Epiphany *The wilds*

Day Fifteen

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"Obviously Leah and I couldn't find the fucking Halophen. Did anyone actually believe we could?." I scoff to Agent young, who just nods his head, before asking me another question.
"Why were you so ready to frolic in the dark, looking for something you knew you wouldn't be able to find?" He questions me, clearly confused.
"For her. I'd do anything for her."
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I wake up almost immediately to the feeling of water soaking my clothes. Looking around, I notice our entire camp is gone, completely covered in water.
"Lydia!" Dot screams out while trying to save as much stuff as possible.
"What the fuck is happening?" I ask, helping her grab the stuff floating away.
"Tide came in like a fucking beast, swallowed up the whole camp." She yells back, running into the water to grab anything that's floating away.
"Goddamn tidal surge." I whisper to myself before running over to fatin who is deep in water, trying to save all of her stuff.
"Fucking ocean took all my shit!" She screams, holding onto her suitcase, reaching for a scarf nearby.
"Fatin, let it go. Come on." I say, grabbing her arm to help her stay above water.
"Come on, fatin! It's not important! Let it go!" I yell at her this time.
She finally let's go of her suitcase and let's me drag her back to low water, where dot leads us to different part of the island for the night.
———————
When the sun started to burn, we all decided we'd go check out our camp to see if anything was left behind.
"She looks tired." I say to Fatin, looking over at shelby.
"She should be. She's been working her ass for the last three days trying to make up for her Westbroro Baptist moment, as if that'll get her uncanceled." She scoffs, glaring at the blonde girl.
Leah laughs from next to me, causing fatin to sit up straight and glare at her,
"Your obsession with Shelby is out of control, I mean, I know you have your theories, maybe she knows something, maybe she's behind this, or whatever, but..." she trails off.
"You gotta ease up." I finish for her, putting my hand on Leah's shoulder.
Leah shakes her head and looks down,
"No, yeah, I know. I've been so stupid. I was actually just thinking, like... if Shelby was behind this... that would mean she volunteered for this nightmare."
"Who the fuck would do that?" I question her, looking over to Shelby again.
"Exactly."
"That's it. Pull up stakes." Dot yells at us 3 from behind us, causing us all to groan and grab our stuff to walk over to the group of girls.
"We're fucking moving." Dot declares, gesturing to our fucked up camp.
"Again?" Marty groans
"Take a real good look around this camp. It's not a refurb job. It is fucking totaled." She replies, causing Rachel to turn around.
"But I thought you said the cave was a bust?"
"No, not the cave. We move to golf cliff beach around the bend. Doesn't seem like the tides bitch, so, you know, maybe this tsunami horeshit won't hit us again." Dot explains to her.
"It's not as windy there either." Nora comments with a smile.
"Yeah, which will come in handy, seeing as we no longer have a fucking fire to keep us warm." Dot says sarcastically, running her hands through her hair.
"Shit. I hadn't thought of that. Who was on fire duty last night?" Toni questions, looking around.
Dot points to fatin, glaring coldly.
"Uh, okay, technically it was my turn, but Shelby practically begged me to sub her in. So, who was I to deprive her of that pleasure?" Fatin replies, throwing her hands up in the air in defense.
"Look, I know that Shelby has been trying so hard to get back in our good graces, but some of you have been a little too quick to take advantage of that." Dot scolded the group, shaking her head.
"Yeah, sorry not sorry." Toni says, shrugging her shoulders.
"Who cares? She's a bigot." I say to dot, but before she could reply, Leah speaks up.
"Okay, so, I'm gonna ask a question, and it may not be helpful."
Dot sighs and smiles sarcastically at Leah.
"Okay, good. Yeah, definitely do that."
"Why did this catch us so off guard? I mean, haven't you been keeping track of the tide?" She questions while looking at Nora, with that look in her eye.
"What are you saying, Nora should've seen this coming?" Rachel stands up, ready to defend her sister.
"No, Rachel. That's not what I'm saying. If you would listen to me at all." Leah huffs, crossing her arms.
"That's exactly what you're saying." Rachel glares, stepping closer to Her.
"Why are we pointing fingers?" Martha asks suddenly.
"This wasn't anybody's fault." She continues, causing Leah to look away, embarrassed.
