LAST MAN STANDING

“What is … ok … if your life were a movie, what would be its tagline?”

This one I had to think about. When I spoke, I surprised myself: “You think you know someone, but people have ways of surprising you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nuh-uh. My turn. And since you spoke out of turn, I get to ask two questions.” That was our personal take on the game.

“Nadine … nooo. I’m sorry, your answers are always just so vague.”

“They make you think and that is what you don’t like.”

She pulled a face and I laughed at her immaturity, our game momentarily forgotten. I had met Cianna in sophomore year at university. Our friendship had blossomed out of mutual hatred for the dorms for 1^st and 2^nd years. We had since shifted to a shared apartment and become the best of friends. But after an year of being away from each other, she had accepted my invitation of an adventurous expedition with open arms.

“Mind it, current’s shifting.”

I cursed under my breath and steered my side of the kayak away from the jagged rocks. We talked as the slow water propelled our boat forward with ease, encouraging me to lower the paddles and rest my tired arms.

“Nadine, no! Don’t do that. Please, we never know when the waters pick up pace,” she said, looking around her nervously.

“Relax. I have been on these waters before. This is about as fast as they go,” I laughed, letting my hand trail alongside our boat. The water was cold to touch, but not uncomfortably icy.

“Look at that,” I said, pointing out a small island sprouting out the middle of nowhere. It looked to be about the size of a local football ground, with irregularly shaped trees growing densely on it. “You think someone lives there?

“Wouldn’t want to know,” Cianna answered, her face scrunching up as she looked at where I was pointing. There weren’t many qualities about her to defame, but her reluctance to try anything new was annoying. I constantly wondered what drove her to accept my invitation.

“Ok. Fine. Forget I asked.”

“Look, Nadine, you know I haven’t been in a good place lately. With everything going on with my parents’ divorce … it isn’t easy being transported from one place to another every week just so you can see both of – ”

Her loud scream cut me off. Startled, I almost fell off the boat before I realized it was slowly deflating. I quickly got into action, paddling hard as Cianna groaned in pain. She'd scraped her shoulder hard against the sharp boulders. “Cian … no, no. Oh god. Cian, no, please stay with me. God I need help here, Cian!”

I tried to ignore her painful moans as I steered the deflated boat, letting the current carry it towards the small island I’d spotted earlier. With the water rising at an unbelievable pace in the boat, jumping out and swimming my way over to island seemed like the only logical solution. But Cianna’s blood was coloring the water frighteningly quickly and not knowing where she was bleeding from just added to my frustration. I swam around the boat to her side, tucking my arms under and over her shoulders to bear her weight. When I dragged her from the boat, she screamed out, trashing about in pain.

“Cianna STOP THAT. You will pull us both down. I can’t carry the weight as it is.” Ensuring she was loaded safely on my back, I compelled my tired arms to move us forward. With each stroke, I could feel the lethargy kicking in. I closed my eyes and willed my body to move ahead with the current, dragging a bleeding body behind me.

When my fingers grazed soil, I let out an audible sigh, sucking salty water into my mouth. Chocking on it, I suddenly wished I was in those swimming classes that I’d been so lazy to attend with the onset of junior year. Cianna lay still beside me, the sand under her reddening dangerously. Her cut! With everything that had happened, I had forgotten about the blow she’d suffered. 

Getting to work, I rolled her onto her back, summoning everything I’d learnt in ‘Survival Camp’, a club I’d joined for credits in high-school. My body still hadn’t recovered from the plunge into the cold water, so demanding anything more than a rest was proving to be laborious. I let my hand roam over her back searching for the source of blood. When I saw it, nausea hit my already drained body hard. I recoiled, taking a moment to get accustomed to the grisly open-wound on her shoulder blade.

Cianna was underweight, so with a gash like that, I feared the condition of her bones. With nothing to stop the bleeding, I tore off my dripping shirt and knotted it just above the gash, careful not to let the dirty fabric touch the wound. Working as gently as I could, I lifted her arm above her head, pulling down leaves to hold it above her heart. That paired with some pressure would control the bleeding, but with an unconscious friend and not enough food, the situation seemed far more precarious than it appeared.

