Island of Uncertainty

Chapter 10

I start to pull the fish off the thing I made for the fire. The smell of it makes me hungry. I need a real meal. I have to save half of it though. Atlas and I are going to work together. We figured we could do twice the work and we can keep each other sane.

There are bad parts of it too. Splitting materials and food. All those calories that could be mine, but having him around will help greatly.

I pull out a water bottle and rinse the knife off. I hand Atlas the bottle of water offering it to him in case if he wants some. After I hand it to him I focus my attention on the fish again. I cut it into half and then into fourths. While I am cutting I hear him drinking the water. He just keeps downing it and doesn't stop.

I look up at him when he is done. He looks up at me with a sheepish smile and says "Sorry. I haven't had water in two days." I look down at the fish and then hand him half. He eyes light up and he starts to eat.

~~~

When we are both done we decide to go back to the river to refill our water bottles that are empty and try to catch more fish.

I grab the bag with the water bottles and but the knife in there as well. I take out the remaining berries and put them in the backpack. There are still around a hundred left but that worst last too long.

We head out  and Atlas is carrying the bag and I am holding the knife. As we walk he seems focus on the trail and memorizing it. He is so laser focused it is amazing, yet he seems to conscious of his surroundings.

I am focused for looking for more berries and when I turn my head there is a stick that is so sharp. It gashes my cheek at my cheek starts to bleed. Atlas looks up and quickly runs over to me.

"Are you okay?" He says looking at the cut, inspecting it. He runs his finger along my skin right under the cut.

It burns when he hits a certain part and I flinch. He looks at me with worry in his eye and before he can say anything else I just say "I am fine, let's continue." He tries to put up a fight with "but you are cut and your cheek is blee-"

He gets cut off right then and there. "I am fine. Let's go." He gives me another worried looked and says "okay" in a defeated tone.

We continue walking and I can only focus on getting to the river. I have been keeping my hand to my cheek so I do not bleed all over.

When we finally get to the lake I am guessing it is 3:00. Maybe. I pull my hand away from my cheek and it is completely covered in my blood. Altas catches a glance at my hand and grabs it and then looks at my cheek. My rubs his hand on my cheek and then pulls it away. It also also drenched in blood. He doesn't say a word and pulls me to the river. He dips my hand in and dips his hand in. He grabs one of the water bottles and quickly fills it up. He puts a hand to my chest and pushes me so I am laying down. He puts is hand by the side of my cut closest to my nose and he starts to pour the water.

It is cool and brings some relief to my cut. As it runs down my face I can feel it getting rid of grime on my face.

Atlas is on his knees bent over and razor focused on getting all of the blood off my face and cleaning the cut. It is only now that I realize how close he is to me. Is it just hot outside? Probably it is mid day. Why are his hands so soft? Adrienne get it together!

He pulls away and I start to sit up put he pushes me back down. I start to get up again but he does the same thing. He grabs the water bottles and fills the up. He puts the caps on them and puts them back in the bag.

He kneels by the lake and sticks his hand in hoping to catch a fish. I get up and kneel next to him.

"What? No. Go lay down your cheek is bleeding. It is a deep cut."

"My cheek is fine. We need food. Plus I feel fine. I want to do this."

"Okay fine, but take it easy."

"I will."

After a few minutes I see his hand clamp down on something. He pulls a medium sized fish out of the water. He lays it on the grass and waits for it to slowly die.

While watching I feel something move against my hand. I snap back to attention and wrap my hands around the fish. I pull it out of the water. It is a little smaller than the one I caught before but it is still calories.

"We should go. We have some food. We can look for some more tomorrow." Atlas says.

I nod and we pack up everything including our two fish. When we walk back I lead because he is still somewhat new and he does not want to get us lost. As we approach the sky gets a little darker. It is about 5:00.

When we arrive we both go into the little shelter. We might need to make it bigger for the both of us now. We are going to need a lot more for the both of us now. Things are going to become easier and harder for sure. One thing I am not sure about though is when we are going to get off this island.