Jordyn

At first, I am filled with a serene tranquility. The flames move around me like millions of tribal dancers. Their naked bodies twist and shake, grabbing the overhead branches and bringing them back to the ground with them in bursts of red. Their arms climb the trunks of the skinny trees. Bark turns red at their touch and melts to the ground.

The scene is beautiful and haunting.

In the center, we are safe, but with every passing second, the heat on my arms increases. The dream scape returns to me, and so does the panic I felt when I was burning alive.

"Kaia!" I blurt, turning around and grabbing the girl with both hands. She jerks her chin up, looks at me, and then looks around.

"What did you do?" she hisses as she stands up.

I say nothing as I stare up at her. My silence must make her furious, because she throws her hands up again and twists in a tight circle.

"Wake up Cowboy, and meet me at the beach," she says, and in the blink of an eye, she's gone.

When we both moved, Sam fell over into the grass. I'm surprised that he's still asleep, considering that Kaia was shouting at me moments earlier and that the fire has begun to make it hard to breathe.

I grip his shoulders with shaking hands and shake him.

"Sammy, wake up," I say, and he stretches his arms out on either side of him.

How can he be so calm when everything around him is falling apart?

"Is it morning already?" he asks in a sleepy voice. "Why is it so warm?"

He rolls over on his back and opens his eyes.

They go wide, and his mouth drops open. The flames of the fire reflect in his blue irises. Strings of saliva stretch between his teeth as his eyes dart around the blazing scene.

"Sam, we have to go," I say, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Fire," he says in a breathless voice.

His eyes glaze over, and for a moment he's gone. I recognize that displaced look; I feel it in my own eyes when the memories hit me. When he returns, he grips my shoulders and pulls me inches from his face.

"I'm scared of fire," he hisses, tears pooling atop his heavy lashes. "I remember it. It killed my parents, burned my entire house down. I was there, Jordyn." He takes a shaky breath and pushes me away from him. The heat of the fire licks my back. "I could have stopped it. I could have saved them."

He repeats those two sentences over and over again as he closes his eyes. I dig my hands under his armpits as his face goes white. Within seconds, he falls limp, and the both of us crash into the grass.

A string of profanities leave my mouth as I struggle to pick him up and hoist the both of us to our feet.

I could leave him behind. It would be much easier than trying to drag him out of the jungle. One less mouth to feed. One less body to worry about. One less person to worry about shoving me into the water when I least expect it.

Am I that kind of person, though? Can I leave someone to die?

The silence of my mind scares me. I don't have a clue who I am.

I grip Sam's shoulder and take a deep breath.

If I don't know who I am, then I'll just have to create a new identity.

I hoist Sam up onto my shoulder and hurry through the wall of flames around us. The hot ash of leaves clings to my feet, making me wince. The trees rain down around us, embedding glowing embers in our hair.

I walk as fast as possible, but the flames creep up our clothes. I feel them searing the bottom of my bare feet, hear them snapping trees like popcorn around us, and smell the fabric of our clothes burning. If I'm getting closer to the water, I can't tell. Instead, I cling to Sam's waist and arm and continue to drag us both through the blood forest around us. Smoke twists itself into my lungs, and I devour mouthfuls of useless air, feeling the fire spread inside me.

The trees thin out, and sunlight breaks through the canopy. A branch falls behind me, sending sparks of heat up my back. A hoarse cry of pain leaves my chapped lips, and I shove Sam ahead of me out into the open. His unconscious body rolls out of sight in the thick smoke, towards what I can only hope is water and safety.

I laugh dryly as my knees give out and I crash forward onto the underbrush.

Water is now safe, and fire is going to kill me.

The world is upside down.

The orange around me bleeds into my jumpsuit until I'm back in my nightmare. I can feel my skin burning under my flaming outfit and smell the rancid stench of my own hair burning. I clench my eyes shut, saying a quick prayer to anyone for Sammy's safety.

Maybe I deserve this. It's karma for my crime.

The flames rip through my back, and I scream in pain until the fire devours me and everything goes black.

"Be careful with that water, Neil!"

"Why? It's the only way to calm those burns down!"

"She's afraid of water, idiot. If she wakes up and you're pouring it over her, she's going to attack us, and I don't feel like dealing with an enraged criminal right now."

"Whatever, Kaia. You deal with it, then. She can die in this sand for all I care."

The ground vibrates slightly under my body as the second voice stomps away. Every inch of me is washed in pain- dull, aching, itching pain. A term comes to mind- sunburn- but I think this is much worse.