"It's true. It was bigger than a normal tide. Maybe from a storm or an offset earthquake. It happened so fast, we all acted irrationally, like fatin, who jumped into a rip current to save her toothbrush." Nora chimes in quickly, changing the subject.
"What! It's the only thing keeping me human." Fatin giggles.
"Or Rachel, who left me for fucking dead." She spits out, staring at Rachel, who throws her arms up in defense.
"I went to get the black box because it's our lifeline outta here. Don't come at me for that!"
"Well, I'm your sister!"
"Guys, please!" Marty yells out, finally standing up.
"Okay, we'll, blame game aside, I think it's same to say that we can blame the dead fire on our problematic Jesus frea-" she begins to turn around, but sees Shelby and quickly shuts her mouth.
"Look what washed up." Shelby says with a big smile, throwing a suitcase in the sand.
"Oh, my god. It's my bag!" Martha gasps, grabbing the suitcase and opening it.
"Okay, she finds two new bags? How weird is that?" Leah whispers over to me and fatin.
"Thought we were dialing it back on the cray." Fstin replies back flatly.
"I am. It's just.. it's hard with her..." she trails off, looking away from us.
"Alright... now, who's bag is this?" Shelby asks, holding up a red bag.
None of us move forward to claim it, causing dot to grab it.
"It's safe to say this was jennettes, then."
"Oh god, inventory time?" Fatin groans, causing me to laugh.
"Oh, hell yeah. You know it!" Dot exclaims.
She takes the bag and sits down, zipping it open, but before she could grab anything, Rachel pulls a bottle of vodka from the bag.
"Oh, damn. Didn't expect this from jennette." She says, while laughing.
"Punk fucking rock!" Fatin cheers, reaching for the bottle.
Martha suddenly gasps,
"uno!"
"Okay, Martha. I like uno. We all like uno, but if you throw a party over one more nonessential item in that bag of yours, I swear to god..." dot laughs, continuing to go through jennettes bag.
"Yeah, that two in one shampoo/conditioner was a true low point." Fatin agrees, nose scrunching up in disgust.
"What's wrong with it? It smells like pears!" Martha fires back, looking offended.
"It's a two step process. Shampoo then conditioner." She replies with a sour face.
"Oh, my god, guys, she has a fucking lighter." Dot cheers, holding the lighter up.
"Jennette is a fucking miracle!" I cheer with her, happy that we will be able to stay warm.
"Man, I mean, like, I took her for a straight edge. But it turns out she drinks, she smokes.." Toni trails off, laughing at our new items.
"She brought, like, 20 benzos to a weekend getaway." I giggle, showing the group her plastic bag of pills.
"Jennette was actually living that Amy winehouse life? I'm shook." Fatin laughs, throwing her hands up in the air.
"Rip." I say getting up, walking over to Leah.
"To who? Amy or Jennette?" She questions me.
"Both. Obviously."
"Good find, Shelby. I mean, this is huge." Dot smiles at the southern girl, who just puts her head down.
"Thanks. I just got lucky, really."
"Hey, um, birthday girl, you know, if you're so psyched about getting your..." dot trails off, looking at the slippers in Martha's hands.
"Hedgehogs." She giggles, petting her slippers.
"....Hedgehogs back, then don't think there's somebody you could thank?" She says, nodding her head over towards Shelby.
"Yeah, Shelby, thank you so much." Martha smiles wide, But before Shelby could respond, Leah cuts her off.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Doesn't anyone else find this, like, utterly and completely unbelievable that Shelby just, like, found this bag?"
"Leah." I warn her.
"It's like a dues ex machina." She replies, gesturing to the bag.
"It's like a what?" Shelby asks, confused.
"It is, like, this perfect little thing that somehow had everything we need, and I... I find it really fucking creepy that you found this just like you did before." She rants, moving her hands wildly.
"So, like, what exactly are you saying, then?" I question her, causing her to shake her head and tear up.
"I don't know... I don't know... I think something pretty fucked is going on here and I think somebody knows all about it."
Leah shakes her head again and goes down to search the bag.
"Seriously? Water purification tablets?  There's enough protein bars to last us forever. There's warm clothes. There's more meds. Why the fuck would Jennette bring this shit to a causal retreat in Hawaii?" She screams, before standing up and getting in Shelby's face.
