Paradise

Chapter 1: Death by boat

BANG

That's all I heard from my bunk, the one shoved in the corner of an empty economy room. It was one shuddering sound I heard when the boat crashed into the island. When the electricity stopped working, when my sister drowned being stuck in the one corridor that was flooded, when I turned blind in my left eye.

My world changed.

The island was beautiful to the eye, but in the circumstances, nobody could focus on that. The Captain, I think his name was Andy? Captain Andy spent the first three days in the office of the boat, trying to get some contact with the outside world. Passengers roamed around the island in search of fresh food and water.

I wound up with the job of burying the bodies. Yay. There were three in total. A man and a woman, probably in their early thirties. Blue lipped and pale eyed.

And my sister. My eyes searched for life in her soaked locks spread around her head in the sand, her pale skin, her beautiful chocolate eyes.

Nothing.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I dig the holes. Three separate pits for three people who could have lived, could've been so much more...

I didn't realise that there was someone behind me as I placed the two adults carefully in their graves.

"She was my sister"

I spun on my heel. Behind me stood a woman, about the same age as the deceased woman in the hole. With light blonde hair to her collarbone and sharp teal eyes.

"And she's yours" she said, pointing to my sister who still lay above ground.

I nodded slightly and turned back again am started to lower my sister into the hole.

"Goodbye Sadie..." I whispered, tears again spilling down.

I piled sand into the pits. This was not a proper burial. Not what she deserved. I pushed my anger into shovelling the sand up with the boat's shovel that I'd used to dig the graves.

"I'm Elle" she said.

"Arden."

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and turned towards her.

"I know how you feel Arden"

"I know you do."