random castaway story

Untitled Part 1

Kyda had never been on a boat and he hadn't planned to. He hated the ocean ever since he was little, but now here he was, in the middle of the ocean, only a small island in the distance and about to be shipped off to be a slave. The ragged boy sighed to himself, how had he been so careless? A thief who had been caught, what a joke! Oh, how his sister would have laughed. Suddenly Kyda unleashed a blood-curdling scream, banging his hands against the cool, iron bars of the cage.

"Shut up," it came from the cage next door but was barely heard over the racket.

A bulky guard rounded the corner and strode up to the young thief. The shark of a man reached his hand between the bars and grabbed Kyda's black hair; hair so black against skin so white looked unusual but his eyes, fox-like and blue, almost sickeningly blue made him seem like someone of noble blood. The guard's pointy teeth spread into a grin as he pulled harshly on the boy's hair and seemed to get bigger once he let out a cry of pain but quickly disappeared as the guard, Sean his name was, put his hardened face up close to Kydas. He gagged at the fowl smell of the older man's breath, it smelled of the rotting onions in the pig pen back home. Kyda broke the silence with a sentence that he knew would only annoy the man more, which is exactly what he wanted.

'' So you gonna kiss me or what?'' It was quickly followed by a smirk as the man growled in disgust.

''You'll regret that you filthy mutt!'' The guard bashed the young thiefs head against the side of the cage at an alarming speed. Blood gushed from his mouth as he revealed a toothy grin and collapsed on the floor. Sean unlocked the door of the cage and dragged his limp body up onto the deck for the waiting crowd to see.

The prickly rope snaked around his bruised, bony limbs and was pulled tight in a knot. He was propped up on his feet and opened his eyes to see the beautiful ocean. The barbarians all crowded together to the what would be the most exciting thing that would happen all day and urged him closer to the edge of the ship. Kyda whirled around so that he was facing the crew. His scarred hands fumbled with what was left of his torn clothing, his hands brushed over a sharp edge and grasped it firmly. The boy sliced at the ropes binding him together and leaped off the boat into the deep, unforgiving ocean below.

The first thing the scrawny boy felt when he regained consciousness was the blazing heat against the bare skin. Kyda pushed himself up onto his feet and scanned the horizon with his piercing blue eyes and sighed. Nothing, no land apart from the ground beneath him. He ran his hand through the tangled mop of hair on his head and came to the conclusion that he must have caught the current when he jumped off the boat and washed up on this island.

The newly stranded boy decided to go for a walk around the island to get acquainted with the island that might just be his home for the rest of his life and that was only if he managed to survive. Kyda walked along the lush green edges of the forest that surrounded the island to keep in the shade, he didn't want any worse of a sun burn than the one that he already had. After an hour of walking the boy came to a stop, he peered over the rocky cliffs down into the freshwater stream that ran below. "Water! " the boy cried, he had somehow managed to find something that seemed like a luxury as he was sure that he had spent the previous day lying on the beach. Now the only problem was that he couldn't reach down the cliff to get it. Suddenly Kyda remembered the flax and vines that he saw about five minutes back and practically flew towards them.

Vines littered the floor of the jungle which was exactly what he wanted as they would be easy to get to. Kyda gathered the vines and tied them together. Once he had accomplished the first task he realized that he would need something to carry the water in. Old coconuts that were all rotted and hollow inside littered the cliff edges and would be perfect for holding as they weren't broken in half or cracked. The 13-year-old boy grasped the knife from the slave ship in his hands and drove in into the top of the coconut and poured its rotten contents into a hole that he had dug in the sand and rinsed it in the sea. Kyda tied one end of the rope to a nearby sturdy looking tree and put all of his weight on it. The vines supported his weight just fine, he let out a sigh of relief and tied six of the empty coconuts to the rags that he called clothes and took a step off the cliff.