"Who gave you this bag, and what the fuck do you know?"
"Leah, settle down." I yell at her, getting in front of Shelby.
"I...I just want everybody to think about this for, like, two seconds. Think about what Shelby has done. She has found not one but two magical, lifesaving bags. She is persistently optimistic, almost as if she knows that we are not in actual danger. She uses icebreaker after icebreaker to pump us for information like some sort of slumber party spy, and not to mention,, she didn't eat any of the fucking mussels!" She finishes, pointing over my shoulder, glaring at Shelby.
"I said I was allergic." Shelby hissed, glaring back at her.
Leah suddenly looks to dot, and runs over and grabs the lighter.
"Hey, what the hell? Give me the lighter back!" She yells at her, trying to grab the lighter back.
"Tell us who you're working for. Just tell us what you know." She yells once again, staring at Shelby.
"Jesus Christ, Leah!" I yell at her, shaking my head.
"She's not Jason Bourne, okay? I've seen her rap on the morning fucking announcements!" Dot screams at Leah, flailing her arms.
"Leah, what are you doing?" Nora questions quietly, her eyes filling with rage.
"Nora, it's fine, really. If I throw this one out, another ones just gonna pop up. Right, Shelby?" Leah laughs sarcastically still glaring at the poor girl.
"Don't you fucking dare." I spit at her, causing her to laugh out again.
But before she could argue, Nora jumped on her and threw her to the ground, taking the lighter from her hands.
"Leah! Get a grip. Please." Nora pleads, holding her wrists down.
Leah pushes her off and runs towards Shelby again, red in the face with anger.
"Where are you going, Shelby? Where do you sneak off to every morning and every night, and what the fuck is happening on this island?" She screams, grabbing the front of Shelby's shirt.
She moves her hand to grip her jaw,
"you're hiding something, I fucking know it."
Shelby cries before answering,
"Okay, yes, maybe I am!" She pushes Leah away and pulls out her fake teeth, causing her gasp.
"Happy? This is it. The big secret! I'm a freak who wears my teeth on a piece of plastic, and I'm not sneaking off as part of some dirty scheme! All right, I've been cleaning this thing as privately as possible like I've done since I was 11 years old." She pauses, wiping away her tears.
"All right then, guess y'all know everything now. I'm a fake bitch with dentures, just another reason to hate me." She laughs coldly, walking away from the group.
"Good fucking job, Leah."
——————
"It's not exactly the promise land, but it's as good as we're gonna get." Dot says, setting down a bag at our new camp.
"All right. So how do we do this? Should we start a fire, make a plan for shelter?" Rachel questions dot, determined to make a new camp.
"Why are you asking me?" She questions back, shaking her head.
Rachel furrows her brows,
"Cause we always ask you."
"All right. You're an athlete. What's it called when somebody trains so hard that they just sort of, like, flatline?" Dot asks, crossing her arms.
"Burnout?"
"Bingo. I'm done." She says, turning away from her and walking away from the group.
"Wait, are you for real right now? Dot, you're the one that relocated us. Now you're just checking out?" Rachel asks, running towards dot, but She just shakes her head,
"Yeah. Well, I'm nobody's guiding light.... Not even my own." She replies while shrugging, handing Rachel the lighter.
I watch as dot walks down the shoreline, picking a random spot to plop right down, closing her eyes.
"Wait.. you guys, where's Toni and Shelby?" Rachel says suddenly, causing everyone to shrug.
She shakes her head before grabbing the axe and tossing it next to Marty.
"Martha. You should go over there, cut up that driftwood, make a roof for a new shelter."
"Oh, boy." She sighs, pulling her hooded frog towel across her face.
"Here." Rachel says, throwing a bag at fatin and I.
"Wow. I just had the worst deja vu of my gym teacher throwing a pinnie at me for the flag football unit, and I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told her: I'm not playing." She finishes, throwing the bag back to Rachel, who just laughs and throws it straight back to her.
"Yes. You are. You are going to go to the woods and fill that bag with whatever you can find. Thanks." She walks off, not letting anyone else get the last word in.
"Should I go talk to dot?" I whisper to fatin, looking over to the girl I've grown to like so much.
She shakes her head, picking at her fingernails.
"Not yet, she needs time to be alone and be with her thoughts... That's all she needsn. Time."
