Epiphany *The wilds*

Day One

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"What have the others told you?" I question the two men in front of me.
"Nothing, you're the first one we've brought in." The first agent smiles softly.
"So then you don't know what I've been through, do you? You're just assuming trauma. You're just assuming that it was a living hell."
The blonde man clears his throat, shaking his head.
"Okay, Lydia, no one is assuming anything..." he starts but I cut him off.
"Sorry, look, I don't... I don't mean to say that what happened was traumatic. Obviously, it was traumatic. To end up where we did, In the middle of fucking nowhere, completely cut off from the lives we left behind... that brings us to the real question, doesn't it? What was so fucking great about the lives we left behind?"
———-
"God, I still can't believe they made us go on this stupid trip." Leah mumbles mostly to herself, before shoving her face back into her book.
I sigh while looking around at the occupied seats, "You and I both know we need this, Leah." I whisper to my sister, sighing once again when she rolls her eyes.
She shoves her face further into the book and turns her body, completely ignoring me.
I run my fingers through my hair and look up at the welcome video on screen.
"Right now, hundreds of girls just like yourselves aboard charters just like this one. They are en route to our Retreat in Kona, Hawaii, for a long weekend of female-centric learning and growth. The dawn of eve literally waits for no man."
The dawn of eve.
My thoughts are interrupted by a chirpy, southern voice.
"So, in the interest of bringing us all together, I'd like to propose a little icebreaker." She squeals, clapping her hands together.
"Oh, like never have I ever?" A voice a few rows in front of me says.
"That game is a bit much-"
"I know, So here's how you play. One person says something they've never done and if you have done it, you have to drink alcohol." She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Uh that sounds a little intense. How about we pair off, have a little powwow with your partner for a sec and afterwards you can introduce her to the rest of us, okay?" The blonde girl begins to pair girls off before walking down to where Leah and I are.
"Do you wanna go with me and then you can go with her?" She points to a girl with brown hair while smiling widely.
Leah turns her body even more into the seat, causing the girl widens her eyes.
"Alright, we can just have a little group of three!" She says, grabbing my hand and pulling me over to the other girl.
"Okay y'all, my name is Shelby. let's get down to it. I do real, right? I do family, I do Jesus, I do pageants. I'm doing this conference to offset the pageant's. Some colleges might see them as retrograde when it comes to female empowerment. Has anyone ever told you that you have the most drop dead gorgeous eyes?" Shelby rambles on, grabbing the girl's hand.
I look at the girl and smile,
"Your eyes are really pretty." The girl blushes more and says a small thank you.
"Alright, your turn!" Shelby shrieks out to me.
"Oh, I-" I'm suddenly cut off by a man offering chocolate cake.
Almost sighing in relief, I take a piece and quietly eating to myself, while Shelby continues to talk to the girl, I think I heard her say her name was Martha.
"Uh Shelby, sorry, I...I think you have cake in your teeth." Martha says, not wanting to embarrass the girl.
Shelby turns red and whispers an 'excuse me' snd runs to the bathroom.
I smile sheepishly at Martha who returns the same look.
Suddenly the plane starts to shake and the intercom starts to ding.
Feeling my stomach start to tighten and my hands beginning to sweat, I run to the back of the plane towards Leah and attempt to grab her, only to be shaken off.
Once again, she shoves her face into her book and curls into a ball.
Shaking my head, I get back into my seat and strap in, pulling my arms to my chest while praying for the first time that I wouldn't die.
Not like this.
———
"MARTHA! MARTY!" A loud voice screams from above me.
"Please wake up, I need to find Martha." The girl yells while shaking me.
I finally open my eyes to see a girl with brown eyes starting directly into my hazel ones.
Confused and at a loss for words, I just look at her, to which she scoffs before suddenly clutching her stomach and projectile vomiting.
Widening my eyes, I muster up the courage to get up and walk over to her.
"Are you alright?" I ask her, while reaching to move some hair off of her shoulder.
She sort of shrugs me off, but gives a small smile,
"Yeah, I'm fine."
All of the sudden we hear screaming and gasping from the ocean.
It's Leah.
Running as fast as I can, I go to her and try to grab the unconscious girl in her arms.
"I got her." Someone yells, grabbing her from my arms.
I pull my sister and hug her tight, thankful that we're both alive.
"God Leah, I thought you were dead."
