Elliot Baris

DID NOT HAND IN

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Adrian Lovett

            Feeling returned to me first in my hands. They felt strange, and distant, definitely still in existence but weirdly disconnected from the rest of me. I grunted, and felt small bubbles of air brush against the side of my face. I tasted salt as water slosh up into my mouth. Automatically, I spat at it, trying to move my face away. The smooth slide of water turned into a rough drag on sand.

I flung my eyes open and found myself blinded by the shiny white colors immediately in my face. Great, just great, I cursed as I rapidly blinked trying to be able to see again. It took a few more, infuriating, tries but I could manage a squint against the bright colors.

With wobbling arms, I was able to sit up and look around at where I was. I was lying on my side, halfway pushed up onto a white sand beach. The salty ocean water still lapped at my left side, annoyingly pushing my leg up towards the rest of my body. With a huff, I tried to move it and got no response. Furrowing my brows, I tried again, with no more success.

No need to panic, I thought to myself. My leg probably just fell asleep, it's not a big deal. Really. I took a finger and poked at my thigh. I felt it, so maybe my leg was awake... but could only mean. I poke down at my calf, and felt a searing flare of pain shoot up my leg, locking it into place via muscle spasm. I choked back a scream.

Today was really not my day.

So, I opted to army crawl, placing my arms forward and dragging my lower body across the rough sand. The little grains dug into my skin, and stuck to my everything. Once I was fully out, and away, from the water, I took a break. It shouldn't have been that difficult, and yet I found myself out of breath.

From my new vantage point I could see farther down the way. The beach stretched on a good while on both sides, before curving away behind a tree line. Ahead of me, the beach was just a bit farther, ending in the same tree line. The brush was thick, and untouched. It looked dark and unwelcoming, straight out of a dark forest fairytale. A shudder passed over my spine. Though, the hot sand and blazing sun here on the shoreline wasn't exactly paradise either. I could already feel the growing tightness on my facial skin, I was burning.

With a grunt, I pushed myself farther towards the trees. It was a half-scoot, and half-crawl on my part, favoring my right side. I would kill anyone if they could see me like this, then probably kill myself of embarrassment. Finally, the nearest tree was in arm's reach. Pushing myself up using its longest root, I settled myself against its trunk in the cool shade. Since exiting the sun's fiery vengeance, the temperature dropped at least ten degrees. With a sigh, I rested.

Time passed. Some amount, I'm sure, but I couldn't bring myself to care. My mind was racing, with no thoughts in sight. It was trying to piece together what had happened but came up with only two facts.

1. The ship had somehow crashed.

2. I was now on this island, seemingly alone.

No doubt these facts were connected, but the best I could assume was that I was now stranded on this island. Which would perfect, and exactly where I wanted to be. With a grunt, I opened my eyes and stared out towards the ocean. The endless blue sparkled and shifted. There was no sign of the ship, and only sparse pieces of cargo here and there. A few even ended up not too far from where I had woken up.

A small smile broke out on my face. If I was lucky, if I was really, really lucky, there would be food in one of those. As if on cue, my stomach growled. Well, at least I knew what I was going to be doing first.

Nearby, just a few paces away, was two sturdy enough looking sticks. They would have to do. I scanned the nearby plant life. Having the two sticks would help, but something to tie them with would be even better. There was nothing that I could see. I sighed. It took a moment of fruitless wiggling, but I was able to remove the uniform shirt I was still wearing from the cruise liner. It wasn't doing much, so I used it to wrap the two sticks to my injured leg.

Leaning heavily against the tree, I stood up. My back protested, my butt had fallen asleep, and my left foot ached. It was a great time to be had. The steps I took with my left side had to be tiny, else I would collapse. Because of that, my journey back to the water line, and towards the boxes, took three times as long as it should have.

"You've got to be kidding me." I grunted, and leaned against the wooden crate. Its sides were warped inwards from all of the water exposure. Yet when I punched at it, it didn't budge. Usually when punching didn't work, kicking would. But, of course, that option was not open to me.

With a growl, I punched it one last time. Nothing happened. I growled, and hobbled back towards the trees. The sun was beginning to set and I was too tired for this. Closer to the trees, I started to scan the trees. Being the smart business man that I was, I was no stranger to camping outside for economic reasons. Often, I would find the nearest tree and climb up into its protective branches. But again, that option was not open to me.

So, I resigned myself to gathering anything I could drag. A small pile of branches and twigs and leaves grew next to where I had taken a nap earlier. A few times I hobbled into the forest to grab larger branches, and even a few vines. But every time I did, I felt the heavy gaze of some evil thing. Something I really did not want to meet.

I never thought I would thank my mother for having me grow up as a boy scout. I hated that damn group, with their snooty politics, and horrible lessons. Yet, here it was, helping me survive... mostly. I found my mouth drying up as I worked to build a makeshift tent. It was short, and way too small to be comfortable. It would have to do, keeping me out of sight of predators and away from the weather.

