Day Twenty-Two

Nora's Notebook

"No one came for us. Days here: 22. Days since the plane flew over: 6. Days without food: 2. No one's cried for a while. No one even seems that afraid anymore, not because we're strong or brave but because when you're this starving, you can't feel anything else. Hunger is a force of nature and it's taking out the best of us."

Nora looked up from her notepad as she looked around at the rest of the group, an overwhelming sense on guilt continuing to feed off her entire soul as she looked at their starving frames. Toni was sitting directly beside her, resting against the washed up driftwood as her head lolled back and forth as she tried to keep up energy to stay awake.

Hunter's legs were draped over her own, her head lying against Dot's arm who was also struggling to stay awake. The latter girl was similar to Nora in the sense that she had an overwhelming sense of guilt, but hers was for a completely different reason than that of the quieter Reid twin.

"I let us eat all of the food," Dot grunted out, almost feeling her stomach rumble with the very energy she used to speak outloud. "Such a fucking idiot."

Hunter shifted a little as Dot sat up, Shelby leaning forward from the girl's other side instantly to comfort her friend. While Shelby had been very distant from them all during and after the hair cutting incident, she was starting to act like a normal person again - Hunter and Dot both agreed she was acting more natural than she had in their entire years of knowing her.

"Still, it's been healing for some."

"Hey," Shelby said reassuringly as she scooted a little closer to the girl. "Don't talk about my friend like that, all right? You keep being nasty to her and I'll have to take you."

"Some people remember who they are in a crisis."

"Bar fight, 2015," Shelby told Dot with a smile as she reached into her mouth and unhooked her false teeth. Hunter opened an eye from where her head was now lying in the sand, a small twitch of her lips showing that she found Shelby's attempt at humour funny. "You should have seen the other guy."

"But there are others who return to their darkest places."

"Maybe he's in on it," Leah said, everyone holding back sighs as they realised she was back to conspiracy theories and delusions. Hunter would later kick herself for not taking Leah 100% seriously, and she would wish that she had listened to her own suspicions too.

"Who?"

"That fucking pilot. What kind of a person sees an island full of lost girls and doesn't send help?"

"Leah, what would he be in on?" Shelby asked, attempting to sooth the girl but also curious as to what she was thinking about. She had to admit, a lot of things didn't make sense on the island but she hardly believed there was some greater conspiracy at play.

"I don't know."

"Take it easy alright, we're gonna be okay," Shelby said as she moved from the ground to sit beside Leah, pulling the girl in for a small comforting hug.

Hunter shuffled on the ground, grunting a little as she turned so that her head was resting on Toni's legs instead of the sand. Toni smiled barely, her eyes shut as she tried to stay awake but still showing her appreciation for her girlfriend. Their love language was definitely touch, or constant reassurance.

"And then there's Martha the Pure, who has too much blind faith to lose hope."

"There's no way that he didn't call it in," Martha told Leah, her naiveness sending a slight chill down Hunter's spine. She didn't know how to break it to the girl that no-one was coming back for them if they hadn't by now. "People love to help out, you know?"

Hunter wasn't sure how to break that news to Martha either. The world was not a cheery place. She had been through enough to know that.

"I wanna see the world how she does, I think we all do."

______

"Are you worried about going home?"

Hunter looked up from where she was holding the old diet coke cans, helping Shelby pour the water from the waterfall into them. Shelby looked at her in curiosity and something that Hunter couldn't quite figure out.

"I guess a little," Hunter admitted, her voice soft as she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Toni before looking back to Shelby with a small smile. "There's a lot of stuff waiting for me at home that I'm not looking forward too, and I've became pretty dependant on you guys. But if someone flies a plan over us and lands on the beach and tells us to het in, I'll be one of the first ones on that plane. Hudson's my home, and I want to get back to him as quickly as possible."

Shelby nodded, not sure what to reply to that. Now that she knew the truth about Riley Black, she didn't doubt that Hunter wouldn't want to go back to their school when he was still there. Besides, she knew there would be no consequences for Riley if the news was broken to the student body - his parents were just too powerful in their community to let his reputation be tarnished.

"I can handle this," Shelby muttered softly in response, Hunter nodding as she noticed the change in mood of the girl. She clearly wanted to be left alone with her thoughts again, so the Boyd twin stood up and joined Fatin's stride towards Leah who seemed to have started to obsessively pluck at her eyebrows again.

