Before The Beginning

Chapter 25: New Arrival

Begin!

~Beatrice's POV

The following morning after that nasty storm was a rough one. We had a lot of clutter on the beach and had to clean it all up. Naturally, we worked as a team and tried to keep everyone busy. Many of the things we find after storms can be fixed up for use in the facility, so it was always a good idea to find as much as we could. For the first hour everything seemed normal until-

"Hey I found a man over here!"

I quickly dropped what I was holding and rushed over to Bertrand standing over an unconscious body. We rarely got castaways; well aside from us I guess... There were some broken pieces of wood near him indicating that he was previously on a small boat. He didn't look so good either. He was an older man, probably the same age as my parents would have been by now, had they lived. He was very sunburnt too; it must have come from having no proper shade on his vessel for days on end. He had long hair and a beard that were still brown in some parts but mostly they were turning grey from age. Bertrand asked one of our associates to help him carry the stranger to our doctors' tent. A man his age lost at sea was sure to need proper medical care.

Once a stretcher was brought over to help carry him I noticed the last and most important detail about this stranger: he had a tattoo of an eye on his ankle. However, we knew that it actually wasn't an eye, it was a symbol. A tattoo that everyone on this island shared. We were given them as children, a questionable practice that we've strayed from since, and every one meant the same thing.

He was a volunteer.

~...

"Any idea when he'll be up," I asked.

"He should make a full recovery." One of our doctors replied. "The storm was pretty harsh though, I'm surprised he made it."

I sighed, "That's good to hear. Do you recognize him at all? Or have you found an indication of his identity?"

"The only familiar thing about him is his tattoo. Any other identification was surely lost at sea cause he had nothing in his pockets."

Perhaps he was on a mission that went wrong, I thought. Oh well, we have other things to attend to. I'll try to talk to him once he's awake.

And so the wait began.

For about two weeks, I would step in and out of the tent to check on our new arrival. I was curious what his story was. Perhaps he had news from the organization that would be helpful to us. We had sent our mission accomplished message to the Duchess already, but hadn't received a reply yet. Unfortunately, he remained out cold. Bertie even started to wonder if he'd wake up at all, but our doctors were sure that his injuries weren't that severe.

One day, I was sitting on a cot writing in my commonplace book again when it happened.

"Who are you," He asked hoarsely. I assumed that he hadn't talked to anyone in so long that his voice was giving out.

I smiled, "Oh good! You're awake, we were starting to wonder about you. I'm Beatrice."

He tried to sit up on his cot and studied me curiously. "My name is Ishmael."

"Your mother must have been a Herman Melville fan," I said. "But if that's your name, then it's your name."

He grunted in response but remained expressionless. He glanced at my growing stomach. "I see you've got a bun in the oven."

"Yes I do," I replied happily. Since I already knew everyone on the island by name, I wasn't used to new people pointing this out, but it didn't bother me.