With this paragraph ends this strange story that I got inside a bottle that was on the shore of a beach, I do not know if it will be true or just an invented story, but since I read it, when I travel, I try not to look at the lonely islands in the sea.