"For Martha, dangers would always come from the outside. For Leah, it's different. With her, threats come from within."

"I wouldn't do that," Fatin told Leah, sitting down on the sand to Leah's right while Hunter sat down on her left hand side. Leah looked over at them both as her hand continued to rest on her eyebrows. "The over-tweezed brow is a tough look."

They all sat in silence for a moment before Fatin looked down at Leah with a more serious expression.

"You're going dark on us again, Leah."

"This is the worst its been."

"What is, Leah?" Hunter asked, her voice soft as she turned to face the girl, cross legged in the wet sand. Her eyebrows were furrowed as she noticed the look on her friends face.

"That feeling in the pit of my stomach."

"Yeah, we all have that," Fatin told her, not quite understanding. "It's called gut-wrenching hunger."

"No..." Leah sat up as she looked between the girls frantically. "You know what I mean, it's like that feeling... that itchy fucking feeling that this place is like, touched. I know I hang on to things, but Fatin, Hunter, if I can't let go of something it usually means that I shouldn't."

Fatin reached out and grabbed Leah's wrist, slowing lowering it away from where she had began to tug at her eyebrow again. Hunter rested her hand on top of Leah's other hand, rubbing the girls back in support.

"When I was seven, I had this suicidal goldfish and we had to put mesh over the top of its bowl so it wouldn't jump out. And this one day we went to my grandmother's house in Marin. And on the way there, I became obsessed that we had forgotten the mesh, and the dread was like... insane. It's all I talked about! The mesh, the fish, and I started crying so much that my parents finally took me home."

"And?"

"The fish was fine. The mesh was on. But there was a gas leak in the basement where the dog slept. My dad found him unconscious. He was okay in the end because we found him when we did. It's like there's just a reason that I let my mind run away with me sometimes because its usually about... There's something important! And I'm feeling that right now."

"I hear you," Fatin replied, Hunter humming in agreement. "Though I'm not 100% certain that you should let a childhood coincidence validate every bad chill you get."

"Really?" Leah asked, her voice harsh and firm as she looked at Fatin in disgust. Hunter raised her hands a little as she scooted slightly back from Leah, not meaning to but remembering the last time she raised her voice like that had ended up with her getting punched in the face. "I'm on rock-fucking-bottom and you fucking dismiss me?"

"Leah, that's not what I meant!" Fatin yelled as Leah got to her feet and started to take off.

"FUCK OFF!"

Fatin and Hunter watched her go, looking to their left as Dot approached them with a bundle of driftwood for the fire in her arms. She watched Leah go too, sighing slightly as she noticed the anger in her friend.

"Is she okay?"

All Fatin and Hunter could do was shake their heads. Hunter supposed that none of them were okay, but others were just better at holding that inside until they weren't.

____

Hunter took up the rear of the hiking team as Shelby, Toni and Martha walked in front of her. Shelby and Martha had both collected large sticks to act as walking poles during their walk, while Toni and Hunter both hadn't bothered since they had pretty decent balance anyway - Toni from years of basketball and Hunter from years of cheer.

The blonde cheerleader grunted as she accidentally smacked into Shelby whose hair was entangled on a branch of one of the trees they had been walking by. She muttered out an apology as she moved to help Shelby untangle her hair but to no luck. The other Texan managed to tug it free, leaving the hair on her head in even worse shape than it was before. She shot a small thank you smile to Hunter before noticing that Toni was watching them both.

"How bad is it?" Shelby asked Toni, Hunter standing behind her and motioning for Toni to lie to make the girl feel better since she was having a pretty rough time as it was.

"Not bad," Toni said, easily lying to her as she tried not to smile as Hunter's hand gestures from over Shelby's shoulder. "I mean, it looks like you get your hair cut at a salon staffed by toddlers, but not bad."

"Aw nice one Toni," Hunter muttered, throwing her hands in the air and causing a small smile to come from both Shelby and Toni at her actions. "Way to make a girl feel good about herself."

"Guys I don't see any berries left," Martha interrupted, the trio all turning their attention to the girl who was standing with a displeased look on her face at the bare ground and branches around them.

Hunter sighed deeply as she flopped her head against Toni's shoulder dramatically, the raven haired girl lightly patting her on the back as she shared her disappointment. It didn't last long however, for Shelby had noticed something the other three had missed.

"Hey y'all, this is a find," the blonde told them as she held up an animal dropping in her hand, raising it so they all could see it.

