Ben's eyes told so much but his lips said nothing. He simply stared at us with that broken expression that had become his trademark.
In a quick action, he turned and sprinted away.

I started to follow but Mikey held me back, "don't" he said shaking his head briefly.

"He's going to go tell everyone!" I protested.

"Let him" he replied simply.

I looked up at him and he smiled. My eyes grew watery from dealing with so much emotion. He brought his face forward and kissed me on my forehead lightly before pulling me into a tight hug.

"It's you and me now Jo" he assured me as I buried my head in his shirt. "I won't let anything come between us".

▼・j61;・▼

Mikey seemed sure in every step he took closer to the compound but my strides weren't as certain.
I couldn't help but worry about how they'd see Mikey and I after they found out what we'd been doing. The last thing this group needed was conflict especially since we all needed eachother to survive.

Mikey squeezed my hand as if to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. I'd even forgotten that we'd been holding hands. I looked down at our hands intertwined. It made me smile. I felt safe. I felt like no matter what happened, he would protect me. And so I trusted in that.

By the time we got back to the lake, the boys were already out of the water. I saw Tate rush out of the compound and towards our position and I let go of Mikey's hand.

Tate closed the gap quickly and spoke with urgency, "where the hell have you guys been? Coach needs us all gathered in the house. It seems important! Come hurry!". And right after, he took off back to the house.

Mikey and I looked at eachother and followed.

▼・j61;・▼

The entire team was huddled just inside the house forming a circle looking intently at coach who had a worried look on his face.

"Harris! Fahey! Get in here! There's something you all need to hear" he said sternly. Coach had never liked to wait for us. That much had carried over from the training field to this island. At least he didn't have us running laps for being late.

We both took spots and looked to coach.

"While you all were out having your fun, I took to exploring this place. Get a sense of what this place was. Hidden in a fake wall towards the far side of the building..." He slid a wooden box across the floor to the center of our circle "..I found this"

He let us take it in before continuing.

"It was locked so I had Doug pick the lock" He raised the lid of the box to reveal its contents. "Now there's a lot of stuff in there, a cigar, documents and letters talking about what this place is and this..." He brings into view what looks to be a tape recorder.

"Now I listened to some of the stuff on here" he continued "but I thought it'd be better if we all listened to it together".

He placed it on the box and pressed the play button.

It took a while but eventually a voice came on.

"Dr. Isaac Fenchurch island log #43" there was a long pause before it continued. "I won't say our time here was a failure because it wasn't. We learned so much even if we lost a lot more. If we're lucky, this will be my last recording and by this time tomorrow, I'll be on a boat off this God forsaken rock"

There was another long pause. We all looked around at one another.

"I can't say we perfectly understand this island but I can atleast rule out that whatever is causing all of this isn't supernatural like some of the men believe. We sent two of the researchers yesterday to the center of the island for one last attempt to figure it all out. Maybe we shouldn't have done that. Murphy and Johnson, two of our brightest minds returned but barely able to put words together. But in all their incoherent ramblings, they both spoke of a flower"

"Johnson..." there was a brief pause before Dr. Fenchurch continued speaking "Johnson shot and killed himself late last night. We've restrained Murphy for his own good"

"Oh my God" I let out unconsciously.

"Dr. Suresh and I have posited that towards the island's center, there may be a flower growing there whose spores seem to impair brain function or simply alter it depending on the level of exposure. If that is the case, our proximity to it would have only served to make our situation worse"

Our entire group sat there frozen listening to the chilling words from the recorder.

"Symptoms of exposure include altered behaviour, aggression, hallucination and in some rare cases, abnormal dreams"

I felt my throat tighten and my heart rate increase. I couldn't react any other way except to keep listening.

"Larger exposure can cause cognitive breakdown and maybe even suicidal tendencies. We suspect extended exposure could lead to more unpredictable effects which is why we've asked for an extraction immediately."

"Coach..." I heard Tate say but he is cut off by the recording

"It pains me that we have to leave so early because we were just starting to record good progress in our plans to create a perfect ecosystem. The animals even seem to be thriving. This island was to be a paradise. Our first step in creating an ecosystem totally conducive for human survival that we could replicate anywhere but it seems mother nature had entirely different plans. This is Dr. Isaac Fenchurch logging off for what I hope to be the last time".

The sound broke off and a second later, a click told us that it was over. No one said a word. We just stared gloomily.

Ben stood with a blank expression but his eyes seemed full of pain.

"Nothing is real, nothing is real" he repeated as he stood and left the house.

When he slammed the door shut, I turned back to look across the team. Everyone was speechless, perhaps still in shock over what we'd just heard.

"We have to get off this island" Doug said finally.

"How Doug? How are we going to do that? Tate asked.

He didn't reply.

"There's a boat" Tommy chimed in "We found it by the water during our first couple days here but there's no paddle"

"And you didn't think to mention that before?" Doug asked.

"Hey easy" Coach said trying to defuse the growing tension "where's this boat?"

"Not far" Tommy replied "straight shot using the path down to the beach"

Coach nodded "Now listen, I know you're all scared right now and maybe rightly so but we need to remain calm. I said that we'll survive this island and we will. Now we're going to continue things the same way that got us this far okay?"

We all mumbled our agreement.

"Eldon, I need you to go start a fire. Jo's going to whip us up something nice aren't you Jo?"

"Sure coach" I said forcing a smile.

"Now we have enough food stores to last us for some time so we can stay put. I don't want anyone going anywhere for the time being. We don't want to expose ourselves to anything"

We all nodded in agreement.

