Chapter three
Talli gasped, running over to the few shattered timbers that were all that remained of the ship. Picking up and hauling away timbers, she saw one of the crew, Ben Shavous – a young, curly-haired, brown-eyed boy. Prepared for the worst but hoping for the best, Talli checked to see if the boy was breathing: he was! Ben was alive, barely, however.
“I’ve got a survivor!” Talli shouted to the others, who were also looking for any survivors.
Briar, Robert and Ashelea came over, the others still looking for anyone alive, or any salvageable supplies.
“He’s injured,” Talli said, pointing to the gash on Ben’s arm, “We’ve got to get all his wounds cleaned and dressed before he wakes up. Robert dashed off and came back a little bit later, with some wild plants and a few salvaged bandages.
“Here, these should help,” he said, bending over Ben’s wounds and doing the best he could to stem the bleeding, “What the hell even happened here?” He said, glancing around nervously.
“No idea,” Ashelea said nervously,
“I don’t know, but we’re alive,” Talli said, “and we’ve got to stay that way…” she added, almost to herself.
The next few hours were spent in shocked silence, there was nothing anyone could do but try and get Ben bandaged up and awake. Dylan was scared, and he decided to take out his anger by ordering people around, but eventually everyone just sat on the beach, not even touching the food they had foraged up, for they had no appetite. Talli looked around miserably, taking in the scene of destruction. How did this happen?! And why? She sighed, closing her eyes and burying her face in her hands. Then her stomach rumbled, roaring with hunger, and she was forced to get up. She walked over to Becka, who was sitting a little bit up the beach, fiddling half-heartedly with a blade of grass. Becka looked up, seeming uncertain and worried.
“Think you still have the energy to cook up a meal for us?” Talli asked, managing a small smile.
“Oh – uh… sure” Becka said, sitting up after a bit and walking over to the sacks of fruit they’d left on the beach, forgotten, since the start of the confusion and chaos.
“Hrm…” she muttered to herself, “We’re gonna need fresh water if we plan to do anything” she yelled to the others who were sitting on the beach forlornly.
“I think I saw a stream over that way” Ashelea yelled back, pointing along the beach to the east, where a small stream flowed steadily into the ocean.
“Ah! Thanks” Becka said, going over, taking empty canteens from the other survivors to refill.
Talli went over, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and helping Becka refill water bottles and wash fruit.
“What are we going to do?” Becka said quietly, rinsing the dirt off of a mango,
“I… I don’t really know” Talli said, trying to sound less afraid then she was, “I guess… we just have to try and survive, and maybe somehow get back home.”
“But how?” Becka asked, peeling the mango she’d just washed with a pocket knife.
“I don’t know.” Talli sighed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to calm herself, “We’ll survive, whether or not we make it back to the mainland”
“Yes. But I don’t really fancy living off of mangoes, stranded on a beach, with some sort of ship-wrecking poltergeist and no other supplies or – heck – not even a change of clothes!” Becka said, taking a bite out of her skinned mango. “Mmm! Although, this mango isn’t ba-“
“Shh!” Talli said, pulling the water bottle she was filling out of the stream and motioning for Becka to be quiet and still.
“What?” Becka whispered urgently, worried.
“Look” Talli whispered back, pointing to the water. “See those little flashes of silver? Fish!”
“Oh! Yes, yes, I do see them!” Becka said, “Mmm… just what I need to make the perfect dinner…” She added quietly.
“Already I can’t wait to see what you can cook up. But at the moment, we have to catch these things” Talli said, eyeing the water.
“Well, we don’t have a fishing pole, and even then they might not bite. So I suppose we’ll have to try and fish by hand” Becka said,
“We can try and block off both ends of the stream with stones so the fish can’t escape,” Talli suggested, looking around the beach for any good-sized rocks.
“Good idea!” Becka said, getting up and picking up any driftwood or anything else that could work as a dam.
After a while of walking up and down the beach collecting driftwood and stones, Becka and Talli returned to the stream, setting down their armfuls of wood and rocks.
“Alright, looks like we’ve got enough materials to make a couple small barricades. Are the fish still here?” Talli asked.
“I don’t know…” Becka said, pursing her lips and peering into the stream, “Ah! Yes, at least some of them are still here.”
“Good.” Talli said, letting out a deep breath. “Well, we better get to work”, she said, cautiously putting down the first few stones at the top of the stream, quickly piling up more rocks and driftwood.
With Becka blocking off the stream where it flowed into the ocean, and Talli blockading the stream where it flowed out from the jungle, soon the fish were stranded.
“Well, we can’t completely lose them” Talli said, dusting her hands off and looking at their work. ‘Dam’ wasn’t really the proper term for the barriers they’d built. ‘A pile of rubble with gaps too small for most fish to swim through’ would be the proper term. Oh well, if it stopped the fish from escaping, that was all that mattered.
“Alright, now to catch the fish…” Talli said, taking her shoes off and rolling up her pant legs and stepping into the icy stream water, “The water’s quite… cold” She said, slowly getting used to the tempature. “Okay, then. Becka, you get up to the top of the stream, I’ll herd the fish towards you, and you try and corner and catch them.
“Well, this is a first…” Becka said, stepping into the water and standing as still as possible as Talli herded the fish upstream.
“Oh! There goes one!” Talli said as a fish rushed towards Becka, who quickly darted after the creature, splashing Talli as she tried to grab the fish.
“Ach! Missed it.” Becka said unhappily.
“It can’t have gotten away,” Talli replied, trying to cheer her up, “We’ll catch one eventually.”
“Maybe.” Becka said, staring down again into the water as Talli continued to wade around downstream.
“Here comes a couple more.” Talli said, concentrating on keeping the fish from darting back downstream.
Suddenly, Becka rushed forward, grabbing one of the fish as it tried to zip around her feet. The slippery scales and spiny fins made it hard to hold onto, but Becka quickly threw the fish onto shore as Talli splashed out of the water, drawing her own knife and quickly killing the fish by snapping it’s spine and bleeding it out by slitting it’s throat.
“Oh wonderful!” Becka said, gathering up all the unwashed fruit and quickly rinsing them, while Talli washed the sand and blood off of the fish they’d caught.
“And here I was expecting just fruit for dinner!” Talli said with a grin.
The sky was starting to turn orange and pink by the time they came back, everyone happy at the possibility of freshly caught fish for dinner. Talli started a fire with some driftwood gathered from the shore and dried grass gathered from the forest behind them for kindling. Well… I suppose this isn’t that bad after all… Talli though, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.