"What the hell is that?" Toni asked.

"Yeah, it looks like..."

"Milk duds," Toni and Martha both said at the same time, Hunter nodding in agreement as they finished her sentence.

"Don't eat them - it's scat. You know, manure? Scat's what we call it in the hunting community," Shelby told them all, Martha's eyebrows raising at the words coming from the blonde's mouth. The blonde that Martha had once seen as perfect was slowing loosing that image in her mind.

"What hunting community?"

"Just like... the general one?" Shelby replied casually, not realising how strongly Martha felt against hunting.

"And you're a part of that community?"

"Yeah, a little," Shelby shrugged, not really seeing the problem. Hunter who also heavily disagreed with the hunting community back home, suddenly felt the unnatural urge to justify Shelby's actions.

"Most of our town are," Hunter added, although the look that Martha sent her only made her feel like she was making this awkward moment a lot more awkward for everyone involved.

"Hey, can we talk about what this means?" Toni suddenly asked, changing the topic from Shelby and her girlfriend's small town antics and back to the matter at hand. "I mean, are we about to get mauled by whatever dropped these fucking Milk Duds?"

"It's not a carnivore, they're too round and dry. I'm guessing some small four-legged guy," Shelby told them as she took out the pocket knife and started to cut her walking stick into a more spear shape.

"What are you doing?" Martha asked, her voice suddenly a lot tighter as she glared at Shelby's actions. Hunter winced a little at how Shelby hadn't realised the elephant in the room which was Martha's beliefs about animals and nature not aligning with her own.

"Just getting ready in case we cross paths with it," Shelby replied, not looking up at the girl. "Goat, deer, or whatever it is. If it gets away, that's a weeks worth of food we're letting run off."

"I thought we were foraging, when did animal murder get put on the table?" Martha snapped, Hunter moving slightly behind Toni as the girl raised her voice. Hunter had gotten good at not freaking out at people raising their voices since being on the island, but Martha was the exception. She'd never seen the girl this angry before since she hadn't witnessed the Toni / Martha arguments and it made her uncomfortable since she didn't know what to expect.

Toni wrapped her hand around Hunter's, squeezing it reassuringly as Martha continued to glare at the spear that Shelby was creating. Shelby looked up at her tone, realising that she had upset the girl by accident.

"Martha... I'm sorry. I know you're sensitive but its really not murder. At this point, it's more like self-defence," Shelby told her, trying to get the girl to see it from her point of view, but Martha wasn't having any of it.

"Self-defence from a goat?" Martha yelled, Hunter flinching slightly. Shelby furrowed her eyebrows as she caught the blonde's action, realising that this situation was new to not just Shelby but the jumpy and traumatised cheerleader too.

"She means from fucking starvation!" Toni interrupted, just wanting the argument to be over since she could see it was starting to scare Hunter a little. She knew Martha couldn't hurt a fly even if angry, but Hunter didn't. "By the way, she's right."

"Are you seriously taking her side?"

"Martha," Hunter mumbled, looking at the girl with fake confidence that took Shelby and Toni a little by surprise. "There isn't sides here."

"Marty, Hunter's right - it's not about sides," Toni said gently, proud of her girlfriend for staying calm but also needing Martha to see that she wasn't trying to gang up against her.

"I don't want any part of this," Martha spat, brushing past Toni and causing the girl to stumble into Hunter a little bit. She went to move after Martha in sudden anger, but Toni placed a hand on her shoulder and kept her from going after the girl and doing something she'd regret.

So they watched her go.

_____

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Gretchen wondered outloud as she studied the girls on the large screen, her eyes flicking to the side where she had also pulled up the live footage of where the boys were sitting around their camp fire.

The two screens had focused in on the twins in their camps respectively, Hunter sitting with Fatin and Leah from that morning and Hudson sitting with two of the boys from his camp as they joked about cooking a seagull.

"Huh?"

"The twins."

"Rachel and Nora are..."

"No, not them," Gretchen said, motioning to the screen in front of her. "The Boyd twins. I know we aren't really meant to be comparing them this early on but they're so intriguing to me. They're literally the perfect participants - exact same birth, received the exact same nurture growing up, hang out with all the same people - it's like having two identical specimens but with the controllable variable that is gender."

There was a heavy pause before Gretchen rubbed at her chin and looked between them both with a sigh.

"I just hope they both stay sane long enough for the reunion - I must admit, I am most excited for it."