Stranded on an Island That Hunts Back

Chapter 17: Lines in the Water

By the third morning, hunger had become louder than shame.

Stomachs growled openly. People watched one another eat pinches of biscuit dust, watched the movement of throats when water was shared, watched the sky as if rescue might arrive because the need had finally become unbearable enough.

Rescue did not come.

The smoke rose thin and grey. The sea glittered. The jungle waited.

Idris stood near the waterline and studied the reef.

At low tide, dark rocks showed beneath the clear shallows. Small fish flashed silver between them. Farther out, white water broke over the reef edge with enough force to smash a careless body against coral.

Food was visible.

That made it dangerous, like the coconuts.

Tom stood beside him, one hand shielding his eyes. "Can you fish?"

"Badly."

"Good. That is better than my never."

"We do not need rods. We need line, hooks, traps, spears if we can make them."

Owen joined them, slinged arm against his chest. "I found earbuds in a bag. The wire is thin, but wire."

Idris turned. "Good. Bring them to Rosa."

Owen blinked, pleased by being useful. "Right."

Rosa had become the keeper of small things. Keys, wires, buckles, zips, glass shards, safety pins, anything that looked meaningless until need gave it purpose. She sat cross-legged in the shade with the ruined paperback beside her, listing supplies in careful columns.

When Owen brought the earbud wire, she stripped it with a broken razor blade and held up the copper strands like treasure.

"Too weak for big fish," Idris said. "Useful for tying."

They cannibalised the luggage.

Zips became thin metal teeth. Safety pins became hooks when bent open. A key ring became a stronger loop. Threads from clothing twisted into cord. The watch strap gave up another length of cordage, and Idris felt oddly exposed each time he unwound part of it, as if the little survival fantasy that had saved them was being spent thread by thread.

Maya watched from Peter's side.

"You look like a man dismantling his favourite toy."

"It was a tool."

"Was it?"

"Eventually."

She almost smiled.

Peter stirred. His fever had not broken, but he was more present that morning. Pale, weak and in pain, yet alive enough to complain when Maya forced him to drink slowly.

"Tastes like warm socks," he whispered.

"Good," she said. "You are alive enough to be ungrateful."

He tried to smile and failed.

Idris looked away before the fragile hope could dig too deep.

The fishing party consisted of Idris, Tom and Owen in the shallows. Maya refused to let Owen go far, so he became their shoreline assistant, guarding supplies with the seriousness of a man promoted beyond his confidence.

"No one goes past knee height," Idris said. "No stepping on coral if you can avoid it. If a wave pulls hard, you move back, not forward."

Gareth, his injured arm bound to his chest, sat in the shade and watched with poisonous amusement.

"Do you also lecture fish before catching them?"

"Only the clever ones."

Owen smiled despite himself.

They tried hand lines first.

Idris made the first hook badly. The bend was too open, the point too dull and the knot ugly enough for Rosa to stare at it until he handed it over without a word. She redid it with the concentration of someone sewing a wound. Her fingers had stopped trembling when she worked on small things. Idris noticed that and stored it away. People were not only their panic. Sometimes usefulness had to be found under it.

The bait was the problem. They had no proper food to spare. Tom scraped limpets from rocks at the edge of the tide. Idris cracked small shells with a stone and hooked pieces of flesh onto bent safety pins. The smell was sharp and briny.

"If I were a fish, I would consider it," Owen said.

"Luckily, fish have lower standards," Tom replied.

For an hour, nothing happened.

The sun climbed. Lines tangled. Hooks slipped. A small fish took bait and vanished before Tom could react. Another flashed near Idris's feet and ignored everything offered.

Gareth called from the shade, "Excellent work. We can all eat patience."

Maya did not look up from Peter. "Gareth, if your mouth caught fish, we would be full by now."

The camp made a sound close to laughter.

Gareth's expression hardened, but Idris saw something else too. Maya could wound him more effectively than Idris could because Gareth wanted her audience even while resenting her judgement.

