Lost

Chapter 9

Time drags itself out as long as it can when you're waiting for something. It taunts you, trying its best to make you think about just how incredibly long you've been sitting there.

The boredom was real by the time we had eaten plain old fruit and started a tiny fire and sang boring songs; we couldn't even remember where they came from. There were no funny stories to tell since our only memories were of this island. There were no jokes to crack which hadn't been cracked a hundred times before. So we just sat there and played twenty questions until we were so bored we thought our heads would fall off. At least I thought my head was going to fall off. The night wore on and I found it easy to stay up. Most of the others seemed to be having no trouble at all. Except for Irene. She nodded off with her head on my shoulder and I didn't wake her. She looked so peaceful. Every few minutes I asked Isaac for the time until he looked about ready to kill me. Somewhere around two AM, I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up, a strange feeling stirring in my stomach. In a circle around the dying embers of the fire, my friends snored peacefully, not one awake. Not even Alex. I blinked in surprise, looking around at them. Something strange was happening. I eased myself away from Irene, trying not to wake her. The moon was high, pouring silver light on the sleepy scene. I crept over to Isaac and checked his watch.

3:29

Just one more minute until...

3:30

The numbers changed before I realized what was happening.

The pressure changed and my ears popped like they do when you take off in an airplane, or when you're on the highway and you roll down the window.

A deep hush fell over the jungle. The blinking colon between the numbers three and thirty, froze on Isaac's watch. No leaves rustled. The drifting shreds of clouds froze in place. My friend's chests stopped rising and falling. Only I remained, moving out from under the trees to stare at the sky.

Had time...stopped?

Just for me?

I reached for the clue which was jammed into my pocket.

'There is naught that you should say
At The half past three, here the silence shall strike'

I read and thought to myself, "the silence has struck so I shouldn't say anything...right?"

'Follow the path of the untold'

What the heck is the path of the untold?! I glanced around, afraid that if I much as breathed to loudly, this strange phenomenon would end. I desperately wished I could wake Alex or Irene but they were frozen in time, their faces deathly pale in the bewitching moonlight. I turned about in a slow circle, wondering what I should do. And then, something caught my eye.

It reminded me of a dusty shaft of sunlight, the kind you see dreamily drifting in through a window. But it was a shaft of moonlight, tiny specks floating peacefully in it. I stepped toward it, wincing at how incredibly loud my footstep sounded. As I walked into the moonlit spotlight, sparkling dust dancing about me, I had a strange thought. What if this was all a dream? It was so...dreamlike and peaceful. I pinched myself just to make sure.

When I stepped out of the moonlight, the world had changed. The dying fire and my friends had disappeared. The ground was black and the sky was black and the trees were black! Everything was dark except for the ever watching moon, staring down at me. Another shaft of moonlight shone down a few feet away, and ahead of it, another one. I followed this trail for a while, sometimes stumbling in the dark, always reaching for the light. I wandered on, as if in a trance, caring not where this strange path led me.

But it did lead me somewhere.

It led me to a small round door, set in the base of a large tree, roots curling snugly around it. I reached for the handle and tugged it open, only to be met with more darkness. Nevertheless, I began climbing down, my feet slipping on damp stone steps, following the warm light emanating from the end of the tunnel.

Soon, the cramped passage opened up to a large room filled with warm dancing light. I snapped out of my daze and glanced around, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling when I saw the grinning skull, sitting eerily on a shelf just ahead of me. The strange underground room was filled to the brimming with things. Velvety chairs. Bejeweled necklaces. Ornate dresses, all from what appeared to be the early nineteen hundreds. A large bed with a fluttering canopy sat proudly in the center of the room. As I slowly walked further in, I frowned. The whole place smelled like...seawater. The room went on and on, more rich furniture cluttering the place. But the further in I went, the stranger things became. The furniture began to be soaked with water, damaged and broken, even smashed to smithereens. The whole place smelled of the brine of seawater. Slowly, first just sprinkled unevenly, and then forming neat lines, were names, scratched into the walls. Name after name by the hundreds, each one carefully etched into the stone of the wall. As I finally reached the end of the long snaking room, I froze. There, on the wall, scratched out in large, uneven letters were the words:

HERE LIE THE LOST SOULS OF THE           RMS TITANIC
VOYAGE BEGAN: MAY 31st 1911
UNTIMELY END: APRIL 14th 1912

My breath caught in my throat as I stared at those words and then at the hundreds of names, lining both walls. The Titanic was the hugest ship of that time. Everyone said that nothing could sink it. But then, in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, it hit an iceberg and sank two and a half hours later. Out of the 2200 people on it, over 1500 people tragically died.

I ran my hand along the lines of names. Each of these people had lives which were quickly cut short in chaos and confusion. I felt a great empathy with these strangers from another time. They found themselves lost, just like me.

But unlike me,

They had no way to get home.