The odds of the plane hitting a sandbar in the first place were slim in the Pacific. Or were they? Whatever they were, they weren't good enough for the rest of the passengers to make it. Just me and the pilot managed to crawl out of the water when the little tampon of a plane landed. According to all the shit I went through in their bags the other two fellas were heading home to Japan, their skulls cracked open like jelly-filled eggs. We left the bodies in that section of the plane after salvaging what we could. The pilot and I came up with backstories for them after a few days. It was fun.
Well, as fun as it could be being stranded on some piddly island in the South Pacific. One would think that after a few hours a rescue ship or helicopter would swoop in and scoop us up. That never happened. We managed to fashion a shelter using broken tree limbs and the doors from the plane. The first day was spent setting up our little makeshift camp, mending the mobile radio and sorting what little food was available. With a small chartered plane like ours the only real food was kept in a small fridge which held mostly cheese, crackers, fruits, three cases of fiji water, and several tiny bottles of alcohol.
That food lasted three days before we started venturing into the island's vegetation for anything to eat. Thankfully every night crabs scuttled about the beach and were easy enough to catch. Meat wasn’t an issue so much as our limited source of water. Our phones were dead. It rained every afternoon which soaked everything we had and made the dark sand muddy, sticking to your skin.
Headaches from the caffeine withdrawals kicked in on the fourth day. We sat under the shade, watching the horizon. The pilot gave me a spare set of ray-bans. For hours we stared into the blue oblivion. Not once did so much as a dolphin go past us, not a single boat went by all day. We did see a few planes in the distance but too far out to notice us on our speck of land.
A week had gone by and half of our water supply was drained. We slept during the blistering heat and stayed awake at night to collect crabs and cook. One evening we were up, stir crazy from the stress of waiting to be rescued, and opened the little bottles of booze. Laying there drunk in the sand, listening to the waves rush along the shore I stared at the moon and watched the clouds glide across it. The pilot had discovered some mushrooms growing along the bark of the trees, claiming to know what they were. We ate them. If we died it wouldn’t matter.
We awoke from our shared shelter in the late afternoon, nausea overpowering our need to sleep. The pilot went out first, then rushed back in shaking me awake. There on the beach stood a huge creature carved out of stone. Blood ran down the cracks of the monolith, leading to the top. I climbed up one of the trees to get a better look. The heads of our fellow passengers stared back at me with empty eyes. Their sockets vomited blood down their cheeks and pooled around the top of the sculpture. I wished at that moment that I hadn’t survived.
This post was created on a flash fiction (250-750 words) writing prompt: The prompt is: Your protagonist is marooned on an island. One morning, an idol appears outside their shelter’s front door. It’s carved entirely from stone—except for the real human head on top.
13/100 #100daystooffload