as unsinkable as i can be // the wilds

chapter two.

I'm not really sure if I fell asleep or blacked out, but I woke to find Toni gone.

I dreamed about the plane.

The "before."

None of the names had registered - either the plane crash wiped everything or I hadn't cared enough in the first place to remember - but I could make out a few of the faces. That blonde Texan that Toni had been talking about, trying a bunch of icebreakers on us to see if we would be able to become friends, especially since we were supposed to be in Hawaii for the next however many months.

Toni had come with a girl I assumed was Martha, and there were two Texans, and then there were the twins. I'm pretty sure two of the girls were from the same art school up somewhere north, but other than that, there was only one other girl who came alone that wasn't me. 

Jeanette.

All I could do was listen to my music and write. Walking onto the plane had felt like a death wish, as if my body was trying to scream at me to turn around and tell my parents that I loved them, instead of just being angry for what they had done. Writing was all I could bring myself to do. Write my way out of the plane, out of the world, out of the universe. Writing until no one knew where I was, wondering if I was still up there, floating.

I wrote stupid things, about worlds that no publisher would ever see, but that brought me comfort. Anything that would distract me from the real reason that I would be spending my summer away from my entire family and friends. Anything that would keep me from thinking about the fact that I was still alive.

And as we were going down, nosediving towards the water at too fast of a speed, I think I blacked out. I couldn't remember anything on the island, I can't remember anything now, and it seems like all the other girls have this blank in their memory, too, of what happened when we crashed, after we crashed, all of it. Ironic, huh?

After the initial idea that we were in trouble, I don't remember a single thing, and neither do any of the other girls.

Toni's jacket was still around my body as my eyes began to adjust to the light - it was probably midday - only my arms had been pushed through the sleeves and I was curled up in a tight ball in the sand, another balled up jacket under my head. I sat up slowly, inspecting my body to see if anything had been broken, but to my relief felt no pain, other than a few minor cuts and bruises. Instead, I was greeted with voices. A lot of them.

"Look, we're stuck here, okay? There is nothing we can do!"

"Rachel, just-"

"No, Nora! Stop! I think you've done enough! If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here!"

"Hey, y'all, can we just-"

"I don't know who the crap you are, but stay out of my business, okay? This is between me and my sister."

"I'm not trying to get in your business, but this is no one's fault. We didn't want the plane to go down, okay?"

"Guys-"

"What are we even going to do?! We have lives out there, okay? We have things that we have to get back to! We don't have time for this!"

"Hey, guys-"

"It's the twenty-first century, y'all. They're going to find us in the nick of time. God put us in it, God will get us through it, just like my Daddy always says."

"Jesus, you've got to be kidding me-"

"Guys! I think she's awake!"

My eyes came into complete focus as bodies rushed towards me, surrounding me and helping me stand up. Toni was the first one that registered, her dark eyes the only thing I focused on.

"Are you okay?"

I shook my head but quickly changed to a nod. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Um," I began to take her jacket off. "Here's your jacket back. You're going to need it-"

"No, Rae, keep it. I'll just steal something from Fatin's suitcase." She rolls her eyes and lowers of voice. "Of course, hers is the one that makes it to shore." I remember smiling a little, or at least I tried to, but I don't remember if my mouth was ever actually able to get the muscles to move.

She led me to the fire that someone had managed to make - my guess had been Dot, the other Texan; she was the one feeding the twigs to it and blowing on the flames, keeping it alive - and helped me sit down. My body was shaking still, from what I assumed was nerves and shock, but the fire helped ease some of the knots of tension I had felt blooming in my stomach and all through my spine.

"W-what happened? W-where am I?" I asked after everyone had sat around the fire along with me, Toni right beside me and a mixed girl with curly black hair with bleached-deep strawberry blonde at the ends, holding a pen and a little pink journal with an emblem on it, on the other side of me. She was peering at me, with curiosity in her eyes, and her fingers traced over the emblem.

The emblem. The Dawn of Eve.

And that was the moment it all came back.