"Yeah, well, I did too." She shrugs, pulling back from my hug.
I sigh before giving her a little smile and lift her arm over my shoulder to help her stand.
"Marty!" I hear that same girl scream, and see her run over to her and Shelby.
"I'll be right back." I say to Leah, setting her down on a big rock.
She nods while looking around the island, noticing all the girls that have suddenly appeared.
"Hey... You alright?" I question Shelby and Martha, gesturing to Marty's injured ankle.
"Shelby's been amazing. Seriously, she's been the biggest help." Marty smiles, looking up at Shelby.
Before I could reply, someone screams
"She's not breathing!"
We all run over to the unconscious girl to see the rest of the group arguing on how to do CPR.
"Okay, fine! who knows CPR?" The girl sighs, furrowing her eyebrows when everyone raises their hands.
In a panic, the girl kept going, pressing her hands on the unconscious girls chest as fast as she can, not knowing what could happen.
"I can't..." I say to leah, suddenly feeling lightheaded.
"What?" Is the last thing I hear before everything went black.
———-
Hearing the loud crash of the ocean is what woke me up, hell, it would of been peaceful if we weren't in this mess of a situation.
"Oh, you're awake!" A happy voice chirps from above me.
Looking at the girl who I thought was dead,
"Yeah, hi. You're okay." I say more of a question than a statement.
"Yeah.." she trails off, suddenly pulling me into a hug.
"I'm sorry." She whispers in my ear, gently rubbing my back.
"You have nothing to be sorry for." I furrow my eyebrows, hugging the girl back.
"No, you don't understand... I'm so sorry." She gives my body one last squeeze before pulling back, giving me a small smile while standing up.
"Come on." She extends her hand out for me to reach.
I hesitate for a moment before letting her lead me into the group of girls.
Shelby smiles wide when she sees me, patting the seat next to her.
She fills me in on everything that's happened, while also letting me know everyone's names.
"We should make a big ass help sign like that movie 28 days later." Dot says smugly, making me giggle slightly.
She looks over at me and gives me a small smirk, happy to know at least someone likes good movies.
"What do you think happened to the flight attendant dude?" Martha asks, she does have a good point.. it could be a coincidence that everyone on the plane is here, except him and the pilots, right?
"Listen listen listen, it's the 21st century, okay? They will find us. Until then, we need to keep track of our resources." Shelby pauses and counts all the drinks on the ground,
"8 cokes. That's all we gotta drink, just 8 of these. But don't worry, cause if god brought us to it, god will get us through it." She states proudly.
"You know the whole 'Jesus saves' thing isn't literal, right? He's not gonna jet pack down and get us out of here." Toni laughs sarcastically, rolling her eyes at the girl.
Shelby's smile flickered to a frown for a moment but she quickly smiles again,
"The lord saves those who save themselves. Which is why I'm going to go take a look in the woods, see if there's any fresh water. Maybe you should come with."
"Hard pass." Toni scoffs while rolling her eyes once again.
Drowning the bickering out, I finally take a second to take everyone in.
Shelby was a strong leader, beautiful and so obviously a pageant Queen.
Marty is pretty quiet, but she seems like she'd be a good friend.
Toni is a firecracker, a beautiful, strong firecracker.
Rachel seems distant, angry, something else is wrong, not just the island.
Nora is very shy, she hasn't said much , but to be fair, I haven't either.
Dot is tough, strong and knows a lot about survival.. something tells me that she's had to be the strong one before.
And Fatin.... I already knew her from school, though I doubt she knew who I was. Seeing her in such a raw state is something that I'd never imagine happening. She's scared.
"You guys!" Dot yells out, taking me out of my thoughts.
"What the hell, dot? You had a phone this entire time and didn't say anything?" Rachel stands up, clenching her fists.
"Look, I'm sorry, I was saving her ass!" She laughs out loud, pointing at jennette.
Dot starts digging a hole to put her phone in,
"It got real wet, do you guys thing this will actually work?"
Most of us shrug, while Nora says something about how she read an article once about how it works.
Shelby and Toni decide to go look for water, while the rest of us sat here to figure out a plan.
"Hi" Dot says while sitting down next to me.
I smile over at her before replying a quick hey.
After sitting in silence for a few minutes she finally gets up,
"You wanna try and find stuff in the water?"
Nodding, I get up and we run off to try and find anything that could help.
—————-
"Not a bad haul." Dot says proudly, while looking at me
"We all have pants now!" I laugh, sitting down in the sand.
"You guys! The phone is working!" Rachel screamed, making dot and I look at each other.
"Okay you guys, we all get one call." Rachel declares, making the group bicker at one another.
Once again, I start to drown everything out and think about the life that I left behind.
My parents told me that we were mostly going here because of Leah, but I know they were only saying that to spare my feelings.
*flashback TW*
"Lydia, you're seriously acting crazy." He screams at me, causing me to scoff.
"I'm acting crazy? You hit me!" I scream at him, shoving him away from me.
He starts pulling at his hair before grabbing the candle next to him and chucking at the wall.
"I'm such a piece of shit." He sobs, slowly sliding down the wall.
"I fucking hate myself." He wails, slightly looking up to see if I'm looking at him.
I sigh before walking over to him and caressing his cheek slowly.
"It's okay, it was an accident. You didn't mean it."
That was the first time he realized I'd apologize for his mistake. The first time he realized he could get away with it.
*flashback over*
"Lydia? Do you have anyone you wanna call?" Dot asks, handing the phone to me, but I deny it and shake my head quickly.
She looks at me sadly and hands the phone off to Fatin, who walks away.
I start to hear groans from behind me and I turn around to see jennette beginning to throw up blood.
"Holy shit, YOU GUYS!" I scream out, running towards the girl who fell to the floor.
Everyone runs over to us to see the tragic sight.
"She's dead." I whisper after checking her pulse and not feeling a response.
——————
We all gather around jennettes body while Shelby says a few words about her.
I'm not religious, but it's truly beautiful the way she speaks.
"Right, right. Turn off the lights, we're gonna lose our minds tonight. What's the dealio?" Leah sings off key, making us all look up at her.
"I think she liked pink."
"She did." Nora chimes in, with a nod.
"Party crasher, panty snatcher." She continues,
"Call me up if you a gansta. Don't get fancy, just get dancy, why so serious?" We all start singing softly while beginning to bury jennete.
Once we're done, dot and Rachel build a fire and we all sit around it in silence
"Here." Dot says, handing me one of Fatin's sweaters.
"Thank you, I like yours." I say smirking, noticing her sweater says 'more issues than vogue.'
She groans and rolls her eyes,
"I know, this is my rock bottom."
"Soo... would It be crazy if I suggested a little icebreaker?" Shelby says to the mostly quiet group.
"Never have I ever, it feels right...." She continues.
"Alright. Only if you go first. None of those bullshit, lightweight answers. Be real." Toni challenges her with a smirk.
"Fine. Never have I ever had vagina penetrative intercourse."
Fatin, Toni, dot, Leah, and I all drank, while Marty, Shelby, Nora and Rachel don't.
"Okay, never have I ever... had a threesome." Dot says looking down with a blush.
Fatin immediately drinks, causing all of us to smirk
"With two guys, not two girls." She goes on, making fatin drink more.
"On my period."
She puts her bottle to her lips and says "well I'm not a freak." Causing us to break out in fits of laughter.
"Never have I ever.... Fucked an author." I bite my lip, looking over to Leah.
She turns bright red while taking a small sip from her bottle. I notice fatin widen her eyes, but she says nothing.
"All right, I got one. Never have I ever, thrown my own piss at someone." Rachel says and smirks at toni, making everyone look over at her.
"With pride motherfuckers, with pride." She drinks.
After a few more rounds, I decide I'm gonna take a walk along the shoreline. Maybe something will pop up.
"Hey, wait up." Dot says, running after me.
I stop and wait for her, "hi."
"Hi, sorry, I just couldn't stand hearing about which one direction member is hottest." She laughs
"Harry, obviously." I say Matter of factually, making her laugh this time.
"I would of said zayn, but Harry works too." She picks up a random stick and starts making little shapes in the sand,
"I just can't believe this." She mumbles softly, making me smile sadly at her.
Without saying a word back, I rest my head on her shoulder.
——————
"Why do you think you and dot got close so fast?" Agent Faber questions, making me shrug.
"I don't know... something about her immediately made me feel safe. We just clicked from the start."
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Notes/// hi y'all :) I have covid rn and I wrote this at 3 am last night so it's probably not great, But, I will be going through and editing after every chapter or so!! Lmk what you think!