Brooklyn

"This might be uncomfortable, but we'll have to blindfold you," Harper tells us as we wait for the mystery location to be revealed.

"How are we supposed to walk blindfolded through the forest?" Avery questions. She smirks.

"You won't be walking."

We try to make sense of that little remark as the three strangers lead us out of the cave and to another, smaller cave. There's a small boat hidden inside that barely fits but is completely concealed until you're practically inside the cave. I feel a pang of fear in my chest.

"A boat?" I ask, trying to keep the note of anxiety out of my voice. It's definitely not what we were expecting

"Hop on," She suggests. I bite the inside of my cheek, doing as she says.

We carefully climb into the boat one at a time. Liam climbs in after us with the blindfolds, tying them around our eyes. He puts mine on last. It is a little uncomfortable, no doubt because the 'blindfolds' are just clothing items wrapped tightly around our heads. Mine smells like sweat and dust and I try not to cringe.

I listen as Liam, I'm assuming, jumps back out and the three strangers push the boat into the water. I hear the thuds as they jump in at the last second. Then come the sounds of rowing.

When I realize by the growingly large swells hitting the boat that we aren't coasting along the shore but headed toward the bay, which eventually leads to Seattle, the open ocean, and Canada, there is a moment of panic. I'm the first to break the silence.

"I can't swim," I whisper. I can almost feel the stares on me and I push away my illogical shame at the words.

"You won't need to," Harper speaks first. "We've never tipped this boat."

"Speak for yourself," The man says.

"Liam's just kidding," Evie reassures me. It doesn't make me feel better. Swimming is a skill that I probably should've learned, but I really never did. Not even a little bit. If you threw me into a pool, I'd drown. An ocean? I'll sink straight to the bottom, and it's a long way down. Nausea creeps into my stomach and I focus my thoughts on trying not to have a panic attack every time the boat lurches when a wave hits. This is definitely not a fear I have outgrown.

Eventually, the boat scrapes against something hard and then stops. The other three humans jump out and drag it onto land, the boat making a horrible screeching sound against whatever surface it's touching.

"We'll help you step out, but you need to keep the blindfolds on." Harper informs us. I stand as fast as I can, almost losing my balance. Strong arms help me out onto solid land. Liam, I assume. I let out a heavy breath of air. I'll never go in another boat ever again, even if it's the last thing I do, I swear to myself.

I stand and wait, blind, as Avery and Adam follow behind me onto the shore. I can tell it's them by the hesitant footsteps.

"Follow us," Harper says, leading the way without any other instructions. We listen to the footsteps of the other three and stumble forward, slowly and blindly, for what seems like forever. I fall twice and get some shallow scrapes on my hands. Eventually I hear the three other humans stop, and Avery and Adam halt besides me. Liam spins each of us a few times until I can no longer tell which direction we came from.

"You can take off your blindfolds now," Harper tells us. I rip mine off and look around.

We're on a long, rocky island, with high cliffs on one side that block what must be the mainland of Washington from view. On the other side is the open ocean as far as the eye can see in the fog. Besides that, there's nothing but forest. Except for a clearing with what looks like a very large garden. I squint and see the hint of a house in the woods, smatterings of tents around it.

"Welcome to my home," Harper says. "Come on, I'll give you a tour." She leads us deeper into the woods, the canopy above mostly shading us from the white light shining through the dense clouds. The size of the island is much larger than I would've expected. We pass a well and a creek on the way. It's like a little oasis. Avery and Adam also glance around with a similar, unspoken awe.

"How did you find this place?" I ask, looking around the thick green trees. I notice they have some sort of fruit on them.

"It's belonged to my family for a couple generations now. I almost sold it once a few years back, but changed my mind."

"And how come no one knows about it?"

"Well, on a foggy or even a cloudy day, it's completely hidden. That bit of coast where we found you three is the closest piece of land to it in any direction."

"But what about on a clear day?" Adam questions. "I know they're few and far between, but still. This place would probably be visible from the mainland at least sometimes."

"Yep." She smiles a little, like there's a secret we don't know. "But from the mainland this place would just look like a big pile of rocks out in the ocean. There's only one easy way to enter or leave this island. That's why we blindfolded you." She looks around at the safehaven and shrugs. "It's worked so far."

"How many?" Avery asks, cutting to the chase. We all know he means the number of survivors.

She smiles, glowing with pride. "Including you three and myself? Thirty three."

Adam stumbles and Avery and I both stop and stare at her. Up ahead, Liam and Evie pause, probably wondering why we stopped. We're silent for a moment, contemplating.

"Thirty three?" I confirm, just in case I misheard.

"Come see for yourself."

