I woke up in the morning, the sunlight seeping through the little spaces in between the vines and leaves. Someone's arm was protectively around me so I turned around and saw Zayn, sound asleep. I carefully removed his arm from my waist and moved a fair distance away, careful not to wake him. The disturbance caused Zayn to turn around, sighing. I sat up and stretched my arms. I smelled something cooking. I couldn't really identify what it was so I crawled out of the tent and saw Harry cooking something that was sewered onto a stick over a fire. I sat on one of the 'sitting rocks', as we called it. These sitting rocks were around where the fire was and behind that would be our tents circling around the rocks and the fire.
"Morning." Harry said. He didn't make eye contact with me, he was concentrating on the fish he was cooking. I saw fish piled up next to him.
"Good morning." I mumbled.
"It's not a good morning, is it?" He chucked to himself. "It's just a morning and it will never be a good morning." I stayed silent. He was right. "What? No motivational speech this time?"
"Honestly, I give up too." I said, fiddling with my fingers.
He sighs, "I went fishing earlier this morning. I never thought I'd actually use fishing in my life until now." I kept quiet. I was still mad at him. He looked at me for the first time since I sat down, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said last night. I was just..." He paused.
"Frustrated?" I finished for him. He nodded and I spoke again, "It's alright, I guess. I didn't mean half the things I said."
"Like how you hate me?" He asked.
"No I meant that." I teased.
He smirked at me, "Bitch."
I couldn't help but smile, too. I looked down at my lap. "Asshole."
Everyone soon woke up. We devoured the breakfast that was prepared for us like animals. Macie didn't like fish, but she was stuffing it in her mouth while her father warned her and told her to slow down. We were all careful not to swallow bones; we didn't have the luxury of boneless fish.
Jayde pulled a thin bone from her mouth and examined it. "Save the fish bones." She said in her thin accent, "They may come to use."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and swallowed the meat. I stayed silent, Jayde knew better.
"What are we doing today?" Melody asked once she finished her meal.
"Look for supplies? I mean, something should've washed up on shore." Harry replied to her. "We can break up into groups."
We all agreed and later on made our three groups. It was Melody, Stan and Macie, Jayde, my father, and Adrianna and Chris, and then Zayn, Harry and I. We all separated and went different ways with our groups.
Zayn, Harry and I walked for around for what seemed like an hour. Our legs were getting sore so we sat down in the shade of one of the many palm trees.
"What if there's nothing?" I ask. "What if we get lost?" No one answers me and we sit in silence, resting. Then, I smell something. It was food. Food. Where could that have come from? We were pretty far from our site and there was no one. There couldn't have been. "Do you smell that?" I ask.
"Yeah..." Zayn replies standing up, "Where is that coming from?"
"There." Harry points to something in the distance while the both of us stand up. I see smoke rising from something on the ground and a shelter made out of a ripped up pale blue blanket and sticks.
"More people." I sigh. I was surprised this many people had survived. We started to approach the shelter. I was leading everyone and Zayn was all the day in the back.
Our bare feet stepped on the hot sand as we went closer. It was empty and quiet, but the fire was running with some kind of meat cooking over it. I went closer to the shelter as the two boys went to where the fire was.
I took soft steps as I moved slowly and cautiously. The blanket covered the front but there was a slight triangle shaped opening, like a tent. My hand went to try to open the front but the cloth was ripped from my hand and a boy came out with a knife, swinging it. He slashed me down my forearm and I cried out in pain as I feel on my side onto the soft sand. I held onto my bleeding arm.
"Who are you?" The boy yelled. I looked up at him, still squinting in pain. His brown hair was messily on his face, he had a stubble and his clothes were ripped up like everyone else's.
"I'm Lacey. And that's Harry and Zayn." I sat up and looked at my arm. It wasn't deep but it stung. The cut stretched from the bottom of my wrist to my elbow. I removed my hand and saw it was covered in bright red blood.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" Zayn said, kneeling down beside me.
I sighed, "I'll live."
"I'm so sorry," The man said, kneeling down on my other side, "I thought that you were going to hurt us."
"Us?" Harry asked. Louis looked down, upset. He walked over to the tent and opened it for us to see two more men. One lying down on a soft pillow made from leaves piled on top of each other. He looked weak and sick. The other one was a blonde man, dressed in a white, stained, ripped up t-shirt and soaked jeans. He had a worried expression on his face.
He looked over to us, his expression the same. "Louis, who are they?"
"They're stuck here like us." Louis replied. The sick boy laying down raised his head up a bit so he could see us at a better angle. He gave us a weak smile and dropped his head back on his pillow.
The blonde looked at us then turned back to his friend laying down. Louis leaned close to us, "That's Niall and Liam. Liam got really sick all of a sudden and we're doing the best we can to get him better." He said softly.
"Maybe you can come back with us," Zayn suggested, "Then we can help." Louis looked at Niall for approval. He slowly nodded at Louis.
"Okay." Louis replied.
++++++++++++++
We led Louis and Niall to the site. Harry and Zayn carried Liam and I was assuming he was heavy because all I heard was them both grunting every few seconds.
Once we got there, we saw that Melody, Stan, and Macie were already there. They stood up when they saw the new people. "Who are they?" Melody asked.
"We found them down the beach." I reply. We set Liam down and fed him our spare food.
"What's wrong?" Stan asked.
"He's sick and we have to try to take care of him." Zayn replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Everyone looked at Liam. We didn't know what to do, what to day. Usually in this situation we would bring him to a hospital but there wasn't a hospital.
"Lacey!" Harry said all of a sudden. I slightly jumped, startled then looked back at him.
"Aren't you studying to be a doctor?"
I nodded, "Yeah, but I never actually worked on a patient."
"Here's your patient." He motioned towards Liam.
I opened my mouth to object but I saw the looks on Niall and Louis' face. They wanted to know what was wrong. I sighed, "It's worth a try." I moved closer to Liam and studied his features. He was sweating and his breathing was slow and heavy. He looked helpless. I put my ear to his chest, his heart beat was fine. We couldn't turn him around so I put my ear against his ribs.
"Breathe in and out." I ordered. He followed the directions as I listened. There was something wrong. It was a lung disease, I knew it; and left untreated he could die.
I sat up and thought through my whole education and trying to match the symptoms with the sickness. Sweating, heavy breathing, fever. It was familiar. And then it hit me.
Tuberculosis. And then something else caught my attention.
Liam was going to die.
