Crashing Into Paradise

The temptation

“Ah...” Max sighed weakly, as if his strength and energy had been drained, and he was so tired. His eyes stared at the cave ceiling with a gloomy gaze. “If it’s like this, how can I sleep peacefully?”

He was in a favourable situation?

Because the two beautiful women were sleeping on his left and right sides, hugging him tightly until he felt warm enough.

A few hours ago, he was certain that he was on Anna’s left, with Luna on her right. But now the positions had changed; he didn’t know when Luna had moved from Anna’s right side and was now lying beside him, hugging his arm so tightly.

Through the thin, long-sleeved shirt Luna was wearing, he could feel the softness of her breasts pressing against his arm. His heart was racing wildly; he thought Luna would be the only issue. But Anna beside him was doing the same, leaning more toward him.

Even completely without distance, Anna seemed to be hiding in Max’s embrace, seeking warmth by pressing her face against his neck. Every warm breath she exhaled swept across Max’s neck, making his blood flow twice as fast.

Without realising it, they moaned in their sleep and continued to move, tormenting him by placing their hands so carelessly on his body.

“Damn it!” Max clenched his lips, biting them as he closed his eyes to maintain his sanity.

He couldn’t take it anymore; the place had become so hot for him, even though the wind and air outside were blowing in so cold. He barely felt it; the heat pressure on his body was almost making him explode. Max broke free from the heavenly trap that bound him and stepped out of there.

“Only I will be criticized and cursed if something happens, while they will be helpless victims.” He sneered sarcastically as he grabbed his bag and the empty water bottle.

The night sky was still completely dark. The forest, which had been so quiet earlier that day, now sounded quite noisy with the sounds of owls, crickets, and the growls of wild animals, each taking their tone and creating a haunting harmony in the forest.

But who cared about that? Max pulled out a small flashlight from his bag. He began to cut through the night by walking in the darkness. For him, encountering wild animals that pumped up his adrenaline was far better than facing Anna and Luna, who kept tormenting him with his hormonal pressures.

He slightly resented the fact that he had to maintain his rationality in this situation, while they seemed unconcerned about being a bit more cautious with him.

Max took off all his clothes, placing them on the rocks along with all the items he had brought with him. His feet walked further into the river, and then he submerged his body there. Slowly, the cold crept in. Back when he was in the military, he often bathed in the river at midnight.

He couldn’t stand sleeping in a dirty state, and the calmness of the night helped him relax. Recalling the time he spent in the military unit where he was stationed, many things had happened. On the positive side, he had learned to survive better than most people. On the negative side, he had witnessed so much death, injustice, and how greedy and complicated humans could be when holding certain positions.

Once his mind had returned to normal and was refocused on surviving and finding a way out, Max decided not to go back to sleep. He glanced at his arm and checked the watch on his wrist. “The sun will rise in two hours; I should prepare food supplies and look for other signs of life in this forest.” He grabbed his backpack and put it on.

The first area he would explore was the vicinity of the river. Water was a sign of life; living creatures that moved and needed food would always come to the river to survive. But before exploring further, Max first set up a crude fish trap using branches and rocks in the river.

“Maybe it’s not just Luna. There might be others who survived too.” He was still hopeful about that possibility. Max’s steps led him to the other side of the river.

Usually, M&B—the e-commerce company formed by Anna—organises a trip every year. The event is held to appreciate its employees by giving them a break from work, rewarding them with an overseas vacation, and Anna also uses it as an opportunity to foster camaraderie among her employees.

But in the third year of the event, who would have thought that this form of appreciation would turn into a curse for them, causing some to lose their lives, others to go missing, and still others to be stranded in the middle of nowhere.

“How large is this forest, really?” Max began to run out of breath, his hands, which had been cutting through the bushes, now had more than two or three red scratches.

No matter how far he had walked, no matter how long he walked straight without turning to know he wasn’t just circling in place, Max never reached the edge of the forest. When he parted the bushes, he found more bushes, more trees he hadn’t marked, and it kept going like that until the optimism in him began to fade.

“What if the plane’s radar was found at a point far from here?” the thought crossed his mind. “Perhaps the plane that exploded crashed into the water, and this forest is located on the far side from the explosion site and the debris, so there’s a possibility they’ll declare all passengers unsaved.

Max clenched his fists tightly; the thought made him anxious. He looked around the forest, which was slowly being bathed in the warm orange glow of sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees, like an umbrella.

Max was restless. This was different from his military days; at least back then, he was equipped with training, and his entire team was made up of trained individuals. But now, after spending the night there with two women who had no experience in the wilderness, all the threats and difficulties in that place felt more real.

Max seemed to finally realise his true situation. “I don’t want to die here.”

It wasn’t about all the things he hadn’t done yet that made him unwilling to disappear so easily there. But his desire to simply live, fight, and survive made him reluctant to die without knowing the specific reason he had ended up stranded there.

“Maybe.” A fleeting possibility crossed his mind. “Maybe this isn’t just a ordinary accident.” He wasn’t entirely sure, but his intuition told him something was off.

He remembered a staff member at the airport who had passed by him and mentioned the flight number, oddly enough, he seemed to be marking the plane. Max thought he was a staff member who would be boarding the flight, but he just stood there, as if making sure someone had boarded the plane.

But that suspicion without evidence was baseless, just a speculation that could lead to a major mistake if not properly investigated first.

Max sighed deeply. The day had just begun, but he was already so tired and overwhelmed. Max decided to return, realising the two women might have woken up and noticed he wasn’t beside them.