Separated

Chapter IX

SKYLAR

Music: Heavy Blow from Gradius ReBirth

I wake up, feeling rather comfortable in my bed. As I get myself into a seated position, I yawn, stretch my arms out, and rub any remaining sleep out of my eyes. I get out of bed and stretch my body out, ready for the day.

This sounds perfectly normal to most people. Add in the fact that the bed is in an abandoned hut on a deserted island, and, well, it becomes less normal.

Mackenzie is sitting right outside the door, and Sam, Heath, and Avery are nowhere to be found. I walk outside, take a seat by Mackenzie, and tell her, "Good morning."

"Mornin'," she replies cheerfully.

"How long have the others been out?" We have kind of established a system at this point where every morning, Sam, Heath, and Avery go out and search for any food we can use to get us through each day. Apparently, rocks are very useful in taking out animals, and Avery is somehow good at fishing. Plus, there's various fruits scattered all throughout the jungle.

If that sounds like much, it really isn't. Sure, there's more resources than we thought there'd be, but it's still rather scarce. I'd say we can live in this area of the island for about a week before we run out of food, at which point we'll have to consider relocating on the island and starting over from scratch.

"I don't know. Today they were out before I was even awake, so I'd have no way of knowing," Mackenzie replies.

Some indeterminable amount of time later, I hear scuffling and what sounds like a heated argument between the two guys. Avery walks through the trees first with an armful of fish, and Sam and Heath follow her.

"I'm just saying, you could've been a bit more quiet this morning. Some of us here still care about trying to get a good night's rest," Heath says.

"Excuse me, but I don't think you're in any position to tell me what to do," Sam replies, sighing.

"What is it this time?" I ask.

"Sam accidentally woke Heath up with his constant babbling," Avery answers.

"I see your mistake," I say, now talking to Sam.

"Yeah, apparently Heath's sleep time is 'sacred and not to be messed with'," Sam growls, glaring at Heath.

"I have half a mind to beat your ass right about now," Heath grumbles softly.

"Enough, guys. No one's going near anybody's ass," Mackenzie says assertively.

"Damn," I hear Sam whisper. I choose not to comment.

I take a fish from Avery and start chewing on it. As always, raw fish is not exactly my idea of an enjoyable meal, but we have to take what we can get. Everybody else understands this, and so none of us have complained about how crappy our meals are.

"Y'know, this fish isn't half bad," Sam comments while munching on his meal. He turns to Avery and gives her a thumbs-up. "You made some good catches today, Avery."

Avery stylishly curtseys in response.

Over the past three days, we've either been exploring the island and finding a whole bunch of nothing, or finding various ways to entertain each other (which isn't as hard as you think. There's actually a lot for us to do by just simply talking about random shit). Today, however, there's nothing interesting on anybody's mind, and nobody's really down to venture through the jungle again. I spend time filing my nails with a stake I found one day while exploring, Mackenzie starts restyling Avery's hair to the best of her ability, and the guys choose to play hangman in the sand.