text: See the pinned comment for links to the full serial \ As I lay on the ground exhausted, sleep came and went. The need to move wrestled with fatigue and relief at dry land, until I woke up trembling. Icy spasms ran down my spine, spots where the cold gripped the muscles and tried to burrow into the bone, my body fighting back in shivers. It was a battle I was quickly losing. The island didn’t guarantee survival. Water, heat, food. Without those three I wouldn’t make it. I pulled myself up, and stripped down to my underwear. A westerly breeze, cooled by the night seas, ran across the beach. It scratched at my nipples, nose, elbows - stabbing anything remotely exposed, as though it intended to sand me down like a piece of wood. Still, I was better off exposed to the air than being surrounded by the sea in my clothes. Next, water. Looking around me, the island was small. It was maybe only a kilometre across by a few hundred metres wide. Too small for any chance of finding a freshwater source. However, the good news was last night’s storm had left the island drenched. I headed towards the thicket that covered the centre of the island. The web of trunks and bushes cut off the breeze, and my skin gave thanks for the protection. Inside, water covered the ground. Large puddles filled every dip in the woodland floor, and my trek meant keeping to thin inlets of land between the ponds. The water was plentiful. It was also brown. Clumps of dirt floated along its surface, and the borders of each pond had turned to a dun clay as insects hovered above the surface. Thye water was plentiful, it would also kill me. Further into the forest, trees and bushes competed for the most protected space. Soon, every step meant pushing past various branches and fronds that tickled or scratched at my skin, until I reached a clearing where a large bush took advantage of a gap in the canopy. Its huge leaves were each the size of my torso and grew out from the stem in a frilled circle, the end rising in a curve. My lips were sticking with hope and hypotheses as I walked towards the plant. I was in luck. Each leaf had acted like a basin, capturing the night’s downpour. Any that had been able to hold the weight were filled with perfect clear water, the shimmering green below the surface made all the brighter by the sun’s refracted light. I closed my eyes as a dry gasp of relief left my chest. I bent down, and, clasping the ends of the leaf, sipped at the water. I gulped the thin pool, sucking until all I could taste was a rough waxy surface. Leaf by leaf, I worked my way around the plant, quenching my thirst. As I bent down at the last one I looked up. Fifty or so metres away, sunlight broke through the trees, and in the halo of light, I could see another one of the plants. No doubt it too would be full of clean rain water. Water was found. I was rehydrating as my core burnt off the damp seas from my skin. Till now, my walk through the forest had been a haze, but now my synapses were beginning to lubricate and thaw, as the minutiae of my surroundings became clear. The sound of seagulls floating in the sky above, the way the light pierced through gaps between the leaves, and the strange smell of smoke. Smoke. On an uninhabited island in the middle of a forest. I turned to the sensation, and began tracing it like a hunting dog. The smell grew stronger, till I could hear crackling and the sound of wood popping. There was no mistaking it. Fire. Warmth. Heat. An old tree, one of the tallest in the forest but long dead, stood alone. Its leaves had fallen years ago, and the great trunk had been hollowed out, rotten and emptied through wind, rain and animals. But now, at its core, was fire. Somewhere in the storm lightning must have struck the former chestnut, and despite the rain, the strike had been enough for the centre of the trunk to catch light. I watched in awe as the holes in the trunk bled yellows and red. Gases swirled inside the bark, the wood crackling as it withered from fever. I was alone, surrounded by damp woodland, and yet here I was staring at humanity’s most important technology. It was as though Prometheus himself had taken pity on my plight. I moved closer to the heat and bathed in it, sitting down on the forest floor, as my torso and arms soak up the glow. Closing my eyes, I let the warmth cleanse me of the remaining slick seas from my skin. A blast singed the hairs on my chest, and embers floated down to land on my skin, leaving a momentary sting. I didn’t flinch. Each one felt like an anointment. Half an hour or so passed with me kneeling before the flames, until, with my body re-hydrated and dry, I could move on to more long-term survival. Who knows how long this old tree would survive. I needed to save the fire and control it. Besides, I wanted the fire near the water’s edge so Alessia - a stray \**if Alessia*\* crossed my mind, I buried it... - or another ship might more easily see me. I needed a campfire. I wrestled back through the woods towards the coast. At the edge of the treeline I began looking for kindling. I picked up what the evergreen forest offered me: damp pine needles, or waterlogged sticks. They wouldn’t light easily, but they would have to do. I built a small pile of leaves and arranged a small cone of twigs over the top. Loose and wet bark peeled away as I worked, and