On my last trip to find a few more vines, I spotted some berries. They were a bright purple, and the size of my pinky nail. I had ignored them the first trips I made into the forest, but this time I couldn't stop looking at them. The gnawing feeling of my stomach was so persistent, I couldn't ignore it anymore. I scooped up a handful, and as I settled into my terrible tent, I ate them slowly. They didn't taste of much, but they were something.

The sun went down to sleep, and I was quick after it. Despite waking up, and taking a nap, I was exhausted. If this was what being old felt like, just end me now. Still, the small nest of leaves I made for myself was comfortable enough that I was soon drifting off to sleep.

Until, countless moments later, my gut wrenched. I tried to roll over, but that only made my stomach roll more. I felt clammy, and weak and sick to my stomach. Not wanting to get up, I simply turned towards the far end of my little tent and opened my mouth. Hopefully, those berries would just come up no problem and I'd be fine.

Except, no. It wasn't fine. They stayed stuck in my gut, kicking and thrashing around. I groaned and tried to sleep again.

The rest of the night was split between trying to throw up the offensive berries, and trying to ignore them so I could rest. Neither worked.

Today, was really not my day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Augustus Menenzes

DID NOT HAND IN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Royale Dio Du Sainte-Germaine Champs-Elysees

SIMULTANEOUS INFECTIONS OF HIV, SYPHILIS, CHLAMYDIA, AND GONORRHEA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MJ Williams

Mary Jane was sitting up on the beach, looking out towards the sea. Her clothes were still soaked-through and heavy with seawater. Her boots were water-logged and she knew she was never getting all of that sand out of her hair. MJ's eyeliner was definitely smudged. Her poor bird was imitating a drowned rat on her shoulder, shaking himself out until he was just a ball of very upset pink and grey feathers.

MJ wasn't upset, though. If anything, she was pleasantly surprised. The survivors of the cruise ship crash had found themselves on a really nice beach. It was nothing like the beaches MJ had grown up with on Kevin, of course, but she knew no other beaches in the world that could compare with those. There wasn't a great distance between the dense tropical jungle bordering the beach and the water, and the shell-shocked survivors and assorted cruise debris dotting the beach did bring the mood down a tad. She had to admit that this beach was beautiful, though. The sand was white and practically sparkling, and waves lightly lapped at the meandering coastline to create a gentle sound from MJ's childhood. MJ picked up a handful of sand and watched it sift through her fingers and fall back to the ground.

To top it off, the sun was shining high in the sky as if they hadn't experienced a catastrophic storm maybe an hour earlier. MJ couldn't help but smile a bit and hum happily; overall, things were really looking up for them.

But one thought was nagging at the back of her head. Was that... her fault? Willow had seemed so insistent that she plan things ahead, so when MJ got to her first shift she figured she'd have a play around with the systems, see how much she could get away with. But turning off the automated weather warning system shouldn't have caused this, right? She'd seen the meteorological data, there was no indication of any severe weather. Plus, she was certain they were nowhere near any known reefs that could cause that kind of damage.

Unless it turned out that she and her best friend were just so good at scheming up fake cruise ship destruction that they actually destroyed the ship. Maybe the universe thought their plan was so good that it decided to destroy the ship for them, in what would be a classic case of a good-hearted misunderstanding. Maybe, their plan was too perfect.

She looked over to Willow, who was sitting by her side looking quite different from her usual tidy state. A tangled bird's nest of hair (and seaweed) sat on her head and sand was still clinging to one side of her face, not to mention the small rips and tears that made her evening dress look a lot less fancy than it did last night. Willow's expression was pretty normal, though; MJ was so familiar with the suspicious, unimpressed glare being targeted at her that she knew not to take it personally.

Willow didn't break eye contact as she spit sand out of her mouth onto the ground beside her. MJ supressed a giggle.

"You seem very fucking chipper, considering everything we've been through."

MJ gazed back down the beach again. "I mean, we've been stranded in much worse locations than this."

Willow stared back at MJ in disbelief for a moment before dramatically falling backwards onto the sand, rubbing her face with exhaustion. "We nearly had out own cruise ship, MJ! We were so close to sailing away from all of our problems! But now the ship is at the bottom of the shitting ocean and we're stuck on this God-forsaken island with no hope of ever leaving!"

"Yes... But we aren't dead yet, which is good," MJ pointed out, "and this is a nice God-forsaken island, as far as I can tell." Her face fell as she watched the twenty-or-so figures moving along the beach. "I suppose a lot of the old buggers on the cruise didn't make it though, huh? That sucks, I'll admit. Most of them were boring, but there was this one guy I was chatting to on board who seemed like fun. Did you see him? Crazy old bastard with this mad glint in his eye and a smile like a crocodile? He had this smug look and, like, a real punchable face, but he was alright." She shrugged. "Man, it sucks if he died."

"We lost our ship and that's what you're worried about!?"

"I'm not that worried, Tig can probably breathe underwater or something—"

Willow bolted upright. "You know what? You're right. We're not dead yet, but we will be if we sit around doing nothing. We need to focus on survival." She quickly got to her feet, brushing herself off as MJ made no attempt to join her. "First priority is shelter. We can survive a few days without water, but hypothermia could kill us in a matter of hours. It's going to get cold at night, especially if it rains again, so we need to make some cover first."

