STRANDED (THE WILDS KIRIN O'CONNOR)

DAY 1. THE CRASH

Warm. Is all I feel. Warm and wet. I hear voices in the distance but I can't bring myself to move.

I blink as I look up at the blue sky not a cloud in sight, then I remember. I was on a plane and now I'm not. Suddenly my view of the sky is obstructed by a guy with blonde hair in front of me. I blink.

"I found her!" I hear him shout and watch as he waves his hands around. I know he is right in front of me but his voice sounds far far away. More heads show up in my eye sight and suddenly whatever trance or shock I'm in I am shaken out of as I feel hands touch my arms.

I quickly sit up "What the hell, where are we?" I ask as I look around at all the boys who I remember seeing on the plane.

"Pretty sure the plane crashed, as for where we are I haven't quite figured that one out yet." A boy with shaggy brown hair speaks I nod but then groan and reach to touch my head.

I touch my forehead and hiss in pain and pull my hand away and see on my finger tips are covered in blood. "That's not good." I sigh defeated. The guy with the shaggy brown hair rips a piece of his shirt off and tied it around my head.

"To stop the bleeding until we can get that properly cleaned up." He told me as I nodded and he stood up, I went to stand up as well but was ushered not to by all the guys.

"It's a cut on the head chill." I spoke as I went to stand up but stopped as the tall blonde boy held a hand out to me, I grabbed his hand and let him pull me up.

After this we all kinda look around at everything for the first time, I take my eyes away from the ocean as I hear someone talking to themselves.

"Good one, Mother. Great idea. How about...how about we, we ship me off to some wilderness fucking circle jerk? Maybe it'll be fun she said. Yeah! Maybe you'll learn something. Ok sure yeah. Maybe I'll learn what it's like to almost basically drown! Maybe I'll learn what it's like to get a metric shit ton of water up my fucking nose! Or. Maybe. I'll learn what it's like to absolutely and extremely hate you, you fucking dick tit!"

The guy in the track suit then grunts as he kicks a Boulder full force. "Oh, jeez. Fuck!" He shouts in pain as he cradles his foot.

I grimace and shake my head.

I look over as a guy next to the guy with long brown hair laughs, he shakes his head as he speaks through it laugh "I'm....I'm sorry. I just...I just. I can't pretend that shit wasn't funny. Dick tit uhh." He grunts as he laughs again.

Everyone either smiles or laughs along with him but we all stop when he hear someone crying.

"Hey, you doing ok?" The man that tore his shirt for me asked. "No." The emo kid spoke immediately.

"Henry, come on. Not now." Emo kid is Henry. Noted.  Henry looked up at the guy "What? We're either lost, dead, or raptured. None of us are ok."

"Ok, I'll rephrase. Are you doing ok, considering?" But before he could get an answer the guy that helped me up interrupted.

"Why are you doing that?" He asked the nerdy kid hugging his suitcase, "Doing what?" Suit case boy asked sadly.

I motioned at my eyes "The water works." I spoke a little softer. Tall blonde nodded in my direction. "It's fine, actually. It's healthy, really. And I think it should be more normalized as a behavior." The nerdy boy spoke up.

I was kinda proud he spoke his thoughts he seemed like he would just be a push over, but he stood his ground.

"Jesus fucking Christ. Who came with this kid?" Tall blonde asked pointing to nerdy kid. I watched as a kid with floppy black hair raised his hand.

"Is he always like this?"  The kid who raised his arm answered "I.....I don't really know."

I squinted my eyes at him half cause the sun was in my eyes but the other half out of confusion, "we're in different friend groups." The kid who is still hugging his brief case spoke  "Hi, Rafe." He said as he waved at him.

I quickly made a mental note of his name. Two down six to go.

"Whatever.  Look, we've been sitting on our asses for too long. Let's quit fucking crying and do something." The tall blonde spoke and I agreed with him we should start doing something useful.

"Uh, hey, man. W-what's your name, again?" The guy who knew Henry asked, "He'll tell you it's Kirin, but we all know he's a natural-born Chad."

"Don't start, Taylor. Don't even start." Kirin stated shutting him down immediately.

"Okay, uh, some history there." "Uh, look, Kirin, why don't we just let Josh be Josh for a sec? We've all been dropped into this, like, live-action fever dream. We should probably normalize having any reaction that we want. Like, if you want to call your mom a dick-tit, then go for it."

This dude was starting to get on my nerves, so I stood up.

"Look Sammy sunshine, Kirin is right we need to get up and do something. This little therapy game isn't doing much." Someone clapped behind me and I turned and saw Kirin smiling.

"Thank you, you heard the girl. Let's go."

"Go where?" Kirin shrugged at the question "To go look for shit. Deserted islands don't even exist. We fuckin found em all."

"Yeah, see that's true. All these islands been snapped up by rich dudes with, like, Illuminati money." The kid that laughed at track suit guy with the obvious mommy issues spoke.

"All right, everybody up!" Kirin shouted Henry stood up along with Taylor. "Why did I just do what he told me to do?" Henry asked shocked with his actions.

"It's that captain daddy voice. You just can't fight it. I mean, look at me, I've loathed him since middle school, and my ass got up." Taylor spoke defeated.

"Look, obviously, rescue's coming, but if there's some sick hotel around the corner and we're too lazy to go find it, we're gonna feel like total dicks. So I think we split up, head in separate directions. Just send someone back when you find something."

Kirin paused but spoke again "Everyone from here over, you're one group." He paused again "I mean...." Kirin whistles and motions Henry towards us "I mean from here over. The others, you're with me. Let's go." Kirin claps his hands.

I start to follow after his as I was apart of the small group to take the right side of the beach.

I jog up next to Kirin "Hey Kirin, I never thanked you before for finding me and helping me up. So thanks for that." He looks down at me and shrugs "Wasn't a big deal."

I nod "Maybe not, but I was the only girl and I was quiet on the plane. Not very memorable"

Kirin flashes me a smile "I remembered because you were the only girl. By the way what's your name?" "Emma." I answered him

"Short name for a short girl. Fitting." He smiles I roll my eyes "haha you're so funny." He laughs when I shove him slightly. We continue to talk as we walk in hopes to find something.