I scrounged around our bags for purifying tablets; one per kettle of water seemed lavish, knowing we weren’t getting out of here soon. Not having cell service for a 2 hour boat ride seemed fathomable; this was something neither of us was prepared for. I spent the better part of the day flushing out her wound with potable water, gulping down some and forcing the rest down her throat.

It was only two days later that I saw any sign of hope – both in Cianna’s condition and of leaving the place.

There was a man on the island.

I didn’t know anything about him, not even if he was civil. The day of the accident, I’d spotted a makeshift tent amidst the forest of trees, barely held up by a tarp. Moving in close vicinity of the tent, I’d kept track of the man – when he woke up, his movements, when he returned, what he ate, basically everything there was to know.

Or so I thought.

As I stood staring at the tent, awaiting his customary return, a masculine voice startled the silence.

“Looking for someone?”

I froze on the spot, not daring to look at him. Facing him meant preparing myself for death. If he’d seen me now, he probably had been eyeing my every move just like I had done with him.

“We got marooned,” I said, still not meeting his eyes.

“We? I thought there was only one of you. Who is the other? Where is he?”

“She is hurt. Resting. Look, I was only scrounging around for food. I promise we don’t mean any harm. The other one, Cianna, my friend, she can barely move. It definitely looks like you’ve been living here quite some time. So you know how to hunt, where to find food. Help us, and we won’t bother you.” Just as I finished speaking, I realized there was nothing in it for him. I just hoped he would overlook that and consider protecting his space from invaders a priority.

He stared me down a long moment, and it took everything in me to not cringe away from the ugly scars on his face. Living in a place like this, I did not even want to imagine what caused the disfigurement. Without it all, he looked like he had been a ladies’ man in his early years. Right now, all I cared about was getting food. I was starting to get delusional and the harsh morning heatwaves did not help my condition. Cianna woke up now and then, moaned about the pain and fell back to sleep.

“I will help, but you will shift. I want to be able to see you at all times. Right here,” he said, pointing to a small clearance in front of his man-cave.

“We are two. How do you expect us to stay there?”

“You will not move? Okay, then get out of my area.” He started walking away, but his steps were slow, hesitant, almost like he knew I would give in. I realized then that this was as important to him as getting food in our bellies was to me.

“Ok. Ok. We will move here.”

“Good. And you will eat what I give you. Don’t worry, I won’t try to kill you. Yet. But if you pose a threat to my being, I will have to forego you.”

-x-x-x-x-x-

TWO WEEKS LATER –

“Nad, for the last time, just eat it. I’m telling you it’s safe.”

“How can you be so sure? He told us we cannot trust any meat around here, Cianna. We should listen to him. God knows how long he’s been living here”

“God also knows how long we’ve been here, Nadine. Have you seen any help? Huh? How long do you think we can survive on leaves and tree bark?” she screamed. I looked over at her red face, her chest rising and falling with each breath. When she calmed down, she started pacing the shore anxiously.

“Look, I know what you think. That I’m being delusional and unreasonable and I know you are attributing it to the wound. But it’s not that. Really, I’m doing just fine. Yes, it hurts when I try to raise my arm, but apart from that, I feel just like you do. Hungry and thirsty and frustrated.”

I stared down at my feet. Even after all her ranting, a particular question still rang in my mind.

“Who even taught you how to hunt?”

“You are forgetting where I come from, Nadine. I am self-taught. And in a place like this …you kill or get killed.” She spared me a glance at that, then went over to the pile of wood we’d collected to light a fire. After several failed attempts, a spark caught the wood, lighting it up instantly.

“Are you going to just stand there or help me?”

I walked over to her, still unsure about the new protein addition to our diet. I gagged reflexively when I saw the raw pink of the flesh and the thick, stringy blood still attached to it. But this seemed like an absolute wrong timing to complain, so I silently sat opposite her, helping her skewer the meat.

“What animal is this?” Cianna looked over at me but when I met her gaze, she looked away hurriedly.

