Epiphany *The wilds*

Day Twenty-Two

TW: Abuse/suicide

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"We spent days waiting for something that would never happen. We let ourselves get our hopes up, thinking we'd finally get off this fucking island. I felt stupid. Stupid for thinking that we would be saved."
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It's been six days since the plane flew over, and two days since we've had any food.
No one's cried for a while. No one even seems that afraid anymore. Not because we're strong or brave. Because, when you're this staving, you can't feel anything else.
Hunger is a force of nature, and it's taking out the best of us.
"I let us eat all of the food. Such a fucking idiot." Dot mutters, lifting her head from my lap.
But for whatever fucked up reason, it's been healing for some.
"Hey. Don't talk about my friend like that, all right? You keep being nasty to her, and I'll have to take you." Shelby teases, lighting pushing her shoulders, before taking her fake teeth out and smiling widely,
"Bar fight, 2015. You should have seen the other guy." She jokes, causing dot to crack a small smile.
"Maybe he's in on it." Leah declares suddenly, causing the group to look at her weird.
"Who?" I question her, furrowing my brows.
"That fucking pilot. What kind of a person sees an island full of lost girls and doesn't send help?" She replies, voice breaking
I sigh at my broken down sister,
"Leah, what would he be in on?"
"I don't know." She shakes her head, pulling her knees to her chest.
I decide to get up and comfort her, something I should be doing more of.
"Take it easy, all right? We're gonna be okay, Leah. I promise, I won't let anything bad happen to you." I whisper into her ear, pulling her into my arms.
She silently sobs, trying to be as quiet as possible so the group doesn't notice.
Suddenly Martha sits down next to us.
"There's no way that he didn't call it in. People love to help out, you know? It's probably just taking a minute." She smiles at Leah, putting her hand on her shoulder.
I wish I could see the world how she does, I think we all do.
For someone like Martha, dangers would always come from the outside. For Leah, it's different. With her, the threats come from within. But for me, it always seems like the the dangers come from everywhere. I can't ever run away from it.
**flashback**
"Lydia, I—I didn't mean-" Noah stutters, before grabbing a bottle and chucking it at all the wall.
"Fuck!" He screams, pacing around the living room.
"Can you just leave?" I plead, holding onto my now bruised cheek.
He laughs sarcastically, turning towards me to smile wickedly.
"Fuck you, Lydia. If you would of just kept your fucking mouth shut, none of this would of happened." He spits out, while grabbing his keys and heading towards the door, but he turns around when he goes past me,  gripping my arm tightly.
"Don't try to make this my fault, baby. Who would believe a fucking alcoholic?" He sneers, nodding his head towards the multiple bottles on the table.
He shakes his head once again, letting go of my arm and finally walking out the door, not before screaming one last 'fuck you.'
"What did I do to deserve this?" I sob, looking around at the glass scattered around the room.
I pick myself up, not bothering to pick up any of the glass, and walk towards the bathroom.
Looking in the mirror, I notice my bruise on my face is getting darker, and the few hand prints across my body, getting redder.
Crying even harder, I open the medicine cabinet, grabbing the first bottle I see and ripping the cap off.
I stare at myself again, wondering if anyone would give a shit if I was gone.
This has been going on for months, and nobody seems to notice.
'Liar'
'Stop being dramatic'
'You're so fucking stupid!'
"Stop exaggerating, it didn't hurt that bad.'
Noah's words flooded my mind.
I pour the pills into my hand and throw the bottle on the ground, bringing the handful up to my mouth, praying that it's not Leah who finds me.
**flashback over**
Shaking my head, I notice that Martha is gone, leaving me alone with Leah, who is ripping her eyebrows out from stress.
"The over- tweezed brown is a tough look." I laugh to her, causing her to stop and look up at me, but not respond.
"You're going dark on me again, Leah." I sigh, reaching my hand out to grab hers.
"This is the worst it's been." She replies, looking at me with sadness in her eyes.
"What is?" I question.
"That feeling in the pit of my stomach.... It's like that feeling that.... Itchy fucking feeling that this place is, like, touched." She whispers out, looking around to make sure no one hears her.
"I know I... hang onto things, but Lydia, if I can't let go of something, it usually means that I shouldn't. You know that!" She exclaims, going back to ripping her eyebrows out.
I lift my hand up to grab her arm, pulling it into her lap so she doesn't do it anymore.
"Do you remember when I was seven and you were eight... we had that suicidal goldfish and we had to put mesh over the top of its bowl so it wouldn't jump out?" She asks me suddenly, making me giggle and nod my head.
"And then that one day we went to grandmas house all the way in Marin. And on the way there, I became obsessed that we had forgotten the mesh. And that dread was, like... insane. It's all I talked about— the mesh, the fish, I started crying so much that you started to cry, that mom and dad finally took us home." She rambles on, causing me to look down, remembering the moment.
"The fish was fine. But... there was a gas leak in the basement, where Coco slept. Dad found her unconscious." I state sadly, making Leah look over to me.
"It's like there's... there's just a reason that I let my mind run away with me sometimes because it's usually about..." she cuts herself off by putting her heads in her hands.
"There's something important! And I'm feeling that right now." She cries out, rocking back and forth.
"I hear you. Though I'm not 100% certain that you should let a coincidence validate everything bad chill you get." I whisper to her, causing her to glare at me and turn red.
"Really? I'm on rock fucking bottom and you fucking dismiss me?" She yells, clenching her fists.
"Leah, no, that's not what I meant-" I start, but she cuts me off.
"How about the time you tried to fucking kill yourself while mom and dad were at my art show? I'm the one who thought I left my straightener on! You know what, Lydia, fuck off!" She screams at me, getting up to walk away.