soon my hands were covered in sap and flecks. Still, after adding another layer of larger twigs on top, I had what felt like a good base. Back in the forest, I tried to recall the route back to the burning tree, following my nose and ears. Upon arrival I noticed the fire was already beginning to diminish. The top of the trunk was charred black as the tree peeled away one lick of flame at a time. Settled among the dirt, I found a good branch. Long enough to last the walk through the forest, thick enough not to break. I brushed off as much of the caked-on mud and dirt as I could, then thrust the end into the fire, watching the yellow flames flicker around the makeshift torch. I waited for the branch to catch alight. Seconds ticked by, the tree slowly withering. I thought I saw a flame and withdrew, but it was merely an illusion. Still, the wet flakes of wood at the end had peeled away, exposing the porous, and hopefully more flammable, parts beneath. The branch returned to the fire. I stood as close as I could as the flames continued to lick at my skin. The sensation that had felt like heaven was now beginning to burn, my skin telling me to step away rather than towards the heat. But I ignored the instruction. My eyes remained fixed on the branch, waiting, pleading. I gritted my teeth and poured my mental energy into the stick, demanding it light. A flame. I pulled out my torch. A grin grew across my face as I watched the small candle dance. This delicate flame would save me. Treading carefully, I trekked back past the trees and out into the open. A gust blew along the beach, and the flame waivered. My chest seized, as the flame struggled, before glowing once more. I reached up a hand and tried to cup my fingers around it. The beat of the fire steady once more, I walked over to my campfire, gently lowered myself to the ground and leaned the flame towards the kindling. I watched as leaves curled to the heat, the moisture escaping from the surface with each lick of the torch. Then, finally, one leaf burned yellow. I gasped with joy, as the leaf crisped and folded, its atoms transformed into warmth. It rolled over to the leaf next to it, and it too caught fire. I waited for the chain reaction to continue but instead the two leaves burned bright, flickered to ash, and then extinguished. Muttering protestations and denial at the kindling, I turned back to my stick, then let out a louder curse. In the moment of elation I had completely forgotten about the torch and now it too was out. A thin wisp of smoke rose from its tip. My fists bound up into balls and I let out a long shuddered sigh. I gritted my teeth, and let all the self-pity slip from my body through the tensed muscles. Then, I picked up the torch, and returned to the forest, just like I had to. I had no matches, no oil, no flint, no lighters. I knew vague concepts about how to make fire with just wood, something about rubbing two branches together, but the mechanics were a mystery, and I would be long dead before I fathomed them out. This fire, the tree, had to work. As I stood next to the tree, waiting for the branch to be relit, I thought about how little I knew. People could make salt water drinkable, but I had no idea how. I couldn’t create a drinking flask or cup to carry any drinkable water anyhow. I didn’t know how to hunt, or how to fashion tools to hunt with. I didn’t know how to make bricks for a home or how to use wood to build a shelter. I was alone, and all the information, all the knowledge that comes from others was lost to me. The branch caught light again. This time I tilted the stick down, allowing the flame to creep up the wood, giving it more fuel. I pushed my way out of the forest as fast as I dared, returned to the campfire and placed the torch by the pyre again. This time I didn’t relent, I kept the branch close to the kindling forcing every pine needle and every leaf to be overcome by the rising temperature. The fire spread. Leaves passed on the heat to twigs, who in turn passed it onto sticks. The campfire was beginning. I stretched out my arms in triumph, and tilted my head to the sky. My thirst quenched and a steady fire going, I would survive my first day here. Then I remembered I was still completely alone. Out to sea, on the horizon I could see some of the other Anmanion isles, thin lines of land poking up from the flat waters. But there were no boats and no rescuers. I wondered how long it would take for Alessia to find me. Would she find me? I remembered how I watched her be pushed into the ocean from a falling mast. I didn’t see her resurface. She had to be alive. She had to be okay. She \*had\* to be. I wouldn’t accept any other option. I realised then that my desperation for Alessia had nothing to do with her coming to rescue me. I would live as long as I could until I was rescued or I perished. But I didn’t want to be part of an Archipelago without her. The emotion ran so much deeper than my own safety. With a good rhythm of crackling wood; smoke and embers drifting up into the sky, I could relax at least until the fire needed more fuel. This would be my spot. This patch of stony beach where I would wait for rescue. “I’m here, Alessia,” I muttered to the sea. “Wherever you are, I will wait for you.” \ See the pinned comment for links to the full serial Publishes every Wednesday.