A shadow appears through my closed eyes, and I force myself to take a shallow breath. It would require too much effort to open them, and so I keep my eyelids closed. The person comes closer, and my body tenses up.

Kaia's about to pour water over me, and I'm too weak to stop her. Panic nestles into the pit of my stomach. I need this water. She's doing what she has to.

"Wait," a strained voice says from somewhere nearby. "I'll do it. She won't be so mad if it's me when she wakes up."

Kaia sighs and moves away from me, only to be replaced by the new voice- the one that reminds me of flowers and fresh wind, of white paint and the smell of motor oil.

Sammy.

My chest relaxes, and I pry my eyes open. Sam hovers over my legs with his face turned towards my feet. As I watch, he scoops up a handful of water and sprinkles it over my legs. It's refreshing.

Until he takes his hand and rubs it down the skin there.

A surprised, pained gasp leaves my mouth, and Sam turns his head towards me.

"I'm awake," he mumbles, eyes going wide.

"I can see that," I whisper, fighting the pain ribboning through my leg.

He narrows his eyes at me, looking confused for a second, then laughs.

"I was trying to say 'I'm sorry' and 'you're awake' at the same time," he explains.

I force myself to nod and smile, propping my body up on my elbows.

The scene before me doesn't surprise me.

"What happened?" I ask as I survey the damage. Both of my jumpsuit legs are gone, leaving nothing but charred remains past my kneecaps. The skin of my legs shines bright red, and pinhead sized blisters cover most of the area. I can only imagine how terrible the bottom of my feet look.

"I woke up on the beach, half submerged in water about an hour ago," Sam says, sprinkling more water over my legs. "My burns are pretty mild compared to yours. My shoes are toast, though, as well as my jumpsuit."

He lifts an arm to show me that his sleeves received the same treatment as my pant legs. They're burnt off up to the shoulders. His skin is red, but there are no blisters. Instead, he has deep, raw-red wounds down his arms.

"I assume these came from branches falling on me," he mumbles, pointing to a gash. "Lost most of my arm hair, too, but I'm alive." He pauses, and my eyes find his. "We both are, thanks to you."

I feel the heat gathering in my cheeks.

"I didn't do anything," I whisper, picking at a dark brown piece of burnt hair that has fallen in my face.

"You dragged me out of a forest fire, Jordy."

"I'm not afraid of fire."

He grabs my hand, and I wince in pain. The skin there is barely pink, but the reaction makes him flinch. He lets go of me, wiggling around so that I have to look at him again.

"I know. That's why I'm terrified of you, too."

"But you partnered with me," I whisper.

"Yeah, I don't know why. Something about you feels familiar. Thanks for saving my life."

I glare at him, rolling my eyes.

"I was just returning the favor. You saved me once."

"Or twice," he mumbles with a smirk. I shake my head, and he moves back to sprinkling water over me.

I watch him for a long minute to gather my courage.

"Sam?"

He glances at me, making a sound of acknowledgement in the back of his throat.

"What did you see in the clearing?" I ask as I push myself into a proper sitting position. Sam's hands freeze, dropping the handful of water into the sand. His breath escapes in one long hiss, and he wraps his arms around himself.

"My parents died in a house fire," he says in a voice knotted with tears. "They were burned alive by people in white outfits. I can see the house now, like the memory was never gone.

"The worst part is that I was even there when it happened. I didn't have a chance to help them or anything. Someone set fire to my parents, and I had to watch. I've been scared of fire ever since."

I bite my lower lip and let his words sink in.

His parents were killed by fire. I start fires with the intention to kill.

Did I kill Sam's parents? Are the creators of The Island playing a horrible trick on us by pairing us up together? What are the odds? He can never know the crime I keep buried in the back of my mind, or he'll assume and hate me for it.

"Well," I say, willing my voice to be steady, "you're in luck, then, because you partnered up with the girl that can start fires in record time."

A dry laugh escapes his lips.

"What a weird partnership. Fire and water," he mumbles, rubbing his cheek.

I reach for his hand, despite the burning that spreads with every movement.

"You keep the water away from me, and I'll keep the fire away from you. I've got your back, Sam."

He smiles at me, and the twin dimples in his cheeks melt my heart. God, I hope I didn't kill his parents.

"I've got yours, too," he says. "Did we just become best friends?"

I laugh despite the growing dread.

"Yeah," I say. My hand falls back down into the sand, and Sam beams at me.