May 12 • General discussion
Chapter 3 - Rules to survive
Here is chapter 3 draft
The first real problem was water.
Not memories.
Not the island.
Not even the terrifying word carved into the boat.
Water.
By midday, the heat had become unbearable. The sun burned against our skin, and the salty air made my throat feel dry no matter how much I swallowed.
“We need water before anything else,” Charles said.
The weird thing was how confident he sounded.
Emma noticed it too. “How do you know that?”
Charles frowned slightly. “I… don’t know.”
But he kept talking anyway, like the information was buried somewhere deep inside him.
“Food matters, but dehydration hits first. We need fresh water, shelter, and a safer place to stay before dark.”
Jack looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Since when are you survival expert guy?”
Charles crossed his arms. “Apparently now.”
For the first time since waking up on the island, we actually had a plan.
We started by taking supplies from the wrecked boat.
Jack climbed through the broken sections carefully while Emma and I waited below to catch anything useful he found.
Blankets.
Rope.
A waterproof tarp.
Half a first aid kit.
Three flashlights — though only one still worked.
A metal cooking pot.
Life jackets.
Broken suitcases filled with soaked clothes.
Every small thing suddenly felt important.
At one point, Jack found a small blue cooler trapped beneath a broken seat.
“Please let there be food in there,” Emma begged.
Jack forced it open carefully.
Inside were melted ice packs, bottled drinks full of seawater, and a package of crackers that somehow stayed dry.
Emma nearly cried from happiness.
“Best day of my life.”
Charles laughed quietly. “Your standards dropped fast.”
By the time we carried everything back onto the beach, sweat soaked through my shirt and my arms ached.
“We should build the shelter farther from the shoreline,” Charles said while looking toward the jungle. “If the tide rises, we lose everything.”
Jack nodded. “Agreed.”
Together, we started building near the edge of the forest where the trees blocked some of the sun.
Jack carried huge branches like they weighed nothing while Charles tied rope carefully between trees to hold the tarp in place. Emma gathered palm leaves for bedding while I organized the supplies and tried helping wherever I could.
Slowly, the shelter started looking less terrible.
It wasn’t exactly a house.
But it was enough.
A roof made from the tarp stretched across thick branches while layers of leaves covered the ground beneath us. Pieces of wood from the wreck helped block the wind from one side.
Emma stepped back to admire it. “Honestly? I expected worse.”
Jack smirked slightly. “Survival architects.”
I laughed quietly for the first time since arriving on the island.
The sound felt strange.
Normal.
Then Charles suddenly froze near the tree line.
“What?” Emma asked immediately.
Charles pointed toward the muddy ground near the forest.
Footprints.
Fresh ones.
We all moved closer carefully.
They weren’t ours.
The print was smaller than mine and deeper at the heel, with sharp edges pressed into the mud.
“A boot,” Charles said quietly.
Emma looked confused. “How can you tell?”
“The shape.”
I stared at the footprint.
Not just a boot.
A woman’s boot.
Fear crept slowly into my chest.
Jack looked toward the jungle instantly. “So someone else is here.”
Nobody spoke.
The island suddenly felt much less empty.
Emma wrapped her arms around herself nervously. “Maybe it’s Scarlett.”
The name hung heavily in the air.
None of us answered.
Charles crouched beside the footprint carefully. “It’s fresh.”
“How fresh?” I asked.
He looked up slowly.
“Really fresh.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Jack immediately grabbed one of the sharpened sticks we had made earlier. “Okay. New rule. Nobody goes anywhere alone.”
Nobody argued.
The rest of the afternoon became quieter after that.
More careful.
More nervous.
Charles led us farther into the jungle searching for water. Somehow, he seemed to recognize certain plants instinctively.
“This one’s poisonous,” he said while pushing a leafy vine away from Emma.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“I seriously don’t know.”
A little farther ahead, he stopped beside another plant with long green leaves.
“These are safe.”
Jack stared at him. “You’re either secretly a genius or a serial killer.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
Despite the joke, we listened to him.
He found berries he claimed were edible, broad leaves that could hold water, and plants with thick stems full of drinkable liquid.
Then we heard running water.
Relief hit instantly.
We pushed through thick vines until we reached a narrow river winding through the jungle rocks.
Emma nearly cried. “Oh thank god.”
The water looked clear and cold as it rushed over smooth stones.
Jack knelt beside it first before looking back at us carefully. “Think it’s safe?”
Charles studied it for a moment before nodding slowly. “Moving water is usually safer than standing water.”
“Usually?” Emma repeated nervously.
But we were too thirsty to care.
The cold water tasted better than anything I had ever had in my life.
For a few minutes, things almost felt okay.
Until Emma spotted something half-hidden near the riverbank.
A backpack.
We froze instantly.
Jack grabbed it first while Charles looked around carefully.
The bag was soaked and covered in mud, but it definitely didn’t belong to any of us.
Inside were:
- a flashlight with dead batteries
- a torn map
- a water bottle
- matches wrapped carefully in plastic
- and a single women’s hiking boot
Emma stared at it. “That matches the footprint.”
I looked around the jungle uneasily.
Someone else had been here.
Recently.
Then Charles unfolded the torn map slowly.
Part of the island had been circled in red ink.
And beside the circle were two words written messily:
DON’T GO.
Silence fell over all of us again.
The jungle around us suddenly felt darker.
Watching us.
“We should head back,” Jack said finally.
Nobody disagreed.
Before leaving, we filled every container we had with river water.
The metal cooking pot.
The empty bottles from the cooler.
The water bottle from the backpack.
Charles even showed us how to fold large leaves into makeshift containers to carry extra water.
Again, none of us understood how he knew these things.
“You seriously don’t remember any of this?” I asked while helping him tie leaves together with vines.
He shook his head slowly. “No. It just feels automatic.”
Emma looked at him suspiciously. “If you suddenly start building fire out of two sticks, I’m officially scared of you.”
Charles smirked slightly. “Fair.”
The walk back to camp felt longer.
The jungle grew darker as the sun lowered through the trees, turning everything gold and shadowy. Every sound made me jump.
Branches snapping.
Leaves rustling.
Birds calling somewhere overhead.
At one point, Jack instinctively moved closer beside me when we heard something crash deeper in the forest.
“You heard that too, right?” Emma whispered.
“Yep,” Jack answered immediately.
Nobody stopped walking.
When we finally reached the beach again, relief hit me instantly.
The shelter still stood untouched near the trees, and the ocean waves sounded calmer than the jungle somehow.
Safe.
Or at least safer.
We set the water beside the shelter carefully while Emma organized the edible plants Charles had collected.
Jack managed to catch two small fish near the rocks using one of the sharpened sticks, and by the time darkness fell, the smell of cooked fish filled the air around our little campfire.
For the first time since waking up on the island, we actually had food, water, and shelter.
It almost felt like progress.
But even sitting around the fire together, I couldn’t stop thinking about the backpack.
The boot.
The map.
The warning.
DON’T GO.
Someone had written those words for a reason.
And somewhere out in the darkness beyond our camp, whoever left that backpack might still be there.
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Chapter 3 - Rules to survive
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