The Island

Being thrown out of a plane isn't a whole lot of fun.

Personally, I'd never even gone skydiving before. The first few moments are indescribable. Panic, maybe. Then, you get kind of used to it, and it becomes a little fun. After getting used to the fun, I would imagine that a whole new layer of enjoyment sets in. Excitement, joy, bliss. I would imagine that you'd be happy to land, or maybe you'd wish that you could fall forever. Actually, I did wish that. I almost believed it for a moment.

I thought to myself, "if only I could never hit the ground."

"If only I could…"

It was pointless to think about. There was only one thing on my mind. There was only one thing that my brain could bring itself to think about.

The island.

I had heard about the island, of course. Everyone had. Plenty of people had even seen it. Online or in person, a majority of people knew what the island looked like. I had seen videos leaked from the premium, pay-per-view livestreams that had gone up when the island had its first residents. But "residents" wasn't the right word. There wasn't really any one single word to describe the people of the island. You could say they were prisoners. Most people did, to be fair. But "prisoners" didn't capture the essence of it. They were dead, that's probably the most accurate word to use. They were dead, and now so was I.

The moment I was pushed off of that plane, I was dead. I didn't even get to hit the ground. But I would, of course. I would hit the ground, take off my parachute, and continue to run around as a dead person.

After awhile of running around dead, something would happen to me, and my death would be physical. I was dead, and this was just as true as the fact that I was alive. Dead. That word repeated itself in my head as I plummeted down.

Dead, dead, dead.

I almost had myself convinced, until I remembered that I was, in fact, still alive. I had been screaming, not by choice, but realizing this prompted my brain to stop. I had also not been breathing, which I started to do. Honestly, I think I almost had a heart attack. By some miracle, I stayed calm enough for my body to not shut down.

The fact that it was pitch-black dark out didn't exactly help. I could spot a few fires on the island, and what looked like a couple of villages. I wasn't sure if I should have avoided these or not, but I did, just to be safe. Eventually, my parachute automatically deployed. The people on the plane told me that this would happen, so that we didn't purposely plummet to our deaths.

Which, up until being told that, was my plan. When I was told that, I cringed noticeably. The guy who told me didn't say anything, but I'm pretty sure he saw me cringe. I'm not sure if he really even thought about it. He just pushed me out of the plane a little later.

After I figured out how to maneuver myself a little, I made my way near one of the collection of fires. With a herculean effort, I used my arms to steer myself. I'm not sure how I was able to pull myself together in order to accomplish any sort of task, but I did. Maybe it was that part of your brain that kicks in when you're in too much shock to keep yourself alive. It was like my brain put itself on autopilot. Panic had filled every corner of my body, and was pulsing out of my eyes and ears.

I could almost figure tell when I was going to hit the ground, but that still didn't make the situation feel any more real. If anything, the closer I got to the island, the further I got. The island wasn't underneath me, nothing was. The only thing below me was the ocean. I would land in the ocean and either freeze to death, or live long enough for them to figure out that they had dropped me in the wrong place.

But I knew that this wasn't true. There weren't campfires on the ocean. For some reason, that was the only thing I could of. There were a million other reasons as to why I wasn't landing in the ocean. Namely, they couldn't test anything out if I had landed there. There's no way they screwed up and landed me in the middle of the ocean. But my brain repeated that miniscule truth over and over, it was almost therapeutic. There weren't campfires on the ocean.

When I eventually landed, the panic pulsed with a fury, like it was trying to beat itself out of me. I didn't think, I couldn't think. I just started running towards what I thought looked like a building, but it was impossible to tell in the darkness. Tripping and stumbling along the rough terrain, obstacles, and whatever else may have been laying on the ground, I made my way to the building.

At this point, it still didn't feel real. I still felt like I would wake up at any moment. To be honest, I'm not even sure what point in my life I thought I would wake up back to. I couldn't remember the last time that my life had any sense of being real. When I woke up, would I wake up in my cell? Would I wake up in my apartment, with my roommate? Would I wake up in my parent's house, as a child? "When I woke up," I thought. Not if. Even as the ground crunched against my feet. The cold air stung my face and lungs and I breathed. My legs wobbled with fear, and my brain pulsed with panic. None of it felt real.

But it was.

Surprisingly enough, there didn't seem to be any overgrowth plaguing the building. My hands felt the brick wall, and I made my way around its perimeter. When I finally found the door, I entered cautiously.

The door crept open with the sound of a dying cat, and at the speed of one too. If there was anyone around, they would have heard it. Entering the building, I felt some of the panic begin to pulse out of me. As I inched my way forward, the hardwood floor creaked beneath my feet. Part of me wished I had a flashlight, but I knew that if my location hadn't yet been revealed, a flashlight would do the trick for sure. My feet crunched and snapped some broken glass that I had stepped on, and I was thankful for the thick boots that they'd given me.

