John Davis was a hard-working 35 year-old man who had a wife and three children. He was of moderate stature, about six feet tall. His dark brown hair was a stark contrast against his bright blue eyes, and was average size. John also had impressive physical endurance and frequently won triathlons. He was also always happy about his appearance and had self-confidence. He was also very proud of his position.

John had always enjoyed physical activities that required hard work. His greatest frustration was with people who did not work for what they got. One of John’s greatest fears was being alone and isolated, since he never wanted to die alone. His every day existence followed the same precise routine, and he was always on time. John worked tirelessly for a medical company that developed new medications and medical imaging machines for the betterment of those with fatal diseases. One night, John was out working later than usual and his wife started getting worried. She called him and he said to her, “I’m sorry that I am running late. We had a breakthrough on one of our new products and it will be gaining approval much sooner than expected.”

She asked him to try to get home quickly, since their dinner was getting cold. The next day, John told his family that the medicine had been approved. As the day approached noon there were countless phone calls to the house looking for John. Mrs. Davis turned on the news and saw that there were people dying from the medicine that her husband had developed, shockingly, he did not return home that day or the next; he had disappeared. Two weeks after his disappearance, his family was placed in a protective services program so that the protestors would not harm them.

The last thing that John remembered was getting into his car after work on a Wednesday. He woke up, disoriented and confused, on an island in the middle of nowhere. He woke up in what looked like a campsite, knowing that all he wanted to do was reverse his actions. As he was looking around, he noticed a ragged piece of cloth with a drawing on it. John picked up the cloth and found what seemed to be a map on the other side of it, which had a red x marking the spot where the path ended. He followed the map from where he had woken up and found an abandoned house with a red x painted over the door. John pushed open the door to the house and entered it. He searched around the house and found a couple tools that would be useful for his survival.

There was a rusty axe that was still sharp enough to be used to cut. He also found a stick of magnesium that he could scrape with the axe to create a spark and start a fire for warmth. When he left the house he packed a backpack that was hanging on the wall with a knife, a hatchet, the magnesium, and a blanket. On his way out, he placed his hand in the last pocket and felt a crisp piece of paper. This note read, “John Davis, you have poisoned hundreds of innocent people, now it is your turn to experience their end. There is a deadly poison in your blood and it will stop your heart in four days. The only way that you can survive this poison is by reaching the island across the channel and retrieving the antidote to your illness. Good luck.” The bold words imparting his fate pierced his heart as if they were a sword.

John immediately went into a panic, not knowing what he could possibly do to create some kind of flotation device in order to survive the journey to the island to get his antidote. He was determined to get the antidote and get back to his family, and immediately began to look for usable materials. He found a well outside the house and pumped up enough water to fill a bottle that he had found inside the house. Then, exhausted from his ordeal, he fell asleep under a tree while preparing in his mind how to survive.

The next day, John got up and started out into the woods. He found the trip to be going fairly easy until he tripped on a hidden root and fell down a hill, which was caused by his lack of perception of his surroundings. When he got up he could not walk on his left foot, and needed to support it with strips of cloth that he had torn from his pants before he could continue. After about an hour of rest, John decided that he had to get back up and continue his journey. He slowly started to notice a constant numbness in his left foot, by looking at his watch, he assumed that it was the effects of the poison starting to set in. By the end of the night, he had found enough food and a source of water to set up a small camp. He lit a fire with the magnesium and heard a faint howling as he went to sleep.

In the morning, John continued his travels and began to feel a cool breeze coming up off of what could possibly be the ocean. By the time that he reached a high point where he could see over the trees, John had lost feeling in his entire left leg and right foot. He climbed back down the mountain and decided that he would reach the water by nightfall. As he approached the edge of the island, he set up another camp where he could stay to make a raft that would allow him to cross the channel.

After his camp was set up, he began to eat a late lunch. He thought of materials he could find and use to make a raft that would allow him to cross the water. For the remaining time before dark, John began to cut down trees and construct a raft. He then gathered vines to tie the wood together. Just as it was getting dark, he was able to bring the raft down to the water to test its ability to float. He was excited to see that it floated well and was hopeful that his raft would succeed in carrying him across the channel. He carried the raft back up to his camp and started a fire so that he could still stay warm and have some light after sundown. He then ate some of the food that he had gathered on his way across the island. Exhausted from the day, he quickly put the rest of the food in his backpack and went to sleep.

