Stranded on an Island That Hunts Back

Chapter 6: The First Fire

Idris stepped back from the tree line without turning his shoulders.

Slow.

Careful.

The urge to run pressed hard against the back of his skull, but he did not give it room. Running invited panic. Panic invited mistakes. Mistakes got people killed.

Maya moved with him.

She did not ask questions until the sand beneath their feet turned pale again and the smell of wet leaves gave way to salt, blood and hot cloth. Even then, she kept her voice low.

"You saw it too."

Idris looked towards the palms where the others waited. "Yes."

"And the print?"

"Yes."

"How bad?"

He nearly said he did not know. That was true, but it was becoming a useless truth. "Big enough that I do not want everyone running into the trees."

Maya's jaw tightened. Wet red hair clung to her cheek, and the cut above her eyebrow had dried into a dark line. She looked exhausted. She also looked as if exhaustion had better wait its turn.

"Then do not tell them everything yet," she said.

He glanced at her.

"They need fear," Maya continued. "Not panic."

It was the first time he realised she was not only following his judgement. She was making one of her own.

Gareth saw them first.

"Well?" he called. "Find us a river?"

Idris looked past him to the others.

Fourteen survivors waited beneath the palms in scattered pieces of misery. Clara sat with Lily curled into her side. Owen held his injured arm against his chest. Rosa knelt beside the luggage pile, sorting metal from fabric with trembling hands. Peter lay in the shade with his face grey and his lips parted, while the improvised tourniquet around his thigh grew darker by the minute.

The dead were covered farther down the beach.

Not far enough.

Flies had begun to gather there, lifting and settling like black dust. Each time they rose, the air seemed to remember the bodies even when the survivors tried not to.

Idris forced his eyes away.

"We found tracks," he said.

Gareth frowned. "What kind?"

"Birds. Hoof marks. Maybe deer or goats."

Owen lifted his head. "Goats?"

"Maybe."

"That means food," Gareth said.

"It means water first," Idris replied. "Animals need to drink."

Maya gave him a quick glance.

She knew what he had left out.

The print wider than his palm. The shadow between the trees. The patch of insects that had gone silent as if something had passed its hand over the jungle and smothered the sound.

Clara shifted Lily against her chest. "Can we go to the water now?"

"Not yet," Idris said.

The disappointment around the camp was almost a sound. A soft, collective sinking.

Gareth caught it and smiled with one side of his mouth. "Not yet. Of course."

Idris ignored him and looked down at his wrist.

The watch.

The glass was scratched. The compass was still fogged beneath its cover, the needle twitching without settling. That worried him, but not now. The strap had survived. The buckle had survived.

And hidden along the buckle was the small flint striker he had once bought as a novelty.

"We need fire," he said.

Gareth blinked. "Fire? In this heat?"

"Smoke for signaling. Heat for drying. Protection after dark. If we find water and something to hold it, we may need to boil it."

"With what pot?"

"With whatever we can make work."

Gareth shook his head. "You don't know, do you?"

Idris held his gaze. "I know we cannot sit here until the sun goes down."

That silenced him for a moment.

Only a moment.

Then Gareth folded his arms. "Fine. Make fire."

The way he said it made the words a challenge.

Maybe they were.

Idris unclipped the watch with stiff fingers and turned the strap over. The hidden striker was still in place, a thin dark rod tucked into the buckle. It looked too small to matter. Almost laughable against the wide beach, the ruined ship and the jungle waiting beyond the palms.

Maya crouched beside him. "Will that work?"

"If we find dry tinder."

"Everything is wet."

"Outside, yes."

He searched near the palms first. The outer leaves were damp from seawater and spray, but the inside of dead plant material could stay dry if it had not been soaked through. He snapped a fallen palm rib and split it with the edge of a sharp shell.

The outer skin peeled away wet.

Inside, pale fibers showed.

Not perfect.

Enough to try.

He gathered what he could. Inner palm fibre. Dry grass trapped beneath a flat piece of wreckage. Threads from the torn lining of a suitcase. A scrap of cotton from a shirt that had been buried under other clothes and had stayed less wet than the rest.

Rosa watched him closely. "What should we do?"

"Find more like this," Idris said. "Dry inside. Not just dry outside."

She nodded and began searching.

Owen helped with his good hand, jaw clenched every time his injured arm jolted. Clara kept Lily in the shade and sorted through clothing. Maya tore thin strips from fabric and laid them beside Idris without being asked.

For a few minutes, the beach had purpose.

It was a fragile purpose, full of shaking hands and frightened glances, but it was still better than the open wound of waiting.

Gareth did nothing for a while.

Then, perhaps because people were watching, he picked up a branch and snapped it.

Wet wood showed inside.

He tossed it aside. "Useless."

"Put it in the sun," Idris said.

Gareth frowned.

"It may dry later."

For a heartbeat, Idris thought he would argue. Instead, Gareth threw the branch towards the hot sand and muttered under his breath.

Idris built the tinder nest in a shallow dip, using his body to block the sea breeze. His hands had started shaking again. Not from fear alone. Thirst had begun its quiet work. His tongue felt thick. His head pulsed behind the eyes.

Fourteen people watched him.

No pressure, then.

He set the striker against the metal edge of the buckle and scraped.

Nothing.

Again.

A spark jumped, hit the fibers and died.

Gareth laughed softly.

Idris did not look up.

Again.

A spark landed, glowed for half a second, then vanished.

Lily whispered, "Is it broken?"

"No," Clara said, though she did not sound sure.

Idris loosened the tinder. Too tight and it would suffocate. Too loose and the spark would find nothing to hold. He bent closer, ignoring the sweat running into his eyes.

His brother's voice came back to him, bright and mocking.

Getting lost in the garden?

Idris clenched his jaw.

Scrape.

A spark fell deep into the nest.

This time it stayed.

A tiny orange eye opened among the fibres.

Nobody moved.

Idris lowered his face and breathed gently.

Too hard would kill it.

Too soft would starve it.

A thin thread of smoke curled upward.

"Come on," Maya whispered.

The ember spread.

Then a small flame lifted its head.

For a moment, the whole beach seemed to breathe again.

No one cheered. The sound that moved through them was quieter than that, a soft release, a murmur, a little life returning to people who had almost forgotten what life felt like.

Owen let out a laugh that was almost a sob. Rosa covered her mouth with one hand. Clara bent her face into Lily's hair, and the child stared at the flame as if it had arrived from another world.

Maya looked at Idris and the expression in her eyes changed.

Idris felt the look and almost turned away from it. He was not used to being looked at like that. At home, people had glanced past him in shops, brushed shoulders on trains and forgotten his face by the next stop. Average men were easy to lose in a crowd. On this beach, there was no crowd large enough to disappear into.

The flame made that impossible. It threw light over his hands, over the watch strap and over the faces waiting around him. It made his small skill visible, and visibility had weight.

Gareth saw the weight too. Idris could feel the other man measuring it, turning the moment over like a coin and already resenting its shine.

Not admiration exactly.

Not trust yet.

But something had begun.

"You did it," she said.

Idris fed the flame with dry slivers. "We did one thing."

"One important thing."

He nodded, because that was true.

Fire was not rescue.

Fire was not water.

Fire was not safety.

But it was a line in the sand.

And for the first time since the ship went down, the island had something human burning against it.