I hugged the walls until I made my way into a room. I closed the door behind me. The room smelled awful. Like an animal had crawled in, threw up, and died. Immediately, I made my way to the left in search of furniture. I'm pretty sure I felt a metal bed frame, just with no bed. But I was mentally spent, and I could use a lie-down. So I did.

And that's when it hits me.

We're all aware of our own mortality in a way. We're all aware that no matter how many steps you take in life, death is always right behind you. Or something like that. I don't know. You could talk about death all day and not really say anything. I mean, everybody knows they're going to die. But not everyone really knows it. In their gut. It's not something that can be taught. It's not even something you can teach yourself. You need to be in proximity to death in order to really understand it.

I'm not sure if I was having a panic attack, but I was crying now. Surprisingly quietly too. It was almost an out-of-body experience. My body began convulsing a little bit. There's something about being fully aware that you're going to die that changes you a little bit. If it wasn't for the fact that I was in some random place, where something could have come in and killed me at any moment, I probably would have passed out right there.

I sat in terrified silence for hours. At one point, I heard some popping noise outside the door. It sounded like someone was popping bubble wrap down the hall. The noise seemed to be moving, and as it passed by my door, I couldn't help but whimper a little.

The noise stopped for a moment.

I stared blankly ahead, holding my mouth with both of my hands. Tears were streaming down my face. They had been for awhile, actually. I just hadn't noticed until I touched my face. The noise popped a few times, then continued its way down the hall, down the stairs, and hopefully out of the building.

I stayed as quiet as I could for the rest of the night.

At the crack of dawn, I heard a screech, as something pounded the side of the building. It sounded like something ran up the side of the building and onto the roof. I unsuccessfully tried to convince myself that it was a raccoon. It wasn't.

The sun slowly rose, filling the room with a small amount of light. It looked like there was a small bedside table next to the bed frame. There was also something under the window, it looked like a body. Ignoring the body, I walked to the bedside table. Opening the drawer and feeling around blindly, something poked my finger, causing me to search more cautiously. The drawer had some trash in it, a pen, and what felt like a piece of candy wrapped in plastic. The candy reminded me of my roommate, who always seemed to be eating something sweet. For a moment, a deep sense of poignancy filled me. I missed her, I missed my apartment, and I missed my life.

Something snapped me out of it, and I pocketed everything.

Part of me considered looting the body. Mentally, I made a note to come back to it, but I wanted to see what I was dealing with first. Touching a dead person seemed macabre, but it was probably a good idea to get some expose to that kind of stuff sooner than later. But it seemed almost disrespectful to scavenge someone's corpse without even being able to see them. The sun continued to slowly rise, and somehow, I was patient enough to watch it.

There was enough light in the room for me to make out most of the features of the corpse. They had been an older man, impaled by something in the chest. It wasn't a knife, it was something larger. It made me shiver to think about what could have caused it. The clothes he was wearing, which were already pretty worn, were pretty much ruined. His shoes weren't my size. It looked like the body had been there for awhile. The smell was disgusting, and even though I was in that room for hours, I still hadn't really gotten used to it.

The only thing in his pockets was a small notebook. It was pretty cute, honestly. It reminded me of something a student would carry around to keep track of due dates and other things. Apparently, this man had been trying to keep track of indescribably horrifying creatures. I think he kept track a little too well. The notebook was now in my possession, maybe someone else would recognize something on it.

When I left the room, I think a little part of me stayed behind. To be honest, a part of me was still on that plane. Another part of me was in my cell. And another part of me was still in the courtroom.

I think the biggest part of me was still back in my apartment, studying for exams, and screwing around on my computer. Most of me was still ignorant to the situation on the island. I'm not sure who I was right now, but it sure as hell wasn't the same person that had been charged with crimes that I didn't commit.

When I left the building, I gave it a good look before I started to walk. It looked like an old house. Before houses were made with all of the nice, modern components that they're made with nowadays. It was pretty ugly, to say the least.

The air smelled distinctly of vanilla outside the building. Either something made the smell recently, or my panic last night caused my brain to ignore it completely. There was smoke coming from what was probably a village of some sort. Actually, there were a few different streams of smoke coming from throughout the island. The closest one also happened to be the largest collection of streams, so I made my way over to that.

An abandoned car-littered freeway lead me to the smokestacks. Flowers and grass filled the cracks in the old pavement. I made sure to keep an eye out for anything that could have been of use in any of the cars. It was pretty easy to tell which ones had stuff in them, as only a select few had broken windows. If there had been anything of use here, it was long gone. The closer I got, the more anxious I got. Overthinking got the best of me.

What if the camp was filled with serial killers? What if the camp was filled with rapists and murderers? What if there weren't even people there, but something even worse?

The more I played the 'what if' game, the worse my anxiety got. So I turned it on its head.