After dinner, we walked over to our makeshift beds and I adjusted myself for another painful, sleepless night.

“Cian … when do you think he will come back?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because he … he helped us, right? He showed us where we could get water without having to purify it. True, it was only leaves and tree bark, but he helped me differentiate it from the poisonous ones. He also helped me carry you over, you know.”

“For his safety. He didn’t trust us.”

“I think we would have done the same if we were in his place, Cian.”

“Nadine, stop it. I don’t see why you are taking such a liking to him. You know what I think? That we would have learnt to survive even without him. Now go to sleep, I’m tired.”

I rolled over, turning my back to her. I didn’t get why she was being so terse, nor how the roles had changed and when she’d taken charge of getting us food. It annoyed me that she wouldn’t let me do it, especially since I’d learnt it first hand from Mike.

The following morning, when Cianna went off searching for something to eat, I wondered where Mike could have gone off suddenly. He’d just disappeared one morning the previous week without any trace. I only remembered the day because it also happened to be the first time Cianna brought us meat.

The first time ... my mind was working briskly to connect the vague thoughts in my mind. Cianna never did like Mike. She had been suspicious of him ever since we’d gotten marooned on this island.

I scrambled up to my feet, a sudden fear gnawing at my insides. We’d spent at least a week eating healthy amounts of meat, though of all the times I'd ventured out on my own, I never remembered seeing an animal of any sorts.

“Hey. We’re going to have to go without meat today. The animal I’d killed, I’d covered the rest with some leaves. But I guess the wind blew them away; it’s starting to rot.” She spoke as she separated berries from their vines, smelling them to make sure they were edible.

I forced myself to remain calm, taming my racing heart. How could she be so composed after doing such a sickening act? The thought petrified me. The duration of our stay here was unclear, which meant she’d be looking for new resources soon enough.

“Cianna … um, I ... I think we should try building something. Like a raft or ... or a boat or something.”

She looked at me weirdly. “What’s wrong with you? What’s giving you these ideas?”

“What do you mean? I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got here, Cian. We can’t just spend our lives here, can we? The stones didn’t help. I don’t think they can even see this island from up there. And no one knows we are here. For all they care, we are home enjoying with our families.”

Cianna looked at me, the slowly stood up and walked to me.

“What’s happening, Nadine? Did I do something? You are perspiring, like very bad.”

“Cianna, I know what you did. How could you do that?” I was shaking now, my hands trembling uncontrollably. Tears were rolling down my cheeks and fear was controlling all my emotions, rendering me motionless. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the sense of foreboding.

Cianna face paled for a millisecond, but then she regained her composure like my revelation was nothing. Standing in her vicinity was taking is toll on me. So much for not wanting to know who lived here, Cianna.

“Hey, hey. Don’t cry, Nad. Its ok. I won’t hurt you, I promise. See, I knew you wouldn’t let me do it if I told you, but he was dying anyway. I mean, did you see him? The flesh was hanging off his skeleton. Trust me, he is better off dead. And anyway, he is being more helpful this way.”

I started running away from her, wanting to be as far from her as possible. In all the time I had known her, she was the timid one. She was the kind who'd shy away form spotlight. But I guess people do adapt to situations. In what ever way the find fitting. I heard her footsteps closing in behind me and she grabbed my arm.

“No, no stop please. Cianna let me go. GET AWAY FROM ME. GET AWAY.” I was screaming and trashing about, desperately trying to get her off me.

“Nadine, we need to work as a team. ‘TEAM CINAD’, remember? If you’re going to go against me … we can’t survive alone, Nad. We need each other. And besides, where will you go?” she cooed.

My next actions were not governed by logic. I snatched the broken paddle from the sand beside me and swung it hard, my eyes tight shut. I couldn’t hear anything over the blood pounding in my ears. Not even the resounding crack you would expect when a blunt, heavy object collides with the skull.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Sometimes, people do things they regret later. We do it in the heat of the moment. You wouldn’t think I was capable of killing someone if you looked at me. But then again, you also wouldn’t think I would eat my best friend’s flesh.

Appearances can be deceptive, they say. Take it from me, it’s true.