I smile at her before replying
"You're the fucking best, fatin."
"Oh, and to think! I thought dot would be the one to make you soft." She laughs, pulling me in for a hug.
"Seriously, though, girl. I'm here for you and whatever bullshit that happens." She suddenly becomes serious, smiling wide.
"What.. what's wrong with you people? Quit being such fucking pussies!" Rachel screams, ruining our moment.
"Yeah, I love a bitchy dom, but you're really not reading the room." Fatin states, glaring at Rachel.
"Welcome to Rachel!" Nora laughs sarcastically,
"World class self abuser Turing that abuse on us, expecting us to work as psychotically hard as she does." She finishes, never once breaking eye contact with Rachel, who just laughs and claps her hands.
"I'm not abusing anybody."
It was Nora's turn to laugh,
"Then how do you describe what you're doing now?"
"I'm just dealing out some tough love." Rachel defends, throwing her hands in the air.
Nora laughs even harder and stands up,
"Your favorite. Because it worked so well for you. You should.... You should tell them. Tell them your success story."
"Stop." Rachel spits, clenching her fists.
"Or if you don't wanna do it, I could." She taunts the girl.
"Nora, don't."
Nora turns around quickly, looking at the rest of the group before shouting out
"There is no Stanford. No career. No big Olympic future. Just... a sad liar. Who got cut from the team, who's just pretending to herself and everyone else that it's not over."
"You know what, Nora? Maybe instead of getting twisted over shit in my life, you should try and get one of your fucking own!" She screams back at her, shaking her head.
Nora turns red and clenches her fists, suddenly running toward Rachel and knocking her to the ground.
Rachel gets up and starts to fight nora, while the rest of the group stands back at watches.
"Do you think we should, like, intervene?" I ask fatin, who just shakes her head.
"Not yet. Let's see where things go."
Martha stands up, giggling at fatins comment.
"Agreed."
Rachel finally throws nora to the ground and backs away.
"Do you know what actually kills you? How much you need me." Nora spits out, clutching her stomach.
"Is that what you think?" Rachel laughs.
"I bail you out of hospitals. I hold back your hair when you won't swallow your fucking dinner!" She screams to her, wincing at the pain in her stomach.
"Fuck you, Nora."
"Say it. You need me. You need me!" Nora screams again, throwing sand at Rachel.
"Nora, that's fucking bullshit! Okay? That's just a lie you tell your own damn self cause it gives you some kind of purpose. It gives you an excuse not become your own fucking person!" Rachel screams, wiping the wet sand off her legs.
Nora clenches her fists again, and gets up to try and push her, but Rachel is prepared this time and throws her back down.
"Okay, I really think we should do something." Leah says, biting her finger nails.
"Don't get involved." I say to her, putting my arm around her shoulder.
"You know how we fight, it's to the death." I finish, making her laugh out loud.
"Ouch! That was a knee to the tit, ladies and gentleman, but wait, Rachel's not down and out yet. She retaliates... with a heel to the twat! Fuck!" Fatin laughs, using her toothbrush as a microphone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see dot running towards us with a pissed look on her face.
"Stop it! You're both acting like shitty five year olds." She yells to the fighting girls, but they don't care.
"I'll kill you!" Nora screams to Rachel, trying to grab her leg.
"One fucking job." Dot sighs, looking down to grab the lighter in the sand, but before she can, Rachel knocks Nora into her, causing dot to fall into Fatin, who drops her toothbrush in the sand.
"Oh, what the hell, Dorothy?" Fatin glares at dot, crossing her arms.
"Oh, come on! Like I meant to do that." She fires back, gesturing to Rachel and Nora.
Fatin scoffs,
"Yeah, right. You've all been giving me shit about my toothbrush since the jump. This was obviously a targeted attack" She replies, running around to grab her Sandy toothbrush.
"Oh, fuck off, Fatin. She didn't mean to" I say, walking over to dot, brushing some of the sand off her pants.
"You better hope it still works." She spits, still glaring at dot.
"It's gonna work." Dot replies, watching Fatin turn on the toothbrush.
It works, but the battery starts to slow down.
"It's dying!" She gasps, dramatically rubbing the toothbrush against her face.
"I've never related so much to a toothbrush." Leah morbidly says, staring off into the distance.
