The overnight proved to be pretty eventful, so much more than the day was in the village.
There was some sort of buzz from the village most of the night, as well as noises that sounded like motors mixed in for a sprinkling effect every so often. There was quite a bit of people movement going all kinds of places. In any event, there was a lot going on.
Heard were some barking commands from Rusty, so the island dwellers who hadn’t seen her for all of the previous day knew she was present in all of her glory. Although her commands couldn’t be understood from such a distance, one knew that she meant business.
Her daughter Jewel also could be heard through the nighttime air, at times just screaming back randomly at her mother, and at times appearing to be in a highly emotional argument of some kind. Again, exactly what those subjects were could not be deciphered from the camp inhabitants.
There were pirates stirring everywhere. It became obvious that there was some kind of alert or emergency going on throughout the pirate village, but Alan and his weary and impatient group couldn’t figure it out. The buzz around camp with all of the movement and unusual noises was just that…everything seemed strange, so for a while they dismissed them.
The only things that were happening in the camp of captives were curiosity and planning. Whatever miracles that were being served up by Summer continued to string Jim along as he teetered along the cliffs of life. He was pretty much out of consciousness and not able to contribute anything toward the curiosity and planning adventures of the night. But he was still clinging to life and that was enough as far as the others were concerned.
The only thing holding back Alan and the others in their current plannings was the status of Dylan and Caleb. They left camp over a day ago and still there was no communication at all. Obviously, though, how could there be? It’s not as though the island had a coconut telegraph…
The planning involved the whole group for once in a meeting type of forum in the little sleep quarters dwelling. It was a lot of what started as brainstorming and as the night wore on narrowed down to a couple of possible scenarios that the captives were willing to try. All were good swimmers they had noted, so an overnight mad dash to the water and a ‘quiet’ swim back to the boat were not ruled out. They thought swimming would be a better option if they were going to jailbreak because water sloshing up against large rowboats would make much more noise than individuals. Then again, part of that scenario dealt with just where they would enter the water. By trekking down the coast away from the village a bit, they would have to endure some more challenging rocky conditions, but they would have a bit of a shorter swim and of course whatever noise they would make would actually be further away from the village. But how would they create the jailbreak? That part of the plan received much debate with no definitive answers.
Another scenario had them breaking for the jungle and improvising from there, again thinking that they would be closer to a much shorter swim to their yacht. The obstacles with this plan were several, especially since the improvising part would be totally of the unknown. Yet, they figured that any plan had myriad of mysteries and unknowns and that each of them were in reasonably decent shape physically to attack whatever obstacles were encountered.
The third scenario was just a simple ‘wait and see if Caleb and Dylan come back and with what info they have that would help us’ kind of plan. There wasn’t much debate there because that plan was totally one hundred percent in the dark. Other than Caleb and Dylan rejoining everyone of course, but any information they would have is still unknown at this point.
Not one person wanted to leave the two explorers of the group behind; still everyone felt a restless impatience about staying any longer than they positively had to. All had the itches to take off and run, and thank goodness, none were stupid enough to try and go it alone. The camp was still guarded by four pirates, each being changed out about every four hours or so.
Interestingly, no one still had seen Rusty or jewel or Briggs for the longest time. They had heard them screaming off in the distance, but that was the extent of it…until…
Somewhere about an hour before dawn after the village had quieted down a bit. There was an unexpected visitor to the sleep house where all of the captives had just retired and had fallen asleep.
Eryan and Gianna were sharing a bunk when both were disturbed by a third person joining them in their tiny quarters. Both were exhausted and neither felt like opening their eyes because they both figured subconsciously that it was the either that was crowding them. A couple of silent minutes passed on by. There was no movement from the girl’s bunk after the initial huddling of bodies. In those two minutes, Gianna ended up being the one in the middle and eventually became uncomfortable feeling a body on both sides of her.
It wasn’t until she heard whimpering and could feel the steady stream of moist tears that rained down onto her neck and shoulder that she came back to full consciousness. Gianna still didn’t open her eyes, but she was now full aware that someone was behind her and in a state of crying.
The mysterious body shook with another whimper. Gianna was startled. Who could this be? Summer? Did Jim finally pass? If so, why wouldn’t everyone be awakened? All these and many more questions raced through Gianna’s mind.
She was afraid to move.
Then she felt a heavy arm come across her waist and onto her belly, pulling her closer to whoever was shedding the tears.
Gianna knew whoever that was was indeed very upset. Again, she initially dismissed it as Summer. Yet, she had never witnessed Summer get that upset and search for comfort and support like this person behind her. Though, in thinking it was Summer, Gianna moved her arm so she could run it parallel to the arm draped around her, and then she interlocked fingers to show support. She brought the arm in closer to her and hugged it.
In doing so, Gianna’s support move turned to a face now up against the back of her neck. She could feel the breath, uncontrollable at times, on her neck at the hairline, causing goose bumps and chills throughout her body.
The bodies held each other in that pose for several minutes.
Then, in breaking the silence, Gianna heard the words whispered “I am so sorry…”
She opened her eyes looking straight ahead wide eyed. She saw Eryan, who was just as wide eyed looking at Gianna. That startled Gianna as well.
“Why the hell is Eryan staring at me?” she thought as her blood pressure increased quickly.
Evidently, the arm draping across Gianna had also disturbed Eryan from her sleep, however she couldn’t make out who the arm belonged to.
They both just looked at each other making faces that neither could decipher. The room was darkened with just a hint of light, so seeing eyeballs were discernible, but not face making. The dark just made everything that much creepier.