Willow scanned the shoreline and took off towards the water as MJ leisurely started to wriggle her boots off her feet and dumping their contents on the sand in front of her. She left those and her socks to dry in the sun and stood up, watching Willow drag a deflated bright orange lifeboat across the beach. "We can use this as a blanket," she called in explanation. "It'll insulate our heat well at night, and we can use it to collect water from plants." MJ chuckled and followed after her.

"Where are we setting up?" MJ asked.

"Over here." Willow dragged the boat a bit further to a secluded spot at the boundary of beach and jungle. "We can't be too close to the water in case we're hit by a freak wave, but we don't know what we might be up against in there," she said, nodding her head to the dense vegetation. Her expression turned cold for a moment. "Plus, I don't want to be too close to the others. We don't know who survived that crash, but most of them look like rich young brats and I don't want to be too close when things go Lord of the Flies on this island."

"Well, I don't know what happened in that book because I'm not a nerd," MJ said, "but if it's anything like Fyre Fest, then they'll be murdering each other by the end of the week."

The pair spent the next hour scouring their section of the beach for whatever flotsam might have washed up from the wreckage, all while Willow babbles on about survival and unfamiliar situations and fucking cruise ships and MJ politely ignores her. All told, they didn't find a lot, just the sort of stuff you'd expect to be loose on the top deck of a cruise ship: Some wooden planks, rope, pool toys, a beach umbrella, a few deck chairs –Sharkbait even collected a few shiny bits of rubbish for them. The two even struck gold when they found a day's worth of rations and a full cannister of hallucinogenic gas that they originally planned to use to confuse evacuated passengers as they made their getaway with the ship. They laid out their collection in front of their spot and surveyed their bounty.

"It's a start," Willow said, "but we'll need more." MJ watched her scan the border of the jungle with an analytical eye as she kept talking about survival stuff she'd learnt from her spy training. MJ hadn't really had a good look in there yet; she much preferred the view of the beach. That's not to say the jungle wasn't a sight in and of itself, of course. The forest was full of twisting trees, although you could only tell from the canopy the grew in height the further from the beach that it got. The jungle floor was so dense with plants that MJ could barely see four or five meters ahead, but the plants she could see amazed even her in their variety and distinctiveness. Mostly lush shades of green, with vibrant splashes or reds and purples, the plants ranged from squat palms with leaves wider than MJ was tall to expansive bushes speckled with inviting multicoloured flowers to moss-covered trees twisting and knotting around each other until you couldn't tell where one tree started and another began. MJ couldn't see any animals from where she was standing, but she could hear the buzzing and chirping of a symphony of insects, and the distant calls of birds that sounded familiar from her time spent in the bushes of Kevin but so very different at the same time. The jungle even smelt nice, with a clean, mildewy smell you could only find in places that hadn't been touched by people in a long time. Everything about this jungle screamed at MJ to adventure inside it with reckless abandon, but she resisted the urge, instead filing it away on her mental to-do list that she always forgot to look back to.

Willow's voice eventually pulled MJ back from where it was miles away, "—So I'll go look for a few logs and some foliage, while you stay here and watch our things. We can't let any of them take anything," she said, pointed glaring down the beach to where most of the other survivors were. She lowered her voice, and hissed to MJ, "We have to be careful, I think someone is watching us."

MJ looked over her shoulder. "Really? I haven't seen anyone come near us yet. Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure! Don't you get the feeling like someone's watching us?"

"Yeah, but I just figured it was a ghost or something."

Willow fixed MJ with an expression that said both 'You're a dumbass' and 'I'm a dumbass for asking your dumb ass in the first place' before rolling her eyes and turning to leave. She took a few steps before MJ called after her, "Have fun! Stay within cooee!"

Willow stopped and turned back around. "What?"

"Don't go too far. You know, within the distance of a cooee," MJ explained, like this information was so obvious that it shouldn't have to be explained.

Willow repeated, with a hint more exasperation, "What?"

MJ sighed. It's not like she's speaking another language or anything. "Stay close enough that we can hear each other if we cooee. Like this." And she cupped her hands around her mouth and let out a shrill shout of the word 'Cooee!' that rang out in the air and seemed to bounce among the tree's of the jungle. "That way, we can find each other if we get lost. You have a go," she added, giving Willow a friendly pat on the arm.

Bewildered, Willow slowly lifted hands to her mouth to copy MJ's cupping motion and let out her own, albeit much smaller and less practiced, cooee.

"There ya' go, with a bit of practice you'll sound great!" Willow muttered something and rolled her eyes again (MJ was worried sometimes that Willow's eyes were going to roll right out of her head), and took off down the beach in search of... Whatever it was that she was searching for.

MJ stood in front their loot with her hands on her hips. Watch the stuff. Don't let anyone take it. She could manage that.

She looked around. Nobody was nearby, and there was nothing else to do, so she started rearranging their stuff to make their camp much homier than it was now. She knew Willow would look at her hard work and give her that unimpressed glare reserved especially for her antics. However, she also knew that the corner of her lips would twinge up ever so slightly, which meant that deep down she appreciated the thought.