"Dot, look what you fucking did!" Fatin yells at her, showing her the dying toothbrush.
"Come on, don't put that on me. It was in its last legs. And guess what, Fatin? If you put in the same amount of work of, I don't know, just moving your fucking arms a goddamn little, you'll still get the same goddamn job done!" She yells back, snatching the toothbrush out of fatins head and begins to brush her teeth.
Fatin gasps, punching dot straight in the nose, knocking her to the floor.
"You fucking cunt!" I scream at fatin, grabbing her hair and pushing her to the sand.
She scratches my face, trying to get out of my grip.
"Don't fucking touch her!" I scream in her face, before slapping her.
She gasps and pushes me back, getting on top of me this time.
But before she could do anything,
"Stop! Stop! Everyone, just fucking stop! This right here, this ain't happening. If we go out, and I'm not so sure that we won't, it's not gonna be at each others throats because there is zero fucking dignity in that." Dot screams at everyone, shaking her head.
"What do you mean, 'go out'?" I ask, lightly pushing Fatin off of me.
"I've been thinking... first few days of this, we were on every paper, every channel, news vans in front of your houses, sticking microphones in front of your moms and your dads and your dogs. A couple more days go by and maybe it's only the local news. A few more days and.... country A invades country B. Elijah woods dies, Sasha Obama rips a bong, and then... we're no longer in the conversation." She pauses, looking down.
"The worlds moved on. And I mean, maybe we've got some diehards out there, people who love you enough to keep making noise and pounding the pavement, but it's been... it's been 15 days. And searches don't last forever, not without leads and not without cash. We are stuck here. The least we could do is not kill each other, cause trust me, this place can take care of that just fine on its own." She finishes, glaring at the group.
We all sit in silence and try to take in the what she was saying.
We're not leaving. This is home.
Fatin nudges dot, and hands her the bottle of vodka.
"Jennette might've been the lucky one. The one who went out quick." She says darkly, before taking a big swig of the vodka.
"Hey, dot... do you think we could talk?" I whisper to her, staring at her bloody nose that she tried to wipe off.
She nods her head and grabs my hand to leads me over to a spot behind some rocks, so we can have privacy for once.
"I'm sorry." I cry, throwing myself into her and wrapping my arms around her neck.
She frowns while hugging me back,
"Just no more fighting. I know you were defending me, and yeah, In the right circumstance it would've been hot as hell, but right now, we have to be civil."
Smiling at her, I nod my head.
"I know we're stuck here and all, but, I'm glad I'm here with you."
She smiles this time, kissing my lips softly,
"Me too dude, me too."
—————
A few hours after the fighting, we decided to sit around the fire that dot had made, me laying in her lap.
Nobody daring to say a word, I look towards Fatin, who is already staring at me.
I give her a sorry smile, looking at the handprint  I left on her cheek.
She returns it, and just like that, we're okay again.
"All right, well, now it's just too fucking quiet." Dot says from above me, playing with a piece of string she tied together.
"Hey, uh, this might be the apocalypse talking, but aren't you gonna suggest some 'never would I rather' shit?" She continues, looking at Shelby, who just shakes her head and looks down.
"God. We're really gonna die out here." Rachel says, staring at the ground, defeated.
We all silently agree, knowing that it's true.
"Does anybody else hear that?" Fatin says, standing up, looking at the sky.
"Hear what?" I ask, not hearing anything.
But suddenly, we all can hear it. It's a plane.
We all stand up and start screaming, flailing our arms, trying to get the planes attention.
"He sees us!" I cry, jumping into dots arms.
She smiles widely and looks out the plane coming towards us.
Looking over to see leah and Fatin hugging, but I notice Shelby staring at the plane with a cold look..
It's like she's upset that we're getting saved.
——————-
"So, you slapped Fatin." Agent young states, making me giggle softly.
"Shit, yeah. She deserved it, but I do feel bad now."
"How did you guys make up? Since you're both from the same town, I would of figured you would stay away from fighting with her."
"I don't know, we kinda just, made up with our eyes? We never really talked about it... I didn't want to fight with her... love makes you do crazy things sometimes."
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Notes// omg! Shit kinda went down... Im planning to write more scenes w dot and Lydia bc obviiii. And!! Lydia's backstory... don't think I forgot ;)