Oakley Island

An island is often sought after for a holiday. A vacation. A break from the mundane living of your daily life, whether it be a simple nine to five or a fourteen hour daily hustle just to make ends meet. The cascade of palm trees along a coastline of sand is enough to put anyone’s overly stressed mind at ease, if even for a few days.

Something like that could be considered a luxury. Someone serving you drinks while you lounge on your overpriced, sand resistant towel laid over a comfortable cabana cushion. The drink is presented to you in a freshly cut coconut with a biodegradable straw and the rum running down your parched throat is sweet. Life is good. If even for a few days.

But this island, the island slowly filling my horizon, is not that. It’s not the tropical escape I’d always dreamed of. There will be no infinity pool with a swim up bar, no handsome waiter to take my evening drink and dinner order. Nobody to mingle with about what they do for money and no beautiful room at a five star resort with room service on speed dial.

This island, will be desolate. Only the bare bones of paradise and I will have nothing for myself apart from the clothes on my back. This island is remote, miles from the continent I considered to be home. This island was not one of opulence. The water may have been close to crystal clear, a deceiving color of blue that led you to believe it wasn’t all that deep. Maybe if I jumped, I could make it.

“Don’t even think about diving off, missy. It’s ‘bout thirty feet to the ocean floor!” One of the soot covered men called out over the gurgling of the boat engine.

The air was sticky, even at our speeds. My hair was snarling and tangling over my shoulders as we sped toward the white sands of Oakley. The seven mile stretch of uncivilized tropical paradise. Complete with lush greenery and the species that were native to it, and then those who weren’t. Those who were deemed too dangerous, too vile or too uncontrollable to be placed with the average population of criminals. The type of people who murdered without cause or committed a crime too heinous to speak.

But to place me there? It must’ve been some sort of mistake. Being condemned to Oakley Island was nothing short of a death sentence, with no chance of survival. No chance of escape as I ran my eyes around the vast ocean that surrounded it. We’d been on the boat for close to four hours, without another sliver of land in sight.

I closed my eyes, trying to find peace, knowing I wouldn’t survive the night. The sound of the engine slowed as we approached the shallows and the snickering from the small group of two men sent a chill down my spine, despite the unbearable heat. There was a touch of warm hands on my skin and I flinched, “Better get used to hands on ya, girl. Them boys gunna eat you alive.”

He turned the key to the metal cuffs around my wrists and I pulled my hands to my lap, my shoulders aching. There were people standing up along the shore, their skin shades darker than it would seem natural, with rags of clothes hanging from their starving bodies. Skeletons with only enough energy to beg for water, to be taken back home, for mercy.

“Good luck to ya, missy,” the captain angled his head down as he spoke. He must’ve known my fate as well as I had. How many people must he have taken to this godforsaken piece of land, only for them to rot.

I savored my last breath on that boat before hands of two men lifted me over the edge, splashing me into the water. My shoes became heavy as weights and my jeans clung tightly to the skin on my legs. The water was as warm as a bath and I imagined wearing my best swim suit, going for a dive but the wailing and crippling screams of the beggars brought me back.

Salt water splashed against me as the boat turned off, and I stood there like a deer in headlights. Like an abandoned child being left by their mother. Like a household pet dropped off at a shelter. I was defenseless. Hopeless. I debated even moving until pruned hands were grabbing fistfuls of my shirt. Instinctively, I spun around, shoving my palms into the chests of anyone around me.

Their weathered faces desperate for fresh clothing to replace the rags that were disintegrating off of their bodies. I thought less. A few of them stumbling back into the water on all fours while I trudged up to the beach, my fingers curled tightly into my hand if any of them dared to try something like that again. Most of them crawled back to the edge of the water. A few of them stayed as if they were basking in a fantasy of the lifeboat turning around and bringing them back. But even I knew, the only way off of Oakley, was if your spirit rises above your body.

I spent the rest of my day collecting twigs. Fallen branches. Emptied coconuts and what must have been bones. Anything that might help me build shelter, taking notes of the huts sporadically built along the edge of the forest. I’d done my fair share of research before being marooned. Studying how the weather could change in the blink of an eye, what could be eaten and what could poison me. I’d even done enough research to find the species of snake I’d need to be bitten by to end this nightmare painlessly, if it came to it.

The sun fell quickly once it settled over the ocean, dropping in what felt like seconds as opposed to the thirty minutes I knew it was. Then there was anything but silence. There were rustles of brush behind me and my makeshift canopy and screams of agony. Light wailing from the huts and the overbearing sound of insects buzzing and clicking. The only relief the night brought was a cool breeze, softly kissing my skin.

Sleep was something I’d braced myself to being deprived of, but after three nights and only a few hours my mind was beginning to grow hazy. I hadn’t left the edge of where the beach met the thick brush of forest, but the papayas left were rotted or stolen from me. I’d already ripped my shirt to hold my hair from my face and my jeans were already fraying at the knees. It felt like they were a second skin, clinging to me because of the sweat and elements.