No one moved.
Then the feminine voice whispered again.
“I am so sorry.”
Gianna’s skin crawled with the creepies. Goose bumps erupted again and the chill she felt up her spine leapt off her shoulders and found a home inside of Eryan.
Both looked at each other like “Holy shit!” The wide eyes full of terror gave that away easily.
Both now knew that it wasn’t Summer. They both ruled out Mandy, who had been a complete mess since her newlywed husband Dylan had left with Caleb on their secret expedition over twenty four hours earlier.
Neither could see who was cuddling with Gianna.
“Please believe me. I am so sorry” was heard again.
Gianna had had enough. Totally spooked now, she didn’t recognize the voice or the arm around her. So she finally moved, switching hands in keeping her fingers interlocked with whoever it was. With her now free right arm, she reached around and felt the outline of the female who was up against her and still at times uncontrollably shaken.
She felt the weight of the woman up against her. She had seemingly large hips and an ass that housed a bit of meat to it. That put another charge of fright into her because the woman behind her didn’t resemble anyone that she knew. As she covered the curves of her legs, non sexually, the young unidentified woman again put her face into the neck of Gianna, burying it into her hair and softly caressing her neck with her cheeks. She was still damp with tears.
Somebody was having a breakdown and Gianna and Eryan had no idea who the heck it was!
Gianna continued to turn and try and face her. Again, she could sense the genuineness of this woman’s feelings to the point where Gianna had tears in her eyes.
As Gianna turned, Eryan tried to get some peeks at the young woman but came up empty in the darkness. Her face was so buried into Gianna that Eryan couldn’t make out anything. The frustration of being in terror was getting to Eryan.
Gianna finally flipped all the way around and faced the person who was almost begging for forgiveness.
Their eyes met for a split second. Then the woman started crying uncontrollably as she buried her face in a snuggle into Gianna’s chest.
“Oh my God” Gianna whispered as she slightly turned her head facing up to try and communicate with Eryan.
Eryan rose up the upper half of her body and moved into a snuggling position with Gianna. It wasn’t anything sexual with her, but done out of trying to hear Gianna.
“What?” she whispered to Gianna. “What?”
“O-m-G!” Gianna repeated in a bit of shock.
“What? What?” Eryan said again with a hint of impatience and urgency. “Who is it?”
“J-mmmph-we-mmph-ll” Gianna replied heavily muffled because her face was being smothered now by her.
“What? Who?”
“Jwwwwwwwmmnphl.”
“Who is that?”
Eryan sat halfway up, still in darkness. She wanted some answers and became increasingly frustrated that she wasn’t getting any. In the cramped quarters where she was, she maneuvered to get on top of Gianna and pry the unknown woman from her. She wanted an identification and wasn’t going to be denied.
“What? What are you doing?” Gianna awkwardly said to Eryan. “Get down.”
“I want to know who this is” she said as she still tried to separate Gianna from the woman crying.
Other captives rustled around on their uncomfortable wooden slabs that were being used for beds.
“But you’re hurting me Eryan…get down!” she exclaimed in a shrieky whisper.
Eryan got off of Gianna, and her can opener move to separate the two failed. Whoever was clinging to Gianna had quite a bit of strength to go along with a thick type of body.
Gianna knew Eryan was pissed and tried to console.
“Eryan, I told you who it is. Relax. I’m not sure what’s wrong but it’s something major.”
“Who is it?” Eryan whispered back as the whimpering and sobbing became intense.
Gianna held onto her stronger as the sobbing increased and then let go into a more gentler position as she came up for air. It reached the point where Eryan thought Gianna was ignoring her, so she leaned over next to Gianna’s ear.
“Will you please tell me who this is? You are killing me!” she whispered.
Gianna let go of the emotional woman and swatted at Eryan like she was a gnat or tropical mosquito. The swat missed her, yet still infuriated Eryan.
“What the fuck, girl” she said appalled.
Gianna turned toward Eryan as the woman resettled into the small chest area of Gianna still blubbering. She knew Eryan wanted answers and fast.
Gianna turned as far as she could go and started whispering.
“I told you this was Jewel.”
“Jewel?”
“Yeah. Jewel.”
“What the fuck?”
“I have no idea.”
“You have no idea?”
“None.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You think that I do? There’s a pirate clinging to my chest like she’s breastfeeding. All I know is that she’s cried more tears in the past few minutes than I have cried in all my years.”
And the crying continued, totally oblivious of the hush toned conversation that Eryan and Gianna were having.
Gianna continued to comfort her still not knowing what had happened to cause such a thing to happen. A pirate daughter racing to two same age captives for comfort? It surely was an unlikely twist to this strange vacation turned nightmare…
Nevertheless, with all of the nightmarish events occurring on Gianna’s side of things, nothing could have prepared her for what Jewel was about to say. She unburied her face from Gianna’s chest and wiped her cheeks with the shirt Gianna was wearing. Gianna noticed and disapproved, but said nothing to her knowing that this wasn’t the best time in Jewel’s life. She waited for Jewel’s next move, praying that nothing bad was going to happen to any of them.
Jewel looked up at Gianna.
“I’m sorry…really sorry that all of this happened.”
“I got that. What’s the matter Jewel?” Gianna said in a hush.
“I know this has been nothing but a nightmare for all of you. I’m sorry.”
“I got that, Jewel. You’re sorry. What’s going on?” pushed Gianna.
Eryan craned her head. She wanted to know through the initial shock that Jewel was even there in their wooden bed, let alone hanging onto Gianna with all of her emotional life.
“My father is dead.”