A bug disturbed the perfect silence of sleep, buzzing about loudly. I flicked it away, irritated because it was simply alive and because I had slept through half the morning.

  Standing up, I brushed the crusty sand from myself and took in the extraordinary sight before me. The whole island was humming with life, although it did not look genuinely welcoming.

  I began by exploring the perimeter of the island, and having walked only a few minutes before I became too impatient, and wandered off to explore the forest. At first, it looked wholesome for living on. Trees and wild bushes, berries, and animals. But it seemed as if the deeper you went into the forest, the darker and more wild it became.

  Something odd about it all was that all of the trees were different types of trees, but all had the stooped down and twisted look. I could tell they were of different families because the fruit that they each bore was different. I tried to avoid the fruit, thinking it might be poisonous, but eventually, the pungent, ripe smell meandered its way past my good conscience, and I picked the ripest of the fruits, examining it. The fruit was perfectly round and smooth and felt like a giant grape. Each was around the size of a dessert plate, and, upon cutting it open (using only a stone, the word cutting isn’t quite the effect the stone had on the fruit), I found that it had a huge pit; probably the size of an apple. I tasted some. The fruit tingled for a moment on my tongue, before melting into a bubbly, sweet juice. Each bite was more delicious than the second, and I ate more and more, and before I knew it, it was finished off and my stomach filled.

  The pit, I noticed, was unusually beautiful. It almost looked like a piece of glass, sparkling in the light. Then a bird flew down and pulled the pit right from my hand.

  “Hey!” I called after it, but it just cawed and flew away. I shrugged. It would prove little use on this island anyway.

  Continuing deeper into the woods, I found that it was more of a swamp — the trees with long leaves hanging over marshy ponds. For all of the noise here, I didn’t see hardly anything living. And then I stopped — now that I thought about it, the sounds had stopped.

  Suddenly, fire blazed up from the path in front of me. I yelped as it almost singed my hands, and had it happened a few moments later, my whole body would’ve been burned. I began to look around and noticed that there were little holes in the ground. Each was about a foot in diameter and grew up in a mound. Another one burst forth with flames, before smothering down to smoke and ash. As I watched, a tremor shot through me, thinking of all the dangers this island could possess, this one being only one of them.

  I exited the forest, much less enthusiastically than when I’d first entered.

  I walked across the beach and saw something that caught my attention—a brown thing — thin, and rough-looking. Running over, I withdrew it from the sand, wiping the dirt off it. It was a piece of leather, about the size of my head, and perfectly round too. Scanning the beach, I found more and more miscellaneous items that I collected: a broken porcelain tumbler, a red piece of fabric worn down to loose strings, and a shell that was broken and shaped in a way that could prove as a knife. I took the knife, went back into the forest, and cut off some of the stronger, thicker vines. Soon, I had a big pile of vines thrown over my shoulder, and I searched for some trees that might be useful for a shelter. Two trees stuck out of the forest, bending at almost a right angle, draping leaves and branches. I took the vines and tied one end to one of the trees, and the other end to the other tree until I had used up all the vines, and the trees were covered in tied up vines. I got more of them and tied them to the tree, but let them hang down over the sides.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Wiping my hands on my pants, I took a step back and looked at the shelter. It was sufficient for now but a if the island had extreme weather, it wouldn’t take much to blow it over.

  I remembered how hot it was, and that I was wearing about five layers of rich silk. I stripped it all down to my thin, white woolen vest and rolled up my pant legs. The heat was currently at the highest point of the day, and when I wasn’t swimming in the ocean, I sat fanning myself with a leaf in my shelter like a needy empress. I was so used to colder weather, that the heat felt extreme.

  The heat seemed to make me hungrier, as well as thirsty; and I thought to myself that my first mistake was that I didn’t first and foremost seek out fresh water. I went back into the forest very warily, in search of finding water, for the more I thought about it, and the longer I walked, the thirstier I became.

  The sun began to set slowly, and I could feel its warmth fading from the woods, and the coolness settling in as the crickets started to sing.

  Hours I spent cutting through vines and pushing through shrubs, each step feeling as if my foot were a brick — and finally, here it was — water! At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes, and by this point I was desperate — I had lost any sense of direction and wasn’t sure which way my shelter was, so water became my top priority.

  The pond was a bit murkier than I would’ve normally liked, but in these circumstances, one couldn’t push away the temptation of the water when it was right in front of oneself, and resistance against the prospect couldn’t be expected from me.

  It was surprising how cool it had gotten in the past quarter hour but colder it had become; yet despite this, the water was the most refreshing thing that touched my lips and had filled my stomach, killing the dryness that I once thought could overcome me.

  After having my fill of water, I stuck my face into it, washing it with my hands. Something cold and slippery brushed across my chin, and I immediately withdrew myself from the water and jumped up, startled, then slipped on the wet bank. I fell knee-deep into the water, and before I had time to think, a wet hand seemed to grab me and pull me down. Where I had previously been standing was shallow, but the creature pulled me into the lower depths of the water. I felt its slimy body slip up and around my arm, and it pulled my arm so hard as it compressed around me.

  Meanwhile, I was desperately trying to climb back to the surface to get air or find footing on the bottom of the pond. But the thing was slowly but surely dragging me downwards. For the last time, I came to the surface, but saw the opportunity and took it: a root reached out to save me, and I wiggled myself slowly towards it and reached out my free arm to grasp it. I gasped for air, clinging to the root as the snake wrapped itself around my ankles, working its way up my body. I heaved up from the root, and held myself on the bank's edge, panting.

  I tried to pull myself out onto the bank, but the snake squeezed itself across my chest, and I couldn’t gather enough breath to force myself to do that. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a rock to the left. I flung my arm up onto the bank and reached for it, my fingers slowly crawling towards it. Grunting, I touched it but managed only to push it farther away. I gasped as I felt the snake tighten, but barely grabbed the rock. Immediately I began to saw with the rock at the snake’s body and noticed that my hand was red and the veins in it were popping out because the snake had cut off the blood flow throughout most of my upper body.

  Thankfully, the rock seemed to be sharp, as it quickly dug a deep red welt into the snake’s body. Suddenly the blood gushed out of its body. I watched as it dripped down my hand, an ugly thick, dark red color. I could feel my face reddening as I sawed at the snake I was almost halfway through its body until my hand went numb.

  Finally, it loosened its hold, and I could breathe again. But I didn’t stop; I held the snake down, and as best as I could, stabbed it with the rock. It let out a hissing sound and sank beneath the water. My body felt like jelly after that, and I stumbled up onto the shallow-ended bank. I collapsed on the bank once out of the water and sank to my knees, and all went black.