gold rush [the wilds, toni shalifoe]

chapter 3

Day Two

Rachel

"That sister thing, that twin thing, it's like a foreign country. You can only really understand if you're in it. So no, I don't want to talk about what happened to her. But I do want to tell you our story. Alone, surrounded by people but still alone. That's how I felt waking up in that place. Realising it wasn't just a bad dream. We were truly, and actually fucked. Some were lucky, they had someone to hold on to. I should have too, but I couldn't let go of the blame."

___

Hunter knew she had an issue, she did. Hudson had been the first to ever confront her about it and it wasn't long before other people had started to slightly pick up on it at school. The girls on her team had expressed their concerns to the coach about how Hunter would shy away from them during pyramid stunts, her brothers friends had noticed how she would flinch every time they raised their hand to her for a high five and even some of her teachers had noticed how she would manoeuvre herself in the corridors to try and avoid making any physical contact with anyone else.

But no one wanted to make any accusations. No one wanted to ask questions that they were scared to have the answer too. So Hunter just remained broken, her pieces falling further apart with every waking day.

Those on the island that hadn't necessarily noticed her issue with human contact noticed the morning of that second day, when Dot had noticed that she hadn't woken up with the rest of them. The other Texan had just woken Fatin who was less than happy to find out that it wasn't a dream, and she had tasked herself with making sure that Hunter was alive and hadn't died in her sleep like they were all secretly worried that someone would ever since Jeanette had just dropped dead.

"Boyd, get up," Dot spoke as she crouched beside her, not wanting to touch her after last night's display. Hunter had positioned herself further away from the rest of the girls than everyone else had - being a good 15 metres further away from the camp than the rest of them. Dot didn't know too much about the girl but she knew this was extreme behaviour even for her.

"You're gonna need to shake her," Rachel announced as the sleeping Hunter made no move to wake. Just as Dot, Shelby, Martha and Toni let out yells telling her not to do that, Rachel reached down and clamped her hand onto Hunter's shoulder and gave it a firm shake.

Almost instantly, the girl's eyes shot open and she zoomed backwards across the sand, leaving long lines in the ground from where she had literally dragged herself quickly away from where Dot and Rachel had been towering above her. Toni let out a curse at the scene, knowing that it wasn't going to help anyone in the slightest. Even Shelby sighed, believing that Hunter truly wasn't going to ever trust them to sleep again.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Rachel asked, rolling her eyes before she stormed back off to the campfire site. Hunter took deep breaths as she tried to calm her heart rate, looking around frantically as she tried to readjust to her surroundings. Toni, Martha and Shelby all shot Rachel annoyed looks as she rejoined the group, while Shelby began counting them all as she realised something was off.

Hunter looked up as Dot crouched down so that she was eye level with the blonde cheerleader, but so that she was also a nice enough distance away from her that Hunter didn't feel suffocated. They both eyed each other for a moment as Dot sighed and ran a hand through her short hair.

"Hey, Boyd, breathe," she called out gently, not having cared for the cheerleader or any of her friends before but now realising that there was something seriously not right with the girl. "Count to five."

"One," Hunter breathed, focusing on her fingers as she tried to calm her breathing. "Two, three, four, five..."

"Six, seven, eight..." Shelby murmured from where she was sitting by the fire, noticing that they were missing their ninth member of the group of girls. It would have been ten, but Jeanette was buried and dead - the harsh truth of the situation they were finding themselves in. "People, we're missing a person."