A couple minutes later, and MJ was lounging on a deck chair underneath the umbrella, bored out of her mind. Sharkbait had flown off somewhere, probably looking for food, so she couldn't chat to him. She couldn't have a nap, because that definitely did not count as 'watching the stuff'. All she could do was sit and think.

Now, MJ is not much of a sit-and-thinker, and that's probably for the best. When MJ sits and thinks, she tends to start having ideas, and those ideas are rarely good for the health and safety of anyone involved. For example, on this particular occasion, MJ had an idea that impressed even her. In fact, she liked this idea so much that for the next twenty minutes or so, as she watched the ocean waves ebb and flow gently under the warm afternoon sun, she let the idea grow into a full-blown plan.

Willow soon returned, dragging one of the large palm leaves piled high with branches and leaves and other bits of flora which she dumped with a huff at the foot of MJ's deck chair. "Are you enjoying yourself?" she asked, her voice laced with biting sarcasm.

"Yeah," MJ smiled, ignoring the sarcasm. She patted her hand on the deck chair next to her. "Come sit."

Willow crossed her arms. "No, I am not going to sit. There's too much to do before the sun goes down, we still need to make a proper shelter."

MJ waved a dismissing hand to cut her off. "Take a break from your spy-survival mode—"

"I've told you before, I'm a secret agent, not a spy."

"—And sit down with me for a minute. If you move around too much, you'll use more energy which means you'll have to eat more food, which means our rations won't last as long. You need to relax for a moment," MJ smiled like she knew Willow couldn't argue with her logic, and patted the seat next to hers. She watched her friend's lips purse and brow furrow, as if she was trying to perform the same calculation in her head to check MJ's working out. MJ could barely contain her grin as Willow reluctantly and awkwardly lowered herself onto the chair.

"I'm only sitting down to shut you up," Willow said as she re-crossed her arms and adjusted her legs into a very stiff, unrelaxed kneel.

"I'll take it." MJ leant down and picked up the unlabelled bottle of clear liquid nestled under her chair. She unscrewed the lid and took a swig, before offering the bottle to Willow. "Drink?"

Willow looked at her with wide eyes. "Where did you find that?"

"I don't know, Sharkbait found it for me. It's rubbish whiskey, but it's still whiskey." She shook the bottle in her direction again. "Come on, you'll be fine, you can drink me under the table and still walk straight. One sip won't hurt."

Willow shook her head, staring at the unblinking bird sitting on the armrest of MJ's chair. "No, thank you. One of us needs to be in their right mind if we want to survive, and clearly that person is not you, not if you're drinking suspicious bird-whiskey that might also be poison."

MJ shrugged. "Suit yourself." She took one more swig for good luck and twisted the bottle back into the sand. "Y'know," she started, relaxing into the chair even more and looking out into the horizon, "This is a really nice beach."

Willow buried her face in her hands and sighed. "Why are you like this..."

"I'm not joking! This whole island is objectively a nice location. People vacation on islands like this all the time. They pay ridiculous amounts to outright own places like this, way more than they pay to own cruise ships." Probably.

Willow mumbled some very mean sounding words into her hands, but MJ was not deterred.

"And it's private, too. I didn't even know it existed, which means global superpowers definitely don't either. It's not like anyone else would come here. Sure, there are others now, but they'll bugger off or die eventually."

"Why are you talking about global superpowers?"

"And just imagine the upkeep needed on a whole cruise ship. Really, I don't know what we were thinking with that one. There were definitely much more elegant solutions to our problems. You know, the kind of solutions that just fall into your lap after cataclysmic storms."

Willow looked at her quizzically, a touch of sadness in her eyes. "I thought you liked the plan."

MJ groaned and shoved Willow in the shoulder. "I love you Willow, really I do, but you are so incredibly dense sometimes that you make me look smart."

"I don't have time for this," Willow grumbled, as she shuffled in her seat to get up. "We need to start working, MJ! We need shelter, and water, and food, in that order!"

MJ grabbed Willow's hand to stop her. "But why?"

"So we can survive to get off this fucking island!"

"But why do we need to get off the island?"

"What are you talking about? We can't stay here—"

"Why not? We're trying to hide somewhere no one would ever look for us, where we could do whatever we want, just the two of us, for the rest of our lives. Why can't we do that here?"

"...Oh." Willow paused, unblinking, unspeaking. She looked out, eyeing the beach with suspicion. MJ practically saw the cogs turning in her head, and she could have sworn Willow's face was actually starting to crack as a manic smile grew across her features and a breathless cackles escaped her lips. Whether it was caused by excitement or relief or island-fuelled exhaustion, MJ couldn't help but beam back as she offered her best friend the bottle again. Willow considered the bottle for a second before grabbing it, taking a (conservative) swig and wiping her mouth on her dirty arm. Willow and MJ exchanged gleeful and crazed glances.

"We've got ourselves an island!"

