Wendigo Island (ONC2024)

Entry 3: Foreign Fuana

Day 2/ Marie

We set about scouting the island today. Mostly, we collected wood. Wood for fires, wood for shelters, wood for spears, bows, arrows. A special piece of wood so Muarice can make a prosthetic leg for Kalvin. We also collected leaves. Leaves for kindling campfires, smoke producing leaves for the signal fire (a giant burnable S.O.S. built just behind the high tide line), leaves to catch rainwater, leaves for shelters, and we were supposed to find leaves for medicine and for eating. This is where things get a little strange.

Blain, the twig of an active-duty Army Ranger who is responsible for most of our stick and leaf related adventures, has yet to recognize any of the plants aside from poison oak. You could say that maybe he doesn't know the specifics, but I can't recognize any either. Although being a marine biologist does not mean I should recognize land fuana, I normally would.

No, Blain clearly knows what he's doing. Between him and Muarice, we should be home and healthy in no time. It's just that strangeness seems to be popping up everywhere we turn.

While we were out looking for fruits, vegetables, and leaves to eat, I thought I saw a sort of cucumber or eggplant. When I went to pick the green-blue fruit, the plant retracted though. Not the fruit, but the whole plant. Stem and leaves joined the roots underground, and the plant took off, burrowing through the jungle like a groundhog.

I waved at Blain but quickly told him 'nevermind'. There's no way I saw what I think I did, and he wouldn't believe me if I didn't believe myself. About an hour later, though, we both saw something like a rabbit staring at us from the middle of the trail, unafraid and curious. I say 'something like' a rabbit because this rabbit was bald from the chest up. It had a furry bottom, but the top half was painted bright red and purple, like the colors of a poisonous frog. Even its ears had an amphibious texture. It did that cute thing where rabbits scrunch up one side of their nose, which is also their mouth and partly their cheek. Except... it wasn't very cute without fur. It's as if we watched its face split in half to show its teeth before hacking up a blue lugie that burned away at the ground. Then it hopped away.

The last thing of note was something Blain found. A fruit on a tree marked with a large red X. Blain was frozen in place and staring at the tree when he beckoned me to come over. He was standing there holding what looked like an apple. I immediately slapped his arm and sent the apple rolling over the roots.

"I wasn't going to eat it!" He said defensively. I rolled his arm so that his palm was facing up towards us. In the center of his palm and around the tips of his fingers were bright red, throbbing lesions.

"Natives on islands with Manchineel trees mark them with X's."

He did have a look of something dawning on him, but the nerd in me doubted he knew what I was talking about, "smoke from the burning wood alone will cause temporary blindness-"

"Marie! You're brilliant, it's so obvious!"

"Well, I don't think many people would say knowledge of the Death Apple tree is obvious, but I'll take the compliment."

"Natives, Marie! Natives! Someone had to draw the X!"

It was obvious. I guess the dehydration was dulling our thought process, but still... people! I can't believe it. If we make it far enough inland, we might as well be saved.

If our situation was any different, I would be geeking out about how much of a scientific marvel this island is, but our lives are at stake. Poisonous creatures and plantlife are not going to help us survive, but other people will at least know how to survive, if not help us do so.

When we do make it off of this island, though, I'm coming back with a team. Maybe I can do my brother justice if I make this trek worthwhile.