Nightspell || Michael Clifford

Chapter 5

I opened my eyes, drained of all my energy.
My head felt like it was about to explode and my brain empty until I recalled the memories from before.
I frowned, looking at my surroundings. I was on a beach? How did I get here?
More importantly, where was 'here'?
Slowly, I sat up straight and coughed. My entire body was aching and I felt like I was short on air.
My ears were buzzing, my eyes were burning, my lungs were protesting with every breathe I took.
I felt like I was in a dream, like nothing was real but I knew better than that.
This was not a dream. I had ended up on a beach, with absolutely nothing more than my own dysfunctional body.
A soft wind was innocently blowing through my hair and it was only then, that I realized I had somehow lost all my clothes and the lifejacket.
Though I didn't have the energy to be surprised about this, it did help to shake me back to reality.
I suddenly felt the burning sun on my bare body, the sand sticking to my back, the water that I was still sitting in.
My leg brace getting soaked with water.
I gasped, which turned into a coughing fit and I forced myself to crawl further onto the beach.
The coughing didn't stop, barely giving me time to take a breath in between until I started gagging and threw up. After that, my lungs seemed to calm down and breathed heavily, trying to get enough air into my lungs.
I sat like this for a while, trying to catch my breath until I realized I should probably get out of the sun.
Slowly, I tried to get up, my right leg straight as a stick and though I could move it a little bit, it cost more energy than if I were to walk like a little old grandpa.
I stumbled toward the trees, finding myself a place in the shadow and sat back down.
Scanning the beach in front of me, I found it to be very clean.
You'd expect there to be at least a few branches after a storm but there was nothing.
I sighed, which ended in more coughing and got back up. I had to find water.
I didn't know a lot about surviving, but I knew that you could only make it through a few days without water.
The water of the ocean was undrinkable, so I had to go into the forest to find a different water source.
Looking through the trees, I tried to figure out how safe it would be to go in there but I couldn't see much.
Palm trees where lined up on the edge, and right behind the palm trees there were bushes and rocks and flowers.
I had no idea where I would find water but staying here wasn't going to help me for sure.
So I looked around the beach one more time, and made my way deeper in between the trees.
I walked and searched and fought with my own body for hours. I was determined to find water but I had no idea where to look or even how to look for it.
I was surrounded by plants and trees and beautiful flowers that I had never seen before but I had no time to be in awe over that.
The sun was starting to set and I also had to find some shelter somewhere.
My legs hurt from walking too much, I was exhausted from almost drowning in the sea multiple times and I was ready to give up.
But for some reason I kept going.
My lungs were burning, every breath I took ached in my chest but I knew I couldn't stop breathing now. I was lucky I seemed to have made it out alive.
Death always sounded so far away. So surreal, almost like a myth. Like something that wouldn't happen to me for a very, very long time but I could feel it coming closer. I could feel it's hot breath on my neck and I kept going just because of that.
I wasn't ready to die yet. If I could fall into the ocean in the middle of a storm and, in some miraculous way, make it out alive, I should be able to survive on what seemed to be an island.
And there I was, thinking these things only happened to people in movies.
I flinched and groaned as I stepped in a thorn.
'For the love of god,' I mumbled, stumbling to the closest tree I could find and sitting down against it to look at my foot. 'All I need is a tiny little bit of water.'
I closed my eyes, leaned my head against the tree and sighed. Now I had one leg with a barely functional leg brace and one foot with wounds in it. I had no water, no safe place to stay tonight and no more energy to continue walking.
If I would've had the energy, or the extra fluids, this would be the moment I was going to burst into tears and officially give up. But I didn't have the extra fluids to spare, I didn't have the energy and quite frankly, giving up sounded absolutely terrifying.
I opened my eyes and looked around, spotting a bush a few feet away from me with something growing on its branches.
I debated whether I should get up and check if I could eat it or not and eventually decided to go for it.
There's fluids in fruit so I could get myself a little hydrated.
Sitting down in front of the bush, I inspected the little things hanging on it. They looked to be cherry tomatoes. Only I didn't know which ones where ripe and which once weren't.
Could cherry tomatoes grow on a, most likely, deserted island where the trees where so close together there was barely any sun?
I knew tomatoes needed a lot of sun to grow, but these looked to be legit tomatoes.
Maybe they needed less sun than I thought they did.
I looked at the little cherry tomatoes, inspecting every single one of them and trying to figure out which one was ripe enough to eat.
A soft whistle broke my thoughts and I turned my head to face the sound.
That was not a bird. Birds don't sing like that. Was there someone else on the island? Did someone else make it off of the cruise ship?
A few seconds passed as the whistling sound became louder and louder until a guy effortlessly made his way through the trees, ducking under a few branches and making sure not to step on too many plants.
He hadn't noticed me yet and I was too astonished to say something.
There was actually someone else here. I wasn't alone, though I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
He looked down to his feet, noticed the branch with thorns I had just stepped on and carefully took it in his hands. 'Don't want to step on that.' he said cheerfully as he threw the branch toward me.
I squealed and hid my face. The branch hit my arm and left a little scratch but I wasn't really focused on that.
The guy had stopped walking and turned to face me. He frowned and looked confused before he seemed to came back to his senses.
'Who are you?' he asked, looking me up and down slowly before looking away.
'Oh my god.' I mumbled, realizing I was completely naked, I tried to cover myself up as much as I could, pushing my hair in front of my boobs and using my arms to cover everything up a little bit more.
'How did you get here?' the guy continued, looking around as if the answers where hanging in the air.
He noticed the bush with the cherry tomatoes and he instantly seemed to forget I was naked.
'Did you eat from that?' he asked, walking up to me and looking at my face worriedly.
'What?' I asked, confused by all his questions, though they really weren't the hardest questions to answer.
'Did you touch that?' he asked, pointing at the bush.
I looked at the bush and shook my head slowly.
The guy looked relieved, his shoulders slumping down as the tension seeped out of them.
'Good. Those are Jerusalem cherries and they're poisonous. How long have you been here?' he continued.
'And how the hell did you get here? We're literally in the middle of nowhere.'
I shook my head, exhaustion suddenly starting to take over my body. My lungs felt as if they were ready to give in, my throat was dry, and I felt absolutely disgusting with all the sand and dirt sticking onto my body.
'When was the last time you drank something?' The guy asked.
I shook my head again, trying to tell him I didn't know.
'Alright, come on. Let's get you some water. And some clothes to wear.' He said, before lifting me up and carrying me away from the poisonous plant.

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A/N:
There he is! Our little sunshine! :)