What if the camp was filled with friendly survivors? What if at the camp, there was a warm and filling meal waiting for me?

I was grateful for the fact that, before dropping me out of a plane, I was allowed the luxury of having food and water. At this time yesterday, I had a full stomach. Finding food wasn't a huge priority to me, but I was pretty thirsty. After about twenty minutes of walking, I was almost right next to the smokestacks.

The freeway looked like a good place to come back to. It probably lead to all sorts of places that I could check out. If checking out places is even a good idea. Maybe sticking to established areas is safer.

There was one more hill I had to make my way over before I could get a good view of where the fires were coming from. As I made my way to the top, I saw a cozy-looking village of makeshift houses, fences, and other assorted buildings. It looked safe. It filled me with a sense of hope, however false it may have been. There were multiple torches, fireplaces, and bonfires scattered around mostly the perimeter.

I'm not sure what the purpose of these fires were, but I would probably be finding out pretty soon.

The entire village was surrounded by a pretty impressive looking fence composed of metal, wood, and other miscellaneous materials. There were two gates on almost opposite sides of the fence, so I made my way to the closest one.

Half expecting to get shot, impaled, blown up, or otherwise wounded or killed, I was pretty surprised to be able to walk right up to the gate. Pushing and pulling didn't make the thing budge. So I did the only other thing I could have done, and I knocked. Hard.

After a minute, the gate screeched open, sliding out towards me. A young man stood behind, studying me with a bewildered look. He was wearing a medical patch over his left eye, and wore similar clothes to me, but his were blue. I had only realized the color of my clothes was different than what I had been wearing in my cell.

Judging from the state of his clothing, it didn't look like he had been here for too long. After a moment, he spoke.

"Well ho-ly shit."

Another person showed up behind him, a taller woman. She wore the same clothes as me, only hers was a dark shade of blue, and had been torn, ripped, patched, and sewn. As she walked towards me, I was a little intimidated. She gave me a weak smile, and stood almost uncomfortably close to me.

"Y-You're Aileen Plainacre," she stammered. A million questions popped into my head immediately, and I asked her the most obvious one.

"How the hell do you know who I am?"

The only response she gave me was "You have to see this."

She led me into the village. It was surprisingly comfortable feeling. It was just as cozy as it had looked. There were plenty of people in the village too, there might have been at least dozens of people there. We passed by many uniquely constructed buildings. I was surprised to see that these buildings looked very sturdy. There were also solar panels running along the roofs of most of them. I prayed that they had electricity.

We entered a building near the heart of the village. The walls were covered in papers, all sharing an identical font. They looked like messages and instructions. After glancing over one for a moment, I realized they were from the people who organized the island.

The woman studied the walls for a moment, pointed to one of the letters, and told me to read it. It immediately shocked me to see my face printed on the letter. Crouching down, I began to read.

DECI, 4/30/28

JOURNALIST AILEEN D. PLAINACRE WILL BE JOINING YOU IN THREE DAYS.

THE NEXT DAY, WE WILL BE INTRODUCING A NEW TEST.

THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT HAS COME.

SMILE FOR THE CAMERA.

I think she knew that this freaked me out, because she placed her hand on my shoulder. It felt like the most comforting thing in the world. Despite that, I still began to absolutely freak out. I started blurting out just about any and every question I had, and after a few, I was barely even making coherent sentences.

I began to rock back and forth. I was having some sort of panic attack, again. The combination of "a new test" and "day of judgement" inspired a level of fear into me that was incomparable to anything I've ever felt before, even last night. Plus, the emotions of being new to the island still hadn't worn off.

After a minute or two of hyperventilating, I had just about passed out. I think she tried comforting me, but the only thing I could think about was what the 'test' was going to be. Eventually, I actually did end up passing out.

I woke up in another building, on a bed, a comfortable bed. With sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. My cell didn't have a bed with either of those. It had been months since I laid down on a real bed. For a moment, I completely forgot about everything. There was nothing in the world except my body and the bed.

This feeling didn't last long.

I stayed in bed for as long as I could. I pulled the blanket over my face. I tried to pretend like it was all a bad dream. I told myself that when I pulled the blanket down, I would be back in my own bed, at my apartment. I would then get out of bed, and ask my roommate out to dinner. Why dinner? I'm not sure. She would appreciate the gesture, we would go out, have a great time, and everything would be perfect.

I'm not sure why my brain decided to make me regret not asking my roommate out to dinner right at this moment. Maybe it was some sort of defense mechanism. I seriously regretted it though. She was my best friend in the world, and I was never going to see her again.

I never got a chance to pull the covers off, though. The sound of an awful, metallic screech in the distance made me completely jump out of bed. I shut my eyes for a moment and took a good breath. I mentally prepared myself for whatever might have caused that noise, and I ran outside.