The Island

2. Fire

Jordyn

Eventually, the lion decides that I'm too boring and lopes back off into the woods. I turn around to face the ocean. If either was going to kill me, they would have done so before now.

I make a mental note that the giant black lions either don't like sunlight or water. Maybe both.

I sit staring out at the ocean and watch it catch the light from the sun overhead like a mirror. It reflects the blue of the perfect sky with precision, although I can see it's as clear as glass. From here, the sand slopes down into the water and disappears at a drop-off only a few feet from the shoreline.

Fish swim back and forth and dart around each other. Each of them are a sleek silver with a bright red line down the center of their backs. A turtle swims by with patient speed, but it's smaller than I remember sea turtles being. The neon green shell on its back flashes as it passes my sight.

How I know the names of these things is a mystery, like the information is all present but the memory of how I learned it is gone.

I dig through my mind again in an effort to remember what I know about the island I've been imprisoned on. There's more than one manufactured prison around the world. This is the tropical one. Why couldn't I have been placed in the woodland one or the desert one?

Anywhere but here would have been a smidge better.

My subconscious knows why they chose this one, though, even if my brain denies it.

These new prisons are designed to capitalize on a person's greatest fear, the thing that cripples them. They then use that knowledge to make the last few days of their existence miserable, to drive them insane before their gruesome death.

My throat knots up as I look out at the glassy ocean. I envision a thousand ways it could kill me.

I could be sucked to the drop off and never resurface. A shark could swim up and devour me in one giant bite. Those fish could be electric, and they might nibble at my toes until I lose control of my legs.

You can drown in a teaspoon of water, and that's en entire ocean of it.

Why does my brain chose to remember that but not my last name?

I continue to stare until the sun dips towards the horizon. If I stare at it long enough, squinting so that it doesn't burn half as bad, I can see the circle moving. Is time moving faster, or am I imagining things?

What else do I know about The Island?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

They must've wiped my memories before I got here.

Where do I come from? Do I have siblings? Parents? What's my last name? How did I get caught?

More importantly, why did I commit arson in the first place?

The questions multiply exponentially, until I feel overwhelmed and clamp my hands over my ears. I shake my head until it clears, but I'm left feeling just as hollow as before. Maybe it was better when I had the questions to keep me company.

Speaking of company, I wonder if I'm alone on this island.

Knowing the designers, they placed crazy natives somewhere in the woods, robots with bows and arrows dipped in poison. Every aspect of this place was designed to kill me. The speed and events of my death, though, are left up to whoever works the controls.

I decide right then that even if there are people on the island, I need to go this alone. Even my fellow inmates might be driven crazy to the point of murder.