Marooned

 The hot sun blazed from above my head, glaring down at me. Sweat was beading on my forehead while I sat on the scorching hot sand. As a drop landed on my lap, soaking into the makeshift fabric of my clothes, I came to a decision.

Looking up at Misha, I could see her towering over me from her position on the large rock. “Hey, I think that’s enough.” I called out to her.

“Enough for today? Yeah, I think so as well. I can’t see anything, and this sun is beginning to make me feel dizzy.” My friend sighed to herself, and stood up to come down to where I stood. “We can’t exactly risk getting sick, anyways—”

“No. I mean that I don’t think this is going to work.”

Misha’s ramble came to an abrupt halt, as she looked down at me from where she was standing. “What? Are you saying we should just give up?” She said slowly, glaring at me with a challenging look in her eyes.

I could feel the frustration building as the gravity of the situation made itself clear. It wasn’t like I wasn’t already aware of it; but somehow, acknowledging the hopelessness just made everything seem even more concrete.

“It’s not ‘giving up’. It’s just accepting reality” I huffed as I waved my hands around in a vague gesture. “Don’t you understand? We’re stