FINAL ATTEMPT
LUKE
Sarah and I struggled with yet another doomed attempt to weave the bamboo together and even though I was irritated and exhausted, a part of me knew this was only only option. I needed to get back to Jess. I needed to get Josh to a hospital. I needed… Fuck – I needed so many things.
I was gripping the bamboo too tightly, my fingers aching, my knuckles white, raw cuts traced my palms from weaving these strands. They felt like cable wires at this point. Sarah sat quietly across from me, her hands working methodically, but even she looked more fragile each day, her skin drawn tight over her cheekbones.
“Hold that end tighter,” she murmured, but it just felt like noise. This whole situation was one big, endless loop of failure. No. matter what we tried, we’d end up right back here, desperately clutching at scraps and false hope.
I yanked the bamboo strand tighter, but it slipped from my hands, the entire piece unraveling, days‘ worth of work wasted in an instant. I looked down at my bleeding palm. Sarah reached out to help but I pulled it out of reach, wrapping a piece of torn material from my pants around it.
“Look–I know we got off on the wrong foot. What I did, at the waterfall… What I said… I’m sorry.” She murmured and I grunted a response.
FINAL ATTEMPT
1235ouchers
Something inside me snapped. Without thinking, I hurled the bamboo into the waves, watching it skim the surface before sinking, pulled away by the relentless tide.
“Fuck this!” I shouted, standing up, hands clenched into fists. Sarah looked up, startled, but I couldn’t stop. The words spilled out, raw and furious, years of anger condensed into a single, hopeless moment.
“We’re never getting off this forsaken island! And even if we did, we’d probably drown out there fucking anyway. We’re stuck, Sarah. We’re stuck, and we’re just fooling ourselves if we think there’s a way out.” I was breathing hard, my chest tight, my fists still clenched. For a second, Sarah looked like she might say something, but I didn’t wait for her to.
I turned and stormed off, trudging along the shoreline until they were both out of sight. The jungle loomed on one side, dense and green, but even that felt like a cage. I dropped down onto the sand, feeling the sting of tears start to blur my vision. It wasn’t like me to cry; I hadn’t shed a tear since I was a kid. But right now, I was past the point of pretending to be strong.
“Why?” I muttered, pressing my hands against my face as the tears slipped down, hot and relentless. “Why did this have to happen?”
Jess’s face filled my mind, her smile, the way she’d laugh at my. terrible jokes even when they weren’t funny. What must she be thinking now? Four months–it had been almost four months since we were stranded here. Did she think I was dead? Had she moved on? I tried to imagine her going through the motions, maybe even… God, maybe even burying some empty coffin, assuming the worst.
FINAL ATTEMPT
1288 Vouchers
It was impossible to shake the thought, to ignore the ache deep in my chest, the way my heart twisted when I pictured her face, the look she’d have had if she knew where I was. Did she have someone else to turn to now, someone who didn’t get stranded on a godforsaken island and leave her wondering? The thought made me sick.
My fingers dug into the sand, the gritty texture grounding me just enough to keep me from losing it entirely. Four months- we’d been out here longer than we should have been able to survive. Josh’s leg was getting worse by the day, red and swollen. Sarah had lost so much weight it was starting to scare me. And I… I was barely hanging on, barely keeping it together. Sometimes, I wondered what would happen if I just… gave up. Let the ocean take me, end this nightmare once and for all. Just slip beneath the waves, and it’ll be over.
But deep down, I knew I’d never take that way out. I wasn’t a coward. If I was going to get off this island, ALIVE.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself, and wiped the last of the
I tears away. I knew I’d have to go back eventually, and I forced myself to get up, brushing the sand off my palms and turning back toward the camp.
The second I was within earshot, I saw Josh rolling out of his hammock in a blur, moving faster than I’d seen him in weeks, hobbling over the sand and waving one of the journals in the air, His mouth was moving, shouting something, but the words were lost over the sound of the waves crashing.
“Luke!” he yelled, voice frantic. I ran the last few feet, my heart pounding as I got closer.
