Project XII

Chapter One

Then Katie spoke up, "Borrow? You mean steal right? Gosh I feel so bad about this. But yeah, I got the boat keys."

"Nah, we're not stealing it. I left the money of the front desk. Its just that we're legally not allowed to sail a boat since we're under eighteen, and that's why we need to go through so much trouble to 'borrow' the boat" Johnny replied.

"In any case, I managed to get some gunpowder. I'm not sure if it will be enough but something's better than nothing, right?" asked Shawn.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag containing the gunpowder. Then Johnny took the bag from him saying, "Yeah, this should be more than enough. I'll go and set up this trick near that sushi restaurant. Katie, you wait near the boat. Shawn after I give you the signal, you run to the restaurant and throw these pellets at those barrels. Make sure you throw them with force, only then will they burst into flames and will ignite the rest of the gunpowder."

Then Johnny showed him the signal, handed him a couple of pellets and went to setup his trick. He took about five to six minutes to set everything up but he finally managed to do it. He gave the signal and walked back to the boats. About thirty seconds later, he heard an explosion. He smiled. All those classes of chemistry proved to be useful yet again.

Shorty after, they could see Shawn running towards them. He looked a bit tense. Maybe he thought that someone had seen him throwing the pellets.

"Good work! Come on, let's get in the boat and get out o' here, it won't be too long till Tony realizes that one of his rentals has been stolen."

After that was said, they hopped into the boat. Then Katie went to start the engine. But when she had turned the ignition key, it seemed that there was either no fuel or the engine simply didn't work, but then all of a sudden it roared to life.

They had decided that they would take shifts sailing the boat towards the island. So Shawn and Johnny went to sleep while Katie took the first shift. This was Johnny's first time on a boat and so he wasn’t getting any sleep. About an hour later, he heard someone’s footsteps, Katie's obviously. "She must have come to wake me up, it was my turn to sail now," he thought. She saw that he was already awake and so she just waited for him to stand up. She was too tired to say anything, so she just smiled at him. He didn’t want to exert her anymore than she already had and so he just smiled back at her instead of talking to her. She laid down on the bed and fell asleep immediately.

While walking to the deck, he felt a bit unstable. He wasn’t walking straight. His suspicions were confirmed when he reached the deck. The weather was pretty bad. And by the looks of it, it had just begun. He felt like the weather-gods must hate him.

Suddenly-

His leg slipped on some water and he fell overboard. Luckily he had caught the side of the boat. He screamed for help. Nobody could hear him through all the noise (of the storm). He started panicking. He knew how to swim, but this was the ocean, not a swimming pool, and if he so much as lost his energy, he would be a goner. He started hoping that I wouldn’t wind up being some shark’s dessert. "I had to try to pull myself up," he thought. He tried screaming again. Then he heard Shawn’s voice.

"Johnny, is that you? Where are you?" 

His heart leaped for joy. "Yo Shawn! I'm over here. Hurry, please!" 

Shawn walked towards Johnny's voice. When he saw him, he just dropped his jaw at first. But then Johnny tried to snap him out of it by screaming his name. He wasn’t doing too well. He definitely wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.

He wasn’t very strong, but the fright of death kept his grip strong.

"Shawn, Shawn Shawwwn. Snap out of it you moron!"

I could tell that he wanted to say something to me, but he knew it wasn't the time. After that he reached out to me and pulled me up with all of his strength.

I was relieved to be back on board.

"Thanks a lot man. But um...shouldn't you be asleep? I mean its not your shift yet."

"Well to be honest, I got a strange nightmare. And after that I wasn't getting much of sleep. So I got up and went to grab some food from my backpack. Then I thought I heard someone screaming. So I came out and that's when I heard you."

"Oh okay. Hey um...if your still not sleepy, would you mind sailing now? I think I've had enough of excitement for tonight. I think we should reach land in about two hours. But don't forget we have to dock the boat on the forest side, since that will provide some cover for our boat."

"Yeah alright. I can handle it. You go take a nice long nap. And when we near the island, I'll wake you both up."

The rest of the morning passed without further excitement. Shawn was having fun, listening to music and sailing, with an occasional sip of Pepsi. About an hour later, he came to wake us up. Few minutes more, and they would finally reach the mysterious island.