Jordyn

Not long after Neil leaves the group, thick night falls over the beach like a wool blanket. Once again, the sky is dark and moonless. Only the honeycomb stars keep us company, blinking between the storm clouds that gather.

From where I sit, I watch the fake clouds slide from one screen to the next. Bolts of all-too-realistic lightning reach down with their glittering fingertips and dance across the tumultuous sea. Each giant fist is followed by a belch of thunder that shakes my stomach up.

Water pours out of the dome. The wind catches it on its descent and mists our faces. The fire flickers like a climber holding on to a cliffside for dear life. Occasionally, I'll feed it another bunch of twigs and stir it up with the fish spears that Sam whittled for us.

Everyone seems mesmerized by the scene outside the shelter.

Kaia stares out at the water. The lightning reflects in her dark eyes, and the water weighs down her thick curls. It hangs like vines across her face, glued to the dark skin of her cheeks and forehead. Her lips glisten with the damp air but shiver with the continuous drop in temperatures.

Sam beside her watches the storm with just as much intensity, but he jumps every time lightning cuts across the sky. It makes me wonder if he's afraid of lightning. I suppose it's a logical thing to fear, but it doesn't exactly warrant him a one-way ticket to this island paradise. He would fare worse anywhere else if all he's scared of is storms.

It's Neil that breaks the silence first.

"Are we going to sleep or stare at the rain all night?" he growls from his dark corner. The white sand around him is dry, untouched by the wind. His messy of black hair stands on its ends from the static filling the air.

Sam laughs- the sound that reminds me of the rainbow of wildflowers. It reminds me of home, too, I realize, because my chest fills up with warm and nice emotions that I can't name. If home can be represented by a sound, it's either the crackling of an open fire or that boy's deep laughter that rings clear in the middle of a thunderstorm and calms my every ragged nerve.

"Someone very wise once said that staring at something won't kill it," he says, catching my eye. I smirk and turn back towards the fire. "You're right. We should sleep."

"Someone needs to watch the fire," I whisper as I sit back in the wet sand. The cold seeps through my jumpsuit.

"What was that, little mouse?" Kaia teases, leaning towards me. I flinch and move away from her.

"I said, someone needs to watch the fire," I repeat just loud enough for her.

Kaia nods.

"She's right. Two people should stand guard. One can watch the fire and the other can keep an eye out for any predators. Those lions can sneak up on you at night. They're nearly invisible in the dark."

"Jordyn and I will guard together," Sam blurts without waiting for anyone else to speak up.

"Of course you will, cowboy," Kaia says with a roll of her chocolate eyes. "I don't think that's such a good idea, though. You could just kill us in our sleep, or we could kill you." She pauses and glances over at me. "No, I say we group up girls and boys. One person from each original team so no funny business occurs."

Sam groans and looks my way. I bite my lip.

She has a point. I don't trust either of them not to slit my throat. This way, it'll be like I'm watching Sam while he sleeps and he's watching me in return. I finally nod, and Sam does too.

"Fine. We'll split the night in half."

"Do you have a watch to tell time, because otherwise, I don't know how you're gonna find the halfway point. It's a moonless night."

Is there such a thing as a moon night, then, if she says this one is 'moonless'?

"Just do your best," Sam says with another groan. He seems to be full of them tonight. I guess that means we're going first. He stands and walks to the back of the cave where the sand is warm and dry. With a wave to me, he lowers himself to the ground and curls up.

Neil follows suit, turning his back on the other boy.

They're going to freeze to death sleeping miles apart like that. Especially since they're so far away from the fire.

For a long time, Kaia doesn't say anything. The soft breathing of Neil and the minute snoring of Sam fill the space under the rock, but the booms of thunder shatter the ambient sounds of their sleep. She sits by the mouth of the cave but glances back at me occasionally. More than once, I catch her staring at me as I crawl back and forth between the woodpile and the fire.

Her staring becomes more frequent. Every second, I can feel her eyes boring into my forehead like drills, reading my every thought and memory. Looking up at her doesn't help, because she just smiles and keeps looking.

"What are you staring at?" I snap when my annoyance finally breaches my shyness.

Her cheeks turn red, which I know can't be a result of the heat from the fire. She's too far away.

"I really like your hair," she says softly, crawling back to sit beside me. I inch away from her. "It kinda reminds me of roses. My parents used to get me a bunch of them when I placed in competitions."

She looks back out at the water, but the smile remains on her face.

"I remember that roses always had this particular smell that I never could put my finger on. It was sort of like fertilizer and grass and water all mixed together, if water even has a smell," she mutters and looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

Before I can stop her, she reaches out and grabs a handful of my hair. I tense up at her touch, but she simply brings the lock of red hair up to her nose and inhales the scent.

"What are you doing?" I ask quietly, afraid to move.

"Seeing if you smell like fertilizer water," she says with a laugh. "You don't."

"What do I smell like?" I whisper as I watch her twirl my hair around her finger.

"Salt, sweat, and metal."

"Metal?"

"Probably from the blood. It blends in with your hair."

She drops the bunch of hair and faces the fire.

"Do you remember any certain smell?" she asks without looking back at me.

I dig through my mind.

"Smoke," I whisper as the memory resurfaces. Of course, I know why I remember smoke, and that alone makes my heart drop. "And brownies."

"Brownies?" Kaia laughs. Unlike Sam's, hers doesn't remind me of anything. It just is. "Well, I'm jealous. I want to remember the smell of brownies."

"I guess it's really chocolate in general," I say with a smirk, "but my brain connects the smell with brownies."

Kaia scoots closer to me and huddles against my shoulder. Every guard in my body shoots back up, and I fight the urge to push her away.

"I wonder what's so important about brownies that the creators couldn't erase them completely," she mumbles.

"Completely?" I ask.

"What, you don't think that they erased some of our memories for good? I'm sure there are things we'll die not knowing." She looks down at her feet. "Like the color of my gymnast uniform or what my mother sounded like. I'll probably never know my routine again or hear my father cheering me on. Those things are gone for good."

Her words wake up a sadness deep in my chest that rips through my chest faster than the lion from before. Tears gather in my eyes.

How many things have I forgotten that I won't get back?

How many voices will I never hear again?

How many smells and sensations are forever lost in the abyssal plain of my memory?

Not only am I sad, I'm furious. How dare they mess with our heads permanently? But then again, they do intend for us to die. Nothing about this place is permanent. It's a temporary state. Just until we die.

"It's probably about time to switch," Kaia says softly, crawling over to nudge Neil. I do the same by poking Sam in the cheek with a cold finger. He opens one eye at a time and glares at me. For a second, his eyes go wide and glaze over.

"Jordy-" he says, softly, but his words catch in his throat.

"What is it?" I ask as I sit back in the sand. He rises up in front of me and rubs both his eyes.

"Nothing," he mumbles. "I just thought I remembered something. I'm sure it's nothing." Then, he looks over my shoulder at Neil. "Is it time to switch?"

I nod.

Kaia appears beside Sam and makes me jump.

"Now, I know the boys decided to sleep on seperate sides of The Island and all," she says as Sam leaves to go stand guard, "but it would probably be best if we shared body heat. It's getting cold."

Even though she has a point, I really don't want her to be right again. Snuggling with the lion was bad enough; I would rather not cuddle with this stranger.

Yet, Kaia opens her arms up wide and throws herself at me. The air leaves my lungs in one big rush, and I'm pinned to the ground by the weight of the girl. She giggles and shifts her weight so that she's laying beside me, pulling me up against her body.

"Are you warm?" she asks, and the sound reverberates through her chest under my ear.

As much as I hate to say it, the word still leaves my mouth.

"Yes."

Kaia squeezes me a little.

"Good," she whispers. "Now, sleep tight, little mouse."

I reposition my arms so that they're curled in between us and sheltered from the bitter cold I feel creeping around us now that we're not directly beside the fire. We lay so that our feet are closest to the flame, so I can feel it warming me from the bottom up. Sleeping beside Kaia helps though.

Within minutes, Kaia's breathing evens out. I glance up at her to find that she has fallen asleep. My eyes find Sam in the dim firelight by the mouth of the cave. Neil crouches by the fire itself.

I'm safe. If something gets through both of them, then I'm no match for it- asleep or awake. Sam won't let anything in, and Kaia isn't going to let me freeze to death.

For the first time since I arrived on The Island, I let myself relax and slip into a calm of nothingness and empty space.