"We've got ourselves a fucking island!"  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow Zheng

Shelter, water, food—in that order. Something to start a fire with, preferably, although that technically fell under the purvey of the basic human need 'shelter' was supposed to accomplish. If she cast her mind back far enough, Willow could vaguely remember 孟老师's wrinkled old prune-face sternly reminding her that the practical application of survival skills was going to come in handy someday, to which she feels like she probably shot back something mildly snarky and majorly judgemental about how most espionage operations these days didn't take place in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere (a loose English translation, whatever) and promptly went back to studying urban environments and linguistics and other more highly prioritized skills like a Good Little Chinese Spyling™.

And now here she was, in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere with sand in a lot of uncomfortable places and a mouth that still tasted like salt-water dehydration, and 孟老师 was probably laughing in his grave. Scratch that, 孟老师 was likely still alive—孟老师 was probably dancing on her grave. She probably had a grave somewhere in China, right?

"Shut up, Willow," she muttered to herself darkly as she shook her head and went back to scouring the shoreline for salvage. There were at least twenty reasons not to start thinking about that shit right now, starting with the fact that it was probably bad luck, ending with the fact that she was acutely aware that she was already spiralling, and making a pit-stop at the fact that thinking about home was always a surefire way to either bum her out or make her too riled up to function and she needed to hold it together.

"You didn't say anything," MJ pointed out unhelpfully from where she was sitting a little ways away untangling a long length of rope. The woman looked a little worse for wear; her grimy skin was smeared with splotches of dark sand and her soggy cadet uniform sagged off her frame, three shades darker than the normal company colors. Funnily enough, she looked more in her natural element that way. The jaunty tune she was whistling simply served to emphasize the whole effect. "You doin' okay up there?"

"About as well as you'd expect, considering there's like a twenty percent chance we'll both die within the week." Willow eyed Sharkbait as the waterlogged galah ruffled himself imperiously, repeatedly attempting to shake the surf and sand out of his feathers. Worst case scenario, he'd probably buy them another day and score them a nice cutting tool out of his beak to boot. After that...well, it'd only been yesterday she'd joked about cannibalizing each other for sustenance.

"We'll be fine." MJ sighed, rolling her eyes. From over her shoulder, Sharkbait stared Willow down with unflinching bird-anger. "Between the two of us we've got more than enough survival knowledge—and we found that raft, right? You said that was a good thing?"

A very good thing, all things considered: something her analytical mind could latch onto and process. The fact that they wouldn't have to lie on the ground was a first line of defense against hypothermia; if they found something they could heat and use to cut the rope, they were close enough to a wooded area that they could probably use some sturdy sticks to construct a proper framework for a tent. Shelter, water, food—if they could get all three in the short-term, they'd be in good shape to consider more long-term measures later. But... "Yeah, that's one good thing. You know what's not a good thing?"

"Enlighten me."

"The fact that we're stuck here at all." Was that a knife, that dark spot sitting a little further up the beach? Willow stumbled the scant distance toward it, sinking into the slushy pools collecting along the shore, before falling to her knees (so long, lounge dress, it was nice knowing you) and reaching out to brush the sand from—a fucking tangle of seaweed. Fucking hell. At least it was around full moon, which meant low tides further in the day; the one thing that could've made beach-combing worse is if it'd been beach-combing plus slogging through a half-foot of fish poop and turtle piss to boot. "The fact that we're—ugh—" She struggled back to her feet, bending her knees experimentally a few more times to work out the stiff feeling. "—stuck here with other people. The fact that we've got the collective survival knowledge of a five-minute Google search—"

"—Isn't Google banned in China?"

"Not with proper VPN—which is another thing we don't have here, by the way, is a way to contact people or call for help—"

"—You know, for a Chinese loyalist, you're a really shitty Chinese loyalist."

"Yeah, well, that's probably why they gave me the boot," she snapped back. Just one knife. Just one shitty little knife. And she'd laughed when move-spies strapped their weapons to their garters or some shit; if she'd surgically attached her pocket knife to her goddamn thigh she'd still have it, probably. Yes, logically, she understood that doing so was more obvious, less convenient, and an easier way to stab yourself in the crotch than it looked. But at least she wouldn't be on her hands and knees in a tattered lounge dress with the midday sun beating down on her on a beach in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere trying to find a single measly goddamn knife, was that too much to ask? "All I want. Is one. Knife." She kicked at the sand. The wind promptly blew it back into her face, accompanied by the sea-smell of pickling fish. Fuck the wind. "I—I—I—I—would settle for a fucking butter knife at this point." She turned against the wind and kicked again; the sand embedded itself in her toenail bed, deeply enough that she knew it was going to bother her for the rest of the week (provided, of course, she survived the week). "A tin can I can bash into something usable. A broken razor from the last failed shipwreck that got vomited on this godforsaken land spit. A sharp seashell!"

"I can hear you grinding your teeth from over here." MJ called cheerfully. Maybe if Willow ground her teeth enough she could chew through the rope—at this point she had nothing left to lose, why not shove a length of old moldy rope in her mouth and get some terrible waterborne ocean disease and die, probably, in agony and extreme pain. "Stop moping already, will you? There's plenty of seashells to break right up here, if you...you know, meant that last part and weren't just being sarcastic. Fifty-fifty. Shelter's sorted—uh, as soon as you find that knife—and we've found enough food and water to last us a solid day, if we can't track down anything that tastes better than death." A pointed cough, now. "Wanna try and do something else? Give the knife a rest for now? Sunk cost and everything?"

"Well, what's one more thing sunk when the ship sunk and we sunk and our plan sunk and MY KNIVES SUNK!" Oh God, she was yelling at the sky. Yelling at the ocean. She thought she'd finally lost it when she'd started trashing the factory in Ireland but now, now she'd lost it for actual realsies. Actual realsies. Just hearing herself think that really drove the breakdown home. Oh God, she was having an out-of-body experience floating over this beach watching herself shake her fist at clouds in the sky like a crazy person. "Who knows what eldritch abomination Cthulhu cultists are out there in the jungle ready to wear our skins like jackets—"

"Kinky."

"—and forget fighting them, we can't even cut a rope into pieces because we DON'T HAVE A KNIFE."

"Speaking of sexy space-bat demon worshipers in the deep jungles," MJ cut in, glancing dubiously over her shoulder and blatantly ignoring the fact that Willow had never mentioned anything of the sort, "d'ya sorta get the feeling we're being watched out here?"

"What kind of a question is that?!" She stopped briefly from where she was running her hands wildly through her hair—and pulling out alarming chunks of it, which she probably should've expected given the state of it. "Of course we're being watched! I've been watched the entire time we've been on that goddamn cruise ship—"

"Yeah, but that one's a fake 'being watched' spawned from the paranoia of your Willow-brain." MJ turned back to face her; the uncharacteristically somber expression on her face cut Willow off right as she was about to gear up for another semi-cathartic rant taken straight from the textbook of It's Not Paranoia if They're Really Out to Kill You (and Also You're a Wanted International Fugitive). "This time I can feel it too, which means maybe it's real." A stray bead of sweat traced a clean streak down MJ's nose before dripping down the tip; the Australian stuck her tongue out to catch it, momentarily distracted. "Alternatively, maybe I'm just dehydrated and your you-ness is contagious."

"Well, I'm still feeling it." Willow turned suspiciously back towards the part of the shore they'd stumbled from, where they'd left the rest of the castaways scrambling amongst themselves. "Which means whoever whichever government sent on the cruise to get me is probably one of them." She ignored MJ's mumble about how she sounded like a conspiracy theorist, although the part of her brain that refused to let things go sat up on its haunches and began screaming lines from the hit single It's Not a Conspiracy if It's Actually Happening (and Also You're a Wanted International Fugitive). "I bet it's Arnold. He sucks too much to get hired without government intervention. That, and I don't trust faces like his."

"You don't trust most faces. You don't trust any faces. Also, harsh. Fair but harsh." MJ licked her fingers to get a better grip on the rope, then promptly spit into the sand with a phlegmy cough. Somehow, in true MJ fashion, this totally meaningless act sparked an enigma; she sat up straighter. "Maybe it's ghosts."

"...What?"

"The watched feeling." She sat back triumphantly. "I bet it's ghosts. Island ghosts. Island spirits."

It took Willow several beats of silence to make sure she didn't start losing it at clouds again, several more beats to make sure she didn't start losing it at MJ again, and several more to make sure her subconscious mind hadn't gone stir-crazy and begun conjuring up nightmare scenarios in some warped attempt to punish herself for her myriad mistakes. "...I..." She bit down viciously on her first response (to storm across the sand and strangle her best friend because I'll show you ghosts, alright) and her second (to storm across the sand in the other direction and throw herself into the ocean because I'll show you ghosts, alright). "...Why do you look so happy about that?!"

"I mean, maybe they're friendly." MJ shrugged. "You never know. I think they get a bad rap."

"That's what we're betting on? Really? Friendly ghosts?" Willow spun on her heel to round on MJ, only to nearly slip and faceplant on the wet sand. Motherfucker. "And not, I don't know, something real and not fake like enemy assassins sent here to kill me?"

"I don't know, I feel like most people would believe in ghosts over secret spies on this deserted island."

"Most people are also dumbasses." Her best friend and chosen co-conspirator in grand larceny included, apparently. "Only dumbasses would take things that are not-real, like ghosts and the supernatural, and peddle them over real things like covert assassins and secret government facilities—"

"What?"

"—and that's how you get shit like the Bermuda Triangle and Area 51 and you." Willow snorted her usual derisive snort and got a nostril full of sand-air for her troubles. "You know what, maybe it's aliens, you ever think of that? Maybe we got abducted for a midichlorian social experiment and we're being watched by tiny green men in floating pancakes ten thousand feet in the sky while we Lord of the Flies each other, does that sound sane to you—"

"Could be!"

"No, it really couldn't and that's the point!" MJ was smiling in that innocent way that either meant she wasn't paying attention or she was getting her kicks in. "That's a dangerous fucking game, y'know? Like, one second you're saying stupid shit and letting yourself accept impossible things like ghosts, dead people are just dead when they die, god damn it, and I would know—and then the next you're letting yourself ascribe cosmic meaning to your actions and dancing around like—'oh, maybe it's Baba Yaga watching us on this regular old deserted island'—"

"Maybe!"

