May Charles's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Morning came, but the rain did not stop. May watched water sheet off the leaf roof and pool in the sand. She had no dry wood. Every branch she touched left her hand wet. Without fire she could not cook, and she could not boil the runoff into something safe to drink. Her stomach cramped from empty days. She checked her watch out of habit. The second hand still ticked. She closed her hand over the smooth glass and told herself to move. She crawled out and dragged fallen branches under the roof to dry. They stayed soaked. She struck a stone against her knife and got nothing but a wet spark that died. Rain ran down her neck. Her teeth clicked together. By afternoon a cough sat deep in her chest, and each breath scraped. She was colder than the storm should make her. She knew the shivering meant her body was losing. May drank the pooled rainwater because she had no other choice. It tasted of leaf and grit. An hour later her gut twisted and she brought it back up. She wiped her mouth and stayed on her knees in the mud, too tired to stand. The island had beaten her plan again. She needed food, water, and heat, and the rain had taken all three. That was when she saw them. Two footprints pressed into the soft mud past the tree line. Toes, heel, the arch between. Human. Fresh enough that the rain had not yet washed them flat. May stared. Someone else walked this island. Someone had passed close while she lay in her shelter, sick and blind to it. Fear cut through the cold. She did not know if the footprints meant rescue or something worse. She had no strength to run and no strength to hide. She pushed her palms against the ground and tried to rise. Her arms shook and folded. She dropped back into the mud, her cheek near the prints, her breath loud and ragged. She wanted to follow them. She wanted to call out. She did neither. Her body would not answer. She lay there and watched the rain fill the toe marks with water, softening their edges, blurring the shape of whoever had made them. She never saw who. She never learned which way they had gone. May pressed the watch to her chest. Someone at home was still waiting, still not knowing. She had proof now that she was not alone on this island. But she could not stand, and she could not chase it. When the shivering eased into something heavier,she grabbed a long and sturdy stick to keep her balanced then she walked trying to figure out who was on the island with her then there was a shake then she said an earthquake then another shake this one harder and louder it made her lose her balance and she fell and hit her head on a tree she was standing by then she went unconscious