Dangerous.

Then Tom's line jerked.

He froze.

"Pull," Idris said.

Tom pulled too hard.

The line snapped.

A small silver fish thrashed once in the shallows, freed itself from the broken hook and vanished.

Tom stared at the water. "I have never hated an animal so quickly."

"You lifted, not drew," Idris said.

"I panicked."

"Understandable. Try again."

They changed method.

Rosa suggested using a plastic bottle cut into a funnel trap. Idris stared at her for a second, then felt foolish for not thinking of it first. They cut one bottle, inverted the top and tied it in place with wire. Bait went inside. Stones weighted it.

"Where did you learn that?" Owen asked.

Rosa shrugged. "Videos. I used to watch people make things they did not need from rubbish. Apparently I was preparing for this."

"Welcome to Idris's club," Maya said.

That did earn a real laugh, brief and cracked but real.

They placed the trap in a shallow pool near the rocks and waited.

Waiting was harder than work.

By noon, there were three tiny fish inside. Too small to be impressive. Big enough to matter.

Lily clapped once, then hid her hands as if unsure celebration was allowed.

"We need more traps," Idris said.

For the first time, no one argued.

They made three from bottles and one from a cracked plastic container weighted with stones. Tom improved the entrance. Rosa tied the knots. Owen guarded the bait as if defending treasure.

By late afternoon they had caught seven small fish and a crab missing one claw.

Killing them changed the mood.

It should not have. Everyone knew fish did not leap cooked onto fires. Still, when Idris struck the first fish against a stone, Clara looked away and Lily pressed her face into Clara's side.

Idris gutted them with the sharp metal strip, hands clumsy but careful. He washed them in seawater, then Maya made him rinse his hands with boiled water before touching anything else.

"We cannot waste boiled water like that," Gareth said.

"We cannot eat filth from his hands either," Maya replied.

The fish roasted badly.

Some parts charred. Some stayed too soft. Everyone received a piece barely larger than two fingers. They ate in silence.

It was the best meal Idris had ever tasted and nowhere near enough.

As evening lowered, Tom checked the last trap and found it torn open.

Not broken by waves.

Torn.

The plastic was punctured by small sharp marks. The bait gone. No fish inside.

Idris crouched beside it.

"Crab?" Tom asked.

"Maybe."

But Idris looked towards the deeper pool beyond the rocks, where the water darkened between coral cuts.

Something moved under the surface.

A shadow, long and quick.

Then nothing.

Owen backed away from the edge. "I am beginning to dislike visible food."

"Good," Idris said. "Respect keeps people alive."

From the shade, Gareth muttered, "Fear keeps them hungry."

Idris did not answer.

He watched the water until the shadow did not return.

The sea had food.

By the time they returned to the fire, the camp smelled of roasted shellfish and smoke. It should have felt like progress. Instead, the meal made everyone hungrier because it reminded their bodies of what food was. Peter could not eat. Maya mashed a small piece of fish with water and touched it to his lips, then threw the rest into the fire when he could not swallow.

Gareth saw that too. For once he said nothing.

The sea also had teeth.

Of course it did.

Rosa asked for every failed hook to be kept instead of thrown away. When Owen asked why, she said failure showed the shape of the next attempt. It was such a calm, practical answer that Idris glanced at her twice. The island was stripping people down, but it was also revealing what remained under fear.

The fishing also gave them a new sound. Not laughter exactly, but argument with purpose. Tom swore at knots. Rosa corrected him. Owen named the traps as if they were pets and then apologised when the first one caught fish. For a short while, the camp sounded less like wreckage and more like people making something.

Hunger made them practical, but the sea made them humble. Every small fish had to be earned twice, once from the water and once from the fire without burning it to bitterness.

By sunset, their hands smelled of fish, salt and smoke. Nobody complained. Smell meant food had passed through their fingers, even if too little reached their stomachs.