"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT BABA YAGA IS!"

"I watched Ant-Man, of course I know what Baba Yaga is." MJ simply hummed, like the idea of a fake Russian supernatural entity haunting her Australian ass on a deserted island in the Caribbean was totally plausible and also somehow didn't concern her. Oh, to be a dumbass. "All I'm saying is, I bet that 'watching' feeling is coming from some sort of ghost." Her bright, trademark smile glinted in the sun. "And ghosts are people too, so I'm sure they'd help us out if we asked—they probably know more about this island than we do—"

"Ghosts. Can't. Be people. If. They're ghosts!" This time, Willow actually did storm over to MJ across the sand, only to throw herself down next to her friend and sling an arm over her eyes. She let her weight sink her slightly into the sand, feeling it chafe uncomfortably against her skin as the pounding in her head began to subside. "How are you so fucking chipper?! A day ago, we had—like, a plan and a future and an idea about a place we'd have to ourselves and how we'd live the rest of our lives. Today all that shit's gone, literally blown out of the fucking water." She shifted her arm to peer up at MJ with one eye. "How are you not more bothered about this?!"

"Willow, mate." MJ fixed her with a patient, secretive smile—the type she wore when she'd somehow jury-rigged herself three steps ahead and was just waiting for Willow to catch up. "Use your eyes. Use your brain; we both know it's in there. Look around."

She looked around. Predictably, nothing had changed and it sucked. "...I don't know what's wrong with your eyes and brain, but mine are still communicating the same thing, which is that we washed up on a deserted island with—"

"You know, sometimes I forget that for someone who's super smart you can be really fucking dumb." MJ cuffed her lightly upside the head; Willow let out a yelp and slapped her away as sand and her own crusty hair got in her face. The Australian gestured grandly over the scenic view in front of them—they'd basically picked the beach clean, the dirty sand pockmarked with footprints and loose indentations of varying wreckage. The ocean crashed up against the island, clear blue waves rippling with white foam; the sun shone off them as they crested, sparkling with a glare so blinding it hurt to look. As they sucked at the shore, Willow found herself matching her breathing in time with the rhythmic rush of water until her heartbeat slowed from a roar in her ears to a calming thump in her chest. "We're in a survival situation. Survive. Think big picture. Take a page out of Bear Grylls' handbook: improvise, adapt, overcome."

"...Alright." Willow closed her aching eyes let her hand hang back with a sigh, giving the out-of-use muscles in her neck a satisfying stretch. Pfft. Improvise. That was all her. "...I'm feeling more MJ. I'm ready. Lay it on me."

"We wanted: a place of our own, no one around to bother us." MJ took the opportunity to poke her stubbornly in the center of her forehead. As expected. It comforted her. "This place looks like something out of an airplane magazine. No civilization in sight except for the ghosts—"

"No such thing as ghosts," Willow murmured lazily.

"—we could live here."

...They could live here. She cracked an eye open slowly, turning her head to nuzzle against the sand and face MJ; the woman was smiling down at her with a comfortably familiar grin, her crazed curls blowing lazily into her face on a tropical breeze. Palm fronds rustled against each other with a slow sweeping sound. Call it human weakness brought on by the lingering effects of shipwreck trauma, but Willow felt a sudden rush of fond affection.

"...It would be a lot of work, living here." She stretched her gaze as far as her eyes would allow without moving her head, spitting the hair out of her face.

"Good, then you won't go postal." MJ didn't miss a beat, ripping a long strip of her jacket in two and handing one over to Willow as she tied the hair out of her face.

"We'd have to build everything from scratch."

"Yeah, well, that's what the knife'll be for."

The goddamn knife. There was less vitriol behind the thought now, though. "And get whoever's trying to kill me off the island."

"Oh, I'm sure they're all dying to leave." As Willow scraped her hand against her forehead to sweep the hair away and tie it back, she caught a glimpse of MJ's crooked grin as her friend jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of where they'd come from. "Who wants to say in a place like this forever?"

A place like this—something out of a beach movie (or, her cynical Willow-brain reminded her, a shitty reality TV show streamed for first-world people from a third-world country). Salt still stunk like a motherfucker, sure, and she had the distinct feeling she'd never feel clean or at the very least not-gritty ever again. Still, every other place she'd ever been: from the suburbs of Midwestern America to the mountains of Tibet to the bustling streets of old-town Europe, every other place she'd ever been had been with work in mind. And that was before she went on the run. If anyone deserved a goddamn vacation, it was her.

"Far from civilization and other people." She propped her head up on her hand—which was now about as sand-caked as her face, anyway, so whatever—and let her gaze linger over the landscape once more. Stray debris still littered some of the further stretches of land. "Only a dumbass would—holy shit, wait a fucking SECOND!"

Her muscles moved before her mind had caught up, propelling her bodily toward her goal with such force that it felt once more like she was having an out-of-body experience; the rush was back, the blood roaring in her ears again, but in the positive time to kill way instead of the usual time to die way. She fell to her knees so hard the sand scraped them bloody, clawing at the sand like a wild animal—even in her rush, she remembered to scrape in a wide circle around, digging in a deep ditch as the sand built up beneath her fingernails until—

"That a knife?"

