Escaping the Lost Island (working title)

Chapter 4

We returned to camp in the same way, no one saying anything or even glancing at one another.

Upon our return, Kate came bouncing over. "What's up, Meg? Did you guys figure out what the message meant?"

I sighed. "Yeah, we did."

She leaned toward me expectantly. "Welllll?"

Why was she always smiling? We were all gonna die on this stupid rock. The moment this thought entered my mind, however, I regretted it. Kate was just being Kate; there was nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I even envied her natural positive attitude (even if it annoyed me at times) but I doubted even she could find something positive about this particular situation.

"Just a minute," I told her. Raising my voice, I addressed the whole clearing. "Hey guys, can you come over here? There's something important that we need to talk about."

Kate cocked her head. "Are you okay Meg?"

I gave a noncommittal shrug.

The others gradually assembled. When everyone was there, I nodded to Rita to take over.

"I'm afraid we have some bad news," she began.

Rachel's eyes widened. "How bad?"

"Shhh, let her talk," Jessie chided. 

Rita continued. "As you already know, the first part of the message told us that the island floods every forty nine years. The last few days, we have uncovered the final seven words." She hesitated.

I sighed. We didn't have time to break the news to them gently. "It says the last flood was on July 14, 1964, also known as the Year of the Serpent's Tooth," I cut in. "Which means if the pattern continues, the island will start flooding over in a month and four days."

Chaos was what I had expected, but the dead stillness that followed was even worse. Fortunately, Kate couldn't stay quiet for more than a few minutes so her sobs finally broke the silence.

"What are we gonna do!? We're all gonna DIE!!"

I absolutely cannot stand crying. Not in an empathetic way where I feel sorry for them, but more like an irritated, wanting-it-to-stop-right-now-by-any-means-possible sort of thing.

"Okay calm down," I said briskly. "Let's all keep our heads here. We just have to think of a plan to get off the island before the flood and we're good to go."

"Meg, we've been here for three months and we still have no idea how to get everyone off the island at once," Brian pointed out.

"Well we had a way," Isaac couldn't resist adding. "But clearly that's no longer an option." He shot Toby a look.

"Anyways," Brian continued. "How are we supposed to come up with something in a third of that time?"

That was indeed a key question. "Maybe now that we have a stronger motivation to get out of here, we'll come up with something," I said, taking my best shot at being positive.

"So its do or die basically is what I'm getting out of this?" Chris asked. "Outstanding." 

But his blunt words had finally made the reality of what we had discovered sink in. Unless we could find a way to get ourselves off of the island in roughly thirty four days, we were all going to die. Even if we managed to get off the island, our chances of surviving the unforgiving ocean with no way of directing ourselves were about slim to none. Death had always lurked in the back of my mind but it had never seemed this inevitably close.