Survivor - Dead or Alive?

My eyes crept open to beautiful ocean with bathtub warm water and a beach with sugary sand. The air was sultry and sicky, I could almost feel the presence of salt in the air.  What was I here for? I don’t remember coming here?
As I tried to get up off the edge of the beach where the tiny grains of sand met the crystal clear water something hit me. Everything wasn't alright. It hit me like a bus.  I, Alex Graham was stranded, thousands of miles away from the nearest soul on this tiny island, desolate island. My legs had scape wounds on them. I don’t remember doing anything to get scraped up like that? The only thing I recalled was paddling my way to a gorgeous coral reef a couple miles off the coast of Florida. My eyelids were beginning to feel enormous as they slid closed like  . I could feel myself falling back asleep putting all of my worries behind me.

July 7, 2017

The water swished around my feet creating a small wake across the still water as the scorching hot sun came up. I slowly made my way across the flat of still water that surrounded a tiny island I was stranded on. Alone.
Fish glided through the water with ease as I hunted. I was hungry. So hungry. So much life was thriving on this tiny piece of land, but I could not find one small particle of energy to discover anything to help cure my hunger. I waded through the tropical water and made my way to the beach. I stepped on to the blistering hot sand and immediately felt my feet sizzling on top of the grains of sand.  Then the word sprung into my mind.
Shelter.
The first thing I needed to do was create a shelter to get myself out of the elements because harsh weather was usually the first thing that took it’s stranded victims.

I dragged myself into the lush greenery of the island to try to find two parallel trees.  My plan was to fit a bigger stick through the middle of the two trees and lean slightly smaller sticks on both sides of the big stick, I put through the two trees. I would then fit non-sturdy sticks  like branches  in between as the “ribs” that would fill the gaps. To insulate the shelter I’d take huge jungle leaves and weave them around the sticks on both sides.  In a jungle with so many trees and leaves it would not normally be hard to complete the task of finding leaves and branches. When under survival instinct and hunger, it’s a totally different story.

July 8th, 2017

My whole body is soaked when I wake up. Last night ominous clods had rolled in as I constructed my makeshift shelter and it soon started to rain as I tried to fall asleep. I guess the leaves had not kept the water out from getting inside and falling on me. I needed to find food and water. My stomach had been lurching and growling since I woke up today. I could feel my blood solidifying into a syrupy content and my throat was so, so parched.  It became apparent to me the only food I would find was probably at the beach. The weather didn’t look to be letting up, in fact it seemed to be getting worse. The grim, shadowy clouds were not letting up anytime soon. I’d have to risk going out of shelter to find food. I was determined to find anything to eat at all.

One time in highschool I remembered reading a book about survival for a book report we had to complete in class. The guy that was surviving was in the same situation as me. The character in the book  built a rock arch in a upside down ‘V’ shape on the beach. When the tide was high, crustaceans and small fish would swim down into the rock. When the tide was low, the fish couldn’t swim back ot so they were trapped until he got there. This might work! I felt the damp, moist sand under my feet as I made my way out of the lush green jungle to find rocks. I remembered seeing some smaller rocks along the beach when I got here but I didn’t know if they were big enough to do the job. I’d have to try anyways. The main problem I’d have to overcome was going to be hunger and the weather if I had any tiny chance of living on this desolate island.

. The sound of me dropping rocks in a pattern as my hunger overcomes me. It is low-tide right now so I set the rocks about 10 yards from where the water meets the sand. I give all my effort in trying to make the best trap possible. If this works I could have one meal everyday giving me the amount of energy I desperately need to overcome the problem of my other living conditions. If this doesn’t work, I'll just have to wait another day for the high tide to come back as my second plan.  Hopefully I have back some energy after high tide comes back, i've depleted most of it from setting up those rocks and building my shelter last night.
The wind howls as the jungle of trees creak side to side in a eerie motion. The sky is dark charcoal black seeming to be inviting me to my death.  The beach is covered in fallen sticks and debri from the harsh tropical winds blowing sounding like a constant whisper of death in my ear.. Waves crashed onto the beach in a repetitive motion sounding like small trees hitting the ground over and over again.  The weather is now getting worse and worse as there is nothing I can do but wait it out. My shelter is not in optimal condition, if the storm wears on, it can’t stand the harsh wind and the branches that keep plummeting from the tall palm trees to my shelter. All I can do is sit in my lonely shelter and wait for the next morning's light to appear so I can check my trap for food. I was trapped in, feeling like a zoo animal all caged up.

July 9th, 2017

Sticks on top of sticks were laying on me when I wake up. Wet leaves surrounded my cold body as I tried to get up from all the sticks piled on top of me. It was just beginning to get light out. My head was throbbing and all I wanted to do was sleep. High tide had come and gone already. It was time to check my fish trap. I walk out to the beach and immediately a look of despair comes overcomes my face. The rocks hadn’t stood in their position and were now lying spread out within the vicinity of when I set it up. The storm’s immense waves had knocked down the rocks and now what had been trapped was gone by now. However when I looked down the beach, I could see tiny little specks of stuff that had washed up from the current and waves last night. I managed to slowly creep towards those specks until I could identify what they were. Maybe one was a plane ticket out of here! Haha I need to get serious. One of the objects was easy to make out from a distance. It was a raggedy tarp half buried in wet sand. Could this help me build a solid shelter or lead me to another dead end?

I set up the same main log that had been between the two trees let the tarp drape down across the branch. I poked sticks through the small metal loopholes and into the ground to secure the tarp. Shelter was established. Now I needed to find food and water. There was nothing for me to do. I tried to think of any other possible way to find the energy I needed to live. I was beginning to feel nauseous. I found myself laying down in my shelter on the wet sand. Time was running out. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. I dream of a better place with tables flourishing with food and happy people gleaming with smiles on their faces. They seem to be like a family, discussing how their days went as they happily eat. Thunder rumbles so loud it wakes me from my deep sleep. CRACK! Lightning splits a palm tree in half not far at all from me. I wake up to reality. Nothing is alright, there is no food, no family, no happiness. I am woken from my deep sleep into reality. I am done for. Even with my efforts to survive, I could not become self reliant. My arms feel like jello as the same for my legs. I begin to feel dizzy and want to fall back asleep. My vision is becoming fuzzy and a blur. Is this how it ends? I feel myself falling back asleep. My problems fall away as I see blackness overcome me. Memories flood my brain, I see myself enjoying Christmas day with my family around the tree, going to a beach with my friends and walking the pier on a bright sunny day. Thoughts of friends and good times played back almost as a movie through my head. Soon everything fades away as my thoughts become more distant and distant and I go into a deep deep sleep.