"YES!" MJ stumbled back a few steps from where she'd trailed closely behind as Willow whipped around and nearly gutted her in manic excitement. She could feel the crazed grin on her face as she shook the knife toward her friend in a single trembling hand, practically crowing in victory. "Fucking yes, yes it is, and it's huge, too!"

"I can see that." MJ took another big step back, side-eyeing Willow skeptically. Not that she gave a shit; she was dead to the world, turning the knife over in her hands and brushing her fingers over the metal. She was shaking so badly she accidentally cut herself a few times—fixed blade, seven inches, high-carbon steel with a hollow saber grind. This knife. This knife was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She was having a moment. "...Please stop."

"I'm in love," she breathed. Oh God, she was probably making MJ uncomfortable. She was in love. She'd wondered if she was even capable of love after the FBI contact on the mainland but this, this was what soulmates felt like. "Oh God. Oh, God. Thank you sweet baby Jesus. Thank you St. Joshua, patron saint of nutjob survivalists who ignore company policy and carry blades over four inches onto cruise ships."

"You're surprisingly Western-religious for a Chinese spy." Not a spy, not religious. "...Well, I'm glad you're feeling better, anyway."

Better was an understatement. She had a weapon, her best friend, and a plan. The only thing that would've made life better was a gun. "Better? I'm fucking brilliant." She ran her finger tentatively over the knife-edge: still sharp. Good. That was where she did her best. "First things first: we're gonna bore a hole in that tree and get ourselves some goddamn water. Then. Then, we're gonna nab ourselves a fucking island."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arnold Brown

In some ways, survival on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere was just like high school. At least it was for Arnold. He remembered the loud chatter of a cafeteria and the smell of mysterious assorted meats abound. What stuck with him most, however, was the overwhelming pressure of who he would sit with. Or more likely who would let him sit with them.

Arnold told himself he should be more anxious about the fact that he doesn't know where he is, if this island is even liveable and if so what else lives here? But somehow, he found himself with the absolute dread of having to approach a fellow survivor and ask them if he could tag along in avoiding death.

He looked down at where he was. Upon crashing on the island, he washed up on the beach with his face down in the sand. He grimaced at the feeling of sand in his mouth every time his teeth touched. The constant minor crunches as he moved his head reminded him why he didn't go to beaches often.

He had been on this island for a total of 2 hours, and in that time, he had managed to stay somewhat calm. He figured the panic would set in when he missed his daily call to his mother at 5 pm. In the meantime, he tried to work up the courage to walk up to a nearby survivor.

He was lucky to find himself in a more secluded area of the shore, as if the tides knew about his social anxiety.

"Just stand up, look around," he told himself. Prepare something cool, have something to say when you approach them. Something like "You come around here often?".

He looked off into the distant shore and he noticed an unconscious body that had washed up onto the shore. Its common decency that he at least makes sure they can breathe. That's what his mother would probably say.

Upon walking up to where they were and a further, closer look, he realised more about this mysterious figure. She was a woman and she looked old. Definitely early 70's.

Some people have a magical talent of being able to tell the age of a baby or toddler from a single look. Arnie was gifted with the strange ability to do this but with old people.

He was surprised when the lady turned around to look up at Arnold.

"Hello there" she smiled. She wore a long black gown, that still glittered with gems and radiated elegance, despite being washed up onshore, and a matching head piece with so many synthetic feathers it could form a full synthetic bird. He also noticed a full bag being held in one arm.

"H-hi" he said shyly. He looked down at her position "Do you need some help getting up" he inquired,

"Why would you think that" she chuckled, gazing off into the sea.

"You're uh, you're lying in the water."

She paused for a second.

"What's your name?" She asked, looking him in right in the eyes.

"Arnold" he stated "Arnold Brown"

"Well Arnold brown, my name is Doris-Theodora-Luciana-Isabelle Vivendel. Come tan with me, the weather is just marvellous"

she patted an empty area of sand next to her and Arnold cautiously joined her. He couldn't tell if she was delusional or just wildly optimistic despite their setting.

"That was a nice cruise ship" Doris started "the music could have been better though."

"The landing was a little bumpy too," he added and they both chuckled.

For a second, Arnold had the chance to appreciate the view ahead of him. the ocean ahead reflected a perfect and calming blue and there wasn't a wave to be seen other than the tiny ripples along the shore. Infront of him, the water was so clear you could appreciate every shell in the water.

"This isn't my first shipwreck" Doris said, looking straight into the clear sky.

"it isn't?" Arnold said, seeming a little shocked,

"No, it was back in the seventies. It's actually how I met my second husband."

"Woah" He stated, "Would you believe that this isn't my first shipwreck?"

"Not for a second."

"That's fair" Arnold sighed.

"How about you stick around with me, Arnold. It's always better to have a plus one to a disaster"

Arnold let out a sigh of relief. He realised that maybe survival on an island isn't just like high school. This was certainly much better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Markus Fleur

DID NOT HAND IN