I sigh and look over to see dot staring at me, obviously hearing the whole thing.
"You okay?" She asks as me, setting the wood down so she can hug me.
I just shake my head, letting my self cry for the first time in dots arms.
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I decide to take a walk with Shelby and Toni to try and find any food.
"Guys, I don't see any berries yet." I declare, looking at the bush with nothing left on it.
"Damn. Yeah, looks like we cashed em." Toni mutters, looking at the bush.
"Hey, y'all. This is a find." Shelby says, picking up a foreign object.
"What the hell is that?" Toni questions.
"It looks like milk duds." I comment, laughing.
"Don't eat em, it's scat. You know, manure." She laughs, putting it back down and walking back on the trail.
Toni and I give each other a gross look, confused on why she picked it up.
"It's what we call it in the hunting community." Shelby says, looking back at our expressions.
"What hunting community?" I question her.
"Just, like, the general one."
"And you're a part of that community?" I ask, feeling a little shocked.
"Yeah, a little.." she trails off, looking away.
Toni notices my shocked expression and decides to chime in,
"Hey, can we talk about what this means? I mean, are we about to get mauled by whatever dropped these fucking milk duds?"
"It's not a carnivore. They're too round and dry. I'm guessing some small four legged guy." Shelby replies, taking out her knife to sharpen her stick.
"What are you doing?" I ask her, looking at the sharp stick.
"Just getting ready in case we cross paths with it. Goat, deer, or whatever it is. If it gets away, that's a weeks worth of food we're letting run off" She says back, not stopping her sharpening.
"I thought we were foraging. When did animal murder get out on the table?" I fume, glaring at the blonde girl.
"Lydia.. I'm sorry. I know you're sensitive, but it's not really murder. At this point it's more like self defense." She states, looking me in the eyes in this time.
"Sensitive? And self defense from a goat?" I yell at her, causing Toni to put a hand on my shoulder.
"She means from fucking starvation. She's right..."
I glare at Toni now, shrugging her hand off my shoulder.
"I don't want any part of this." I spit out, walking away from the two girls.
On my journey back, I begin to think of all the horrible things that happened in my life that lead me to this moment right here.
The Happy memories, the sad memories, the fucking gut wrenching memories.
I look in front of me and notice the goat eating some grass and I gasp and walk towards it
"Hey... you're not scared of me, are you? Well, you're right. I'm not gonna hurt you. But they will if you don't get out of here. So go. Go! Go on!" I shout to him, looking over my shoulder to make sure they're not behind me.
But the goat just stares at me, not moving from his spot.
"You can't be serious." I sigh, before sitting down on the ground next to him.
I hear rustling from behind me and stand up quickly.
"Lydia! You found it!" Shelby laughs, looking at the goat.
I widen my eyes, and slap the goats back.
"Run!" I yell at him, glaring over at the girls.
"What the hell, Lydia?" Toni exclaims, running after the goat, Shelby not far behind her.
I sigh, realizing my mistake.
"Fuck." I whisper, deciding it's time to go back to camp.
After a few minutes of walking, I hear the goat bleat. Gasping, I slowly walk over to him, confused on how he got away from the girls.
I take a deep breath and look down, noticing a large rock next to him.
I bite my lip and grab it, raising it high above my head, closing my eyes before killing the poor animal in front of me.
Once I'm done, I have no energy to go back to the group, so I back up and try to get comfortable on the hard ground.
Closing my eyes, I try to picture how life will be when we get off this island, but I can't help but have the feeling that we won't...
When I finally wake up, I make my way back to camp, not realizing that I'm still covered in blood.
When I turn the corner and see the girls, I run over to them and fall into the sand.
"Holy shit, Lydia!" Dot screams, grabbing my hand and pulling me onto her.
"I....I can't... i can't carry it." I whisper to her, causing her to furrow her eyebrows.
"What?"
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I lead the girls to the goat, the sight making me sick to my stomach.
"MVP Lydia... M V fucking P!" Rachel shouts, feeling incredibly proud of her new friend.
"For real. This must be what cavewomen felt like when their men came home with meat.. Dorothy, is your Dick hard? Because, mine is. Like, I am legit hot for you right now." Fatin giggles, causing dot to step in front of me and glare at her.
"Well, how about you keep that in your pants and help me with this." Rachel laughs, bending down to get a grip on the goat.
The girls grunt and struggle to grab it, but eventually find a good grip to carry it back to camp.
As they walk away, dot turns around,
"Are you sure you're holding up okay?"
I just shake my head and smile softly at her.
"Okay.. I'm here for you. Please don't feel like you have to do things that you don't want to, because I will." She whispers to me, grabbing my hands and pulling me close.
"Dot..." I mumble, staring up at her.
"Hmm?" She hums, pulling back a bit to look at me.
"You're fucking amazing."
She smiles and kisses my cheek,
"Let's go get you cleaned up, you have goat guts on you." She jokes, trying to change the subject.
"Dottie..." I say, softly grabbing her face with my hands,
"You're amazing. I don't deserve you."
She blushes and looks down for a few seconds, before leaning closer and passionately kissing me.
She opens her mouth to talk, but I cut her off,
"Accept my compliment, dick!"
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"How did it feel? Did you feel empowered, strong?" Agent young questions me with a small frown.
"I felt... numb." I start, looking down to avoid eye contact.
"But, I was happy that I could provide for the girls. We were fucking starving, if I didn't do what I did, maybe we wouldn't be here right now."
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Notes//one more episode for season 1 then im moving to season 2!!!
Sorry this one isn't as long as normal, I'm going off the episodes obvi and there wasn't much going on bc of backstory's yk yk