The next morning, he woke up and all of his food was eaten by an animal and his backpack was torn and ripped. John needed to go out to hunt for more food which delayed his departure from the island and gave him much less time to spend testing his raft on the water. As the hours went by, his arms began to have a tingling sensation. Before he left his campsite to go hunting, he threw some more wood on the fire to keep it burning. Just as he had quickly gathered enough food for the day, John saw smoke rising above the trees and rushed back to his camp to find that his raft had caught on fire. He had to extinguish the flames and gather more wood to replace the burnt and destroyed logs on his raft. In the midst of these challenges, he realized that he had less than 24 hours to make it to the island and locate the antidote to heal him; John also realized that he was constantly getting weaker.

As the sun was starting to set, he finished the boat and made a paddle to get him across the channel. John carried the raft down to the channel and set off into the water. By that time, the numbness in his left leg and right foot had spread into his hands and forearms, making it hard for him to paddle across the water. The sun was starting to get lower in the sky and he realized that he had very little time to ensure his survival. He began to see the second island in the distance and started to regain his energy and paddle harder to get there as fast as possible. His arms started to give up on him when he was within a half mile of the shore. He stopped to rest for a few minutes, but had to start paddling again because of the quickly darkening sky.

By the time he was within wading distance of the island, he was both mentally and physically exhausted. He tried to ignore the pain and numbness that was caused by the poison in his blood; however, out of shear exhaustion, he was starting to give up on his hope of survival. He began accepting the idea that he would not make it home to see his family again. He then anchored the raft with a rock that was tied to one of the vines. He began to take off his heavier clothing so that he would not be held down while he was swimming to shore, and then jumped in the water.

He started to swim to the shore, but the distance was much greater than he had expected. When he finally reached the shore, he collapsed out of exhaustion. The sun was almost below the horizon and it was hard for John to see in the wooded area of the forest. He decided to make a torch that would allow him to search for what he needed to survive. As he was searching for anything that would guide him on his path to finding the antidote, he found a box in the sand. He opened up the box and inside was a folded piece of paper. John unfolded the paper and read its contents aloud, “The antidote to your sickness is in the back pocket of your coat.”

John realized his mistake in leaving the clothes aboard his boat and had to swim back out to get it before the end of the hour. He was going to accept death and lie there, but he remembered his family and how much he loved them, which motivated him to get back up. He ran back to the shore and began to swim back to the raft. He had covered about half of the distance when he began to find it hard to breathe. His lungs started to burn with every breath and he could not feel any of his body except his chest.

By the time that John reached his raft, he could not see anything except the outline of his coat. He picked it up and started to search the pockets and felt something in the back of the coat. He ripped open the pocket. The small glass tube with the liquid inside flew out of the pocket and the cap broke off when it hit the wood surface of the raft. John was able to pick it up before it lost more than a drop of the fluid. The last thing that John thought about was his daughter, waiting for him to come home. He drank it and began to paddle his boat back to shore but could not make it and passed out, falling into the water.

When he woke up, there were men that appeared to be doctors looking down at John. When he asked them where he was and how he got there they said, “We saw the smoke from your fire two days ago. We assumed that it was somebody trying to alert us that they needed help, so we sent out another helicopter to rescue anyone on the island. When our team got to the island, there was nobody there so they checked a neighboring island with a raft in the water near it and they found you. You were then brought back to the hospital on the island of Fiji.” John asked the man, “Has anyone called looking for me?” The doctor said, “No, we have not received any calls on your behalf, but if you would like to try to contact a family member we will allow you to do so.” John tried to call his wife, but nobody answered since they were moved to a safer area to be protected from the public. Confused and distraught, John began to panic. He wondered, “What has happened to my family? Have they been killed by enraged protestors? Were they kidnapped?”

John eventually got back to his home city and was informed that his family had been moved to protective housing for their safety. The enormous weight on his heart had been lifted so quickly and completely, it was as if it was a feather. He was so grateful to hear that his family was safe. After a short time, John was able to be with his family again. The person who put John on the island never confessed and there was not enough evidence to discover who that person was, so he still remains free today. John would never forget his experiences and from that time on he was always more careful when doing his research and making sure that a medicine was more thoroughly tested to reveal any potentially serious side effects.