When 17 young adults find themselves on a deserted island, they must build a life from the ground up. Being stranded means hard days, cold nights, dangerous waters and mysterious events where the castaways must learn to survive. Despite the inevita...
There was a beam of light that ran through the infirmary when I woke. It was the first thing my eyes settled on. I watched the dust particles glide through the beam of light, meeting and kissing each other before drifting away. I focused on them, on those tiny specks, on something so small yet so beautiful.
Then, I felt the pain shoot through my entire body. I shut my eyes and moaned out, it was agony. My leg felt like something was sawing it in half and every small movement caused my entire body to ache. When I opened my eyes, all the dust had gone.
The door opened and I turned my head to watch Cortland barge in carrying a bunch of leaves and fruit in his arms. I frowned, the sun had barely risen outside.
"Well. There goes that plan," he muttered underneath his breath.
"What plan?" I asked, trying to sit up. But before I could even move an inch, Cortland rushed towards me, dropping all the things he brought in beside me before placing a hand on my shoulder, helping me gain my balance.
"Do you ever plan on listening to me?" He grumbled.
"Not today, Doc. I need to go help out," I gritted out, trying not to show how much pain I was truly in.
"Amara, you take one step out of this infirmary before I tell you and I'll hurt the other leg." His face was blank and he looked at me like he really meant it.
"You would never..." I taunted. He raised his brows and I raised mine in defiance. He raised his even higher and a smile broke through my face. His seriousness faltered and he stared at my mouth for a moment too long before visibly dragging his attention to the items he left on the floor.
"No," he shook his head "but I know that's what it would take. You'd have to have both legs hurt or broken to stay still. Even then-"
"Even then I'd try," I finished for him nodding. I sighed dramatically and then put one hand on his shoulder. "It would be a valiant effort."
I was getting more comfortable being around him. He huffed out a half-hearted laugh and moved to take an orange fruit from his pile. "Piper went and found some fruit inland. I tried going out early to find some herbs that had healing properties or medicinal value, but I wanted to make it back before you woke up. That was the plan."
I didn't know how to answer. Maybe I wasn't entirely comfortable with him. He still made me feel like the girl that tripped up into him the first day. That was yesterday, Amara.
"A day in this place feels like a week," I randomly sighed. He didn't say anything, but I knew he understood. He looked at me and his eyes were more tired than I felt.
Then, he stood and took a knife, a mortar and a pestle from the countertop before coming back down to kneel beside me. He placed the mortar down on the ground before ripping leaves from a branch and putting it inside it. Using the pestle, he crushed the leaves before adding some more and repeating the process.
I looked down at his fingers moving steadily and surely. His fingers were long and the veins on his arm began to rise from the exertion of crushing leaves. I needed to stop. "What made you want to become a doctor?" I burst out.
He looked up at me and smirked. I didn't know how to get rid of that mischievous and disheveled look from his face whenever I entertained him, but I would learn. That look made me feel too breathless for comfort.
He went back to crushing the leaves before moving to cut the fruit open with the knife. I heard him count the slices he cut into the fruit under his breath. I recognized the coconut laying on the ground but didn't know what the orange-yellow thing he was cutting up was. I was going to ask him when he finally answered.
"Maybe it's a God complex, but I like knowing that I can help save a life. The world always needs doctors, because it will always have patients."
"You're right," I pursed my lips.
"What?"
"It's a God complex."
He laughed out loud. An actual laugh. I smiled even though I didn't want to.
"What made you want to become a journalist?" He challenged. He had cut up the orange fruit into squares and picked up one block with his fingers and raised it to my lips, waiting patiently.
"My hands are fine, Doc. It was my leg that got caught if I remember right." I moved to take the fruit from his fingers but he swiped it away.
"I know." He didn't say anything more. He looked at my eyes and then put the fruit near my mouth once more.
My cheeks heated and I parted my lips. He placed the fruit on my tongue and I closed my mouth around it. I felt his eyes burn through my body as he watched me chew the tangy-sweet block and swallow. I could have sworn I heard a small moan escape his lips when I swallowed, but my mind was so hazy I could have been hearing things.
I remembered the question he asked me. "I like finding the connections."
"But aren't a lot of the features exaggerated or even falsified?" He cracked open the coconut and drank the milk that ran free from it. He took the pestle and moved the crushed herbs into the coconut pulp and mixed it together so it made a very unpleasant smoothie.
He moved to take a thick leaf from the pile behind him and scooped up the mixture, with the leaf acting as a spoon before raising it to my mouth.
"There's no way." I looked down at the coconut and disgust roiled through my stomach.
"Amara, it'll help with the pain."
"It may just add to it," I nearly gagged at the rancid, acidic smell, but opened my mouth for him to spoon the mixture into my mouth.
Then I did gag, but I managed to swallow it down. Cortland picked up the bowl of water that lay next to my bed and handed it to me to drink. I swallowed down and then muttered, "Well, then I guess we have a God complex too."
He realized I was answering his earlier question. This seemed to be a pattern with us, we ran multiple conversations jammed into one. "Journalists have a God complex?"
"I mean, isn't a lot of the understanding of God exaggerated and falsified too?"
He tilted his head and looked at me with a genuine perplexity this time. I saw the edges of his lips curve upward. Then he cursed under his breath before scooping another spoonful of the mixture into the leaf and placed it on my lips. I groaned out loud
"Just let me take care of you, you stubborn girl," he whispered, eyes alight with delight.
I opened my mouth and let him feed me the rest of his god-awful medicine.
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