Lost and Found

Chapter 5

 We returned to the villa around five, meaning there was plenty of time left until dinner. While Nate went off to god knows where, I headed to Kairo's room. My curiosity was gnawing away at me, and I wanted to know more about the island.

I knocked on his door and he opened it, looking like he had just woken up.

"Hey. Can we talk?"

"Sure," he opened the door a bit wider. "Come in."

I took in his room as he walked over to a wardrobe pushed against a white wall. Beside that, in the corner was his bed, the right side pushed up against the back wall. There was a window on the other half of the back wall not occupied by the bed, and in front of it a desk. Surprisingly, a bookshelf took up the left side, just before the closet. His room was bare and clean and definitely not as intimidating as him.

"Take a seat," he pointed to the bed, pulling up his desk chair. Once I sat down he asked me what I needed.

"I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the island. How did people start landing here and surviving? How long have you guys been doing this? How did you guys industrialize? Is it possible to leave the island?" As the words poured out of my mouth, I couldn't stop them.

Kairo showed no expression as his eyes pierced mine, though I thought I saw a bit of amusement in them. "It'll take awhile, are you sure you're up for the history lesson?"

"Definitely."

He stood up and walked towards the bookshelf. He grabbed three books that were next to each other on the top shelf. I moved to the edge of the bed beside the desk as he opened the first book on his lap facing me.

"No one knows where exactly the islands came from to start. It's been assumed that people would land here since god knows when, but didn't have the skill to survive on this island. Also, depending on where the plane crashed, some would drown or freeze when trying to swim towards the islands. Seeing as cities have been around for a while, or at least large groups of congregated people, it would make sense that people wouldn't know how to survive alone in the wild.

"One thing though, is that pirates would know. Everyone knows pirates are real, just not as exaggerated as tv makes them out to be. That's who we're 'descended' from. Around the end of the 1700s is when the pirates were figuring out how to survive. They got stranded here, but unlike those before them, their food and water managed to survive with them.

"Not only were they better equipped, they also had the fighting skills. They had to face animals indigenous to the islands, animals they'd never seen before. It wasn't easy, but as many people were dying, that many people would arrive at the island a few months later, though that's not saying much. Their numbers were consistent at least."

"If the Bermuda Triangle has been around for so long, why didn't they avoid it in the first place, the way planes do nowadays? Pirates had their own sense and ways of navigation," I questioned.

"As familiar as they were with the waters, it didn't help that other people were travelling from country to country. They had to avoid the Propers, the people immigrating from Europe to North America, and captains of ships. It wasn't easy, especially if the pirates did anything that could accuse them of being labeled as savages. They had to travel as close to the triangle as possible to avoid being seen or captured, particularly if they were "wanted".

"And so they learned to survive. You can relate it to Neverland if you would like, although with less trees. That's something we're grateful for, is how little we had to alter the land to make Ugaria what it is today. Once the pirates determined that this island was the safest, they chose to remain here, mainly due to the fact that they didn't have the means to leave. There wasn't enough wreckage material to build anything massive, yet they still tried. As more people came, mainly Spanish due to the location being between their colonies, they helped them get settled, teaching them what was and wasn't poisonous, where to get water, how to build a life for themselves.