We walk for a few more minutes until we reach a large, two story red brick house. In front of it is a clearing full of tents. There's clothing lines, a large stone campfire, and a few people bustling around, staring wide eyed at us.

Harper pulls aside a elderly woman and tells her something. The woman nods and hurries off.

I meet Avery's eyes and we seem to be thinking the same things, what was that? and how is she still alive? Honestly, the elderly died off first. If not from the plague, then from the natural disasters, and if from neither of those then they were picked off eventually. Old age made you susceptible. In the first few weeks the people that were left either hid in their houses with whatever food and water they had, or they broke into other people's homes to get food and water. If you couldn't thoroughly defend yourself you were an easy target. People got desperate, did things to survive. We all have.

"I've sent for my brother just now," She informs us, her tone formal and strict. "We'll call a meeting to decide whether or not you can stay. You'll answer some hard questions and if we think you're lying at all..." The threat is clear in her voice. Avery raises an eyebrow.

"So either we stay or die, huh?" I detect the bitter note of sarcasm in his voice. She gives a hard smile.

"You chose to come, now we get to choose if you stay."

"You would've killed us if we had said no," He accuses.

"Maybe," She admits, "But that's not what I want. We have a community here, a safe haven. I want to protect, not kill, but I will kill to protect if I have to. Now that you've seen this place we'll have no other choice if you're a danger to anyone here."

I'm the reason they ask the questions, have those threats, I realize with a sick feeling in my gut. If that dark haired monster from the woods tracks me here he'll find and murder everyone else, too. But how would he track me across an ocean? It's impossible that I'm putting anyone in danger, but if I tell them anyway, they'll think I'm lying. What kind of person lies about having a monster stalking you? Bragging rights of surviving the first encounter, maybe? I'll be as good as dead whether they believe me or think I'm lying. I can see it in Harper's hardened face, evaluating and analyzing whether we're a threat. I wonder what Avery would do if they tried to kill me. I can tell he's silently fuming just a little, but he meets my eyes and gives me a weak smile, probably wondering if I'm still mad at him from earlier. Yes, he would try to stop them. Adam wouldn't be so brash, but he wouldn't let them kill Avery. So, either I tell them and kill myself and the two people I have left to care about, or I lie to them and run the small risk that I'm wrong, that the monster does remember and can track me across an ocean with his superior senses. I see a little girl, maybe seven or eight, run by, just a flash of red hair and freckles. Harper was right; this clearly is a community worth protecting. This could even be the last group of human survivors left on earth. There's even children here. I can't be responsible for that little girl's death.

I raise my hand to my face but stop when I see it's shaking. I clench it into a fist and let it fall. The anxiety I felt being on that boat comes back in full force, even worse than before. The people around me seem oblivious to the panic and guilt I feel as we wait for the woman Harper sent to come back with her brother. To decide if we're a threat.

At the first sign of danger, I'll take my gun and go, I remind myself. That might be hard considering I just swore never to get on a boat again.

I reach to pat my gun and reassure myself that it's there, an old habit, but it's gone. How did I not even notice? I look at Liam, see the strap slung across his shoulder, and wonder when he took it from me.

"They took my gun back," I whisper to Avery, annoyed. He whispers back conspiratorially, "They never gave mine back in the first place." He seems proud of this, like despite the fact he got knocked out in the first five seconds, they've acknowledged he's more of a threat than me. I scoff. Little does he know... I've survived an encounter with a Malefic, I brag to myself, even though I know that had nothing to do with personal skill. I couldn't even get a bullet through the monster's ice shield. Maybe I wasn't wrong about being lucky, after all. Just not lucky enough.

I'm broken out of my reverie when a tall, fit, asian man walks up to us, a few others trailing behind him. I instantly recognize him as Harper's brother, they look so alike. And I'm not just saying that because I'm white and he's the only other asian man here; they really do look incredibly similar, besides the obvious male features like the dark facial hair covering the bottom half of his face and the chiseled jaw.

But when he turns fully to meet my eyes, I see the long puckered scar from his left cheekbone to his chin, just meeting the corner of his lip. It doesn't seem to be that old and I wonder what the story behind it is.

"Welcome," He says, seeming amused by my staring. I see Avery and Adam doing the same behind me. "I'm sorry if my twin sister has scared you out of your wits already. Unless you're a psycho, you've got nothing to worry about. We haven't had many chances to enforce our threats, but we will if needed, so be on your best behavior. We just need to know your whole stories, how you've survived this long and so on. It's not often we come across other humans anymore." He smiles, and though his voice is kind, I wonder if he is more dangerous than his callous sister. "Oh, and I almost forgot," he says, "My name is Keith. Welcome to the Island."

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