"Tomorrow morning, we'll go see the state of this boat and then see if we can't craft a paddle. We remember where we saw that flare. Trying to get there could be our best bet. All that clear?"

"Yes coach!" We chorused.

"Good" he said finally "get moving".

▼・j61;・▼

I'd never been a really good cook. Mum had tried to get Gaby and I to learn but neither of us had been very interested. But over the past few weeks, I seem to have figured it out. I had adjusted the quantities of everything over time and ended up with something that was atleast edible.

Earlier, I'd shown Mikey how to peel the yam and slice them properly and I'd tossed them into the pot of boiling water. Added salt and pepper and the dried meat from one of the animals on the island. As we waiting for it to boil properly, we got to talking.

"I miss my bed" I groaned.

"I miss having an actual shower" he replied.

"I miss TV" I said after thinking for a second.

"I miss Bosco" Mikey replied smiling.

"I'd miss him too if he didn't bark at me every time" I pouted.

He laughed "yeah he's never liked you I don't know why"

"Oh you totally know why" I protested.

"That wasn't my fault"

"It was totally your fault!" I said louder than intended.

"We were fighting. It's not my fault he's so protective of me"

"We were PLAY fighting" I stressed "And I wasn't even winning!"

"Well now he barks every time he sees you" he let out a big laugh that made me pout some more.

"It's not funny" I said while trying to hold back my own laughter.

"It's a little funny" he said with a cute smile.

I finally let out a small laugh "maybe a little".

We sit quietly for a while listening to the fire cracking in the evening breeze. The liquid in the pot would sometimes rise and spill over the sides of the pot into the fire.

"I hate that we're stranded on this stupid rock" I said eventually.

"Well yeah but if it never happened, we wouldn't be..." he paused "you know"

This caught me off guard.

"Are we?" I asked.

"Aren't we?"

I smiled and nodded before turning my gaze to the floor.

▼・j61;・▼

We ate in turns since we had only two plates but soon we were all done and sat together in the large room on the beds that we had laid across the floor. Doug and Gabe had agreed to share a bed since there wasn't enough to go around.

I noticed Ben staring at me but I didn't say anything. It didn't seem like he had told anyone and I wasn't in a hurry to make him tell.

The dress I wore made it so I had to sit with both legs to one side but other than that, it was pretty comfortable.

We thought there'd be more clothes to go around after we got to the compound but there were only a handful of clothes left behind and there were mostly in worn out conditions. This didn't bother me however because I didn't want to wear anything other than the clothes I'd been wearing since.

"You'd make a really great cook, Jo" Doug said and I thought he really meant it.

"Thanks" I replied smiling.

"Yeah" Gabe agreed "I don't know how you do it but it tasted really nice"

The group seemed to agree.

"Thanks" I said again with a wider smile. "Ben, I didn't see you eat anything"

"Wasn't hungry" he replied simply.

▼・j61;・▼

We all slept as soon as we could in preparation for the next day but sometime in the night, I felt a hand on my face. I woke up abruptly to find Ben kneeling next to me moving his fingers across my face. His eyes were so wide open and unnatural.

I started to scream but as soon as he saw this, he pressed both hands to my throat and pressed hard catching my voice before it left my lips. I squirmed trying to move but he only pressed harder and harder until I felt the room spin.

I stretched my hand to his face to scratch or pull or anything to get him to stop but I couldn't reach and my hand flailed in midair. When that didn't work, I tried to pull his hands off my neck but his grip was too strong.

I struggled to breath but my lungs remained empty. I tried to cough but the action just hurt my throat.

I started kicking and flinging my body as hard as I could but this only made him get on top of me to stop that.

I started losing my sight and the world got dark. I managed to force "please... stop" past my lips but they fell on deaf ears. I gave up and thought it wasn't fair that I would die like this after surviving so much.

I would later find out that coach had tackled him off me and held him down and eventually tied him up. When I came to, he was kicking and screaming.

Mikey was by my side and stopped me from trying to stand.

"Tommy, Tommy listen...." he begged as he pulled at the ropes "They're not real Tommy. The island is messing me us"
He tried to free himself from the ropes and when he realised that wouldn't work, he continued talking "You gotta believe me Tommy. Why'd you tie me up? You can't let the island mess with you buddy. It's just me and you here. No one else"

He pulled and pulled and even seemed to be hurting himself but he didn't stop.

"Listen to me Tommy, let me go and we can get rid of them together. Untie me and I'll show you, they're not real"

He wasn't even looking at the rest of us. His eyes just remained fixed on Tommy as he pleaded.

"These versions of our friends aren't even accurate Tommy! You know what Jonathan looks like right? That's not him right? Look at him!"

I brought my hand to my neck and felt a sharp pain. My throat hurt so bad.

"And and and I saw this Mikey here kissing Jonathan! Come on man! You know Mikey right? He'd never kiss a dude!"

I was in so much pain but I only pitied him. What could have happened to him to make him like this?

"Coach, his eyes" I heard Gabe say "They're really red"

I watched Tommy turn to leave and Ben become so much more aggressive kicking and shouting.
"The island has taken you Tommy but I'll save you! I'll get rid of them. I'll kill them for both of us Tommy! You hear me? I'll kill them and I'll save us both".

"Find something to gag him with and make sure those binds are secure" Coach said as he turned to leave.

Doug stops him.

"Coach we gotta get off this island"

Phew. I'm glad this part is done. I always dreaded writing this chapter and it even scared me while I did. Are you afraid for them now? I'd love to know what you thought of the events up until now.
The entire story is pretty much done in my head now, all that's left is to put it all down. I hope you'll stick around.
I'll be reading and replying to all comments on the story so don't be shy.