I worked one of the fragments of bone into something that could be used as a weapon, already having to ward off the hungry people who also remained on the outskirts of the island. The shank was easy to tuck inside my waistband, readily available because it wasn’t a matter of if I needed it…it was when.

There was a rustling from behind me, my hand already on the dull end of my weapon. I pulled it out, turning around and if it weren’t for the rush of adrenaline making my heart race in my chest, I would’ve felt silly.

A man stood before me, but he was not like the men along the coast. His skin wasn’t hugging his bones and his eyes weren’t sunken into his skull, although they were wandering. They were an aqua, nearly as clear as the water that surrounded us, bright against his olive skin.

My eyes wandered too. Studying the creases in his filthy wife-beater where his muscles must’ve dipped, and his hands. Hands foreign to me. Hands with callouses camouflaged by dried blood and dirt. Hands of a man who’d been fending for himself for a time longer than his placement on the island.

His lips remained pressed together as he stared, his jaw firm with something that appeared to be disgust and I was suddenly aware of the sweat dripping from my skin. My shirt was ripped around the neck and worn in places that left little to the imagination but the rumble in my stomach didn’t leave room for feelings like that. I was exhausted and nearly starving but his predatory stare kept me frozen in place.

Someone tore me away from his hypnotic gaze. Harsh fingers gripping my biceps before I had the instinct to lash out. My back becoming one with the base of a thick tree sending my weak body to a slump on the ground. Black spots filled my vision and I lifted my hand to my aching head, listening to the grunts of fighting men.

I blinked. I saw blurry silhouettes of the tussle, the man with the ocean eyes battering another. There were angry outbursts, lashing of bare hands but before long there was a lifeless body on the ground only inches from my feet. The man with the calloused hands was staring back at me and I was immediately relieved, slipping away into a dark dream.

When I finally woke up, there was a pulse in head and my lips were dry. The corners of my mouth sticking together as I rubbed my face looking around, realizing it hadn’t been a horrible nightmare after all. Even though it was dark, humidity reminded me how very real it all was. There was a warmth on my back and I rolled over I saw the ominous glow from a small fire and his taunting shadow.

Immediately my hand went for the shank I’d kept on my hip, my heart racing in my chest when I realized it wasn’t there. I went to speak but my throat was dry, clearing it as he sat quietly by the fire watching me.

“Where is my shank?” I choked out, sitting up. The sand was warm beneath my hands, but we weren’t at the same stretch of coast I’d built my own hut on. The beach was much shorter, with only about fifty yards until the wave of the ocean crashed along the beach.

He didn’t speak. The shadows from the fire danced along his distinct features, handsome in the way a criminal might have been. Chiseled cheekbones and a strong jaw line with the echos of mystery in his stare. He grunted.

“Give me back my weapon,” I declared. There was a tickle of frustration in the pit of my turning stomach.

We held eye contact for a moment before he reached over, tossing over what took me days to whittle out, now snapped in two. I held each half in one hand, staring blankly at it. It was my only source of protection. The only thing I had to keep the desperate and dying people of this island away from me. But obviously, there was much more to this island than I’ve discovered.

I sat back, any hope of staying alive draining from me as the fire continued to crack. “I’m going to die here,” I admitted out loud.

The man stood up beside the fire, towering over me with an outstretched hand holding a plastic bottle. Probably litter that had washed up on shore, but I didn’t care. My throat burned as the water trickled down it, gulping nearly half without a breath. I wiped the back of my hand over my mouth, “Thank you.” He grunted again. The only sound I’d heard from him. “Can’t you talk?”

His lips stretched, but I wouldn’t call it a smile. It was an amused sneer, his captivating eyes reflecting the flickers of light from the fire. “You’d be lucky if you died,” his voice was sharp, like glass cracking beneath a heavy boot on a concrete floor.

I scoffed, almost wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth at all. “Who was that man?” I asked as my eyes scanned the traces of blood on his white cotton shirt. “Did you kill him?”

His eyes narrowed.

“How many people are on this island?” I almost whispered.

“Hundreds.”

“How…” I thought about what I was about to ask, “How long have you been here?”

I locked his gaze as he looked back up from the flames, “A thousand days. Maybe more.”

The thought of being here more than ten days sent shivers down my spine nonetheless more than two years. Oakley Island only opened about three years ago, which meant he had to be one of the first few sentenced here. Sentenced to a primal way of life or a slow death. I guess that was something for fate to decide.

“You’ve been here since the beginning,” my voice wavered. He gave me one firm nod, knowing my quick math was accurate. “What did you do?”

There was a brief silence which made me want to swallow my words. “What did you do?” he deadpanned, his gravely voice harsh as he glowered at me.

I clamped my mouth shut, quickly understanding that what anyone had done to get here was irrelevant. “It was a mistake,” I mumbled quietly. “I shouldn’t be here.”

His face that appeared to be made of stone softened just enough to let me recognize that he was human after all. Behind the harsh exterior, there might have even been a heart that could’ve loved someone once. But then in the blink of an eye, the look was gone and his face returned to the emotionless state it had been in before.

“You better sleep,” he looked away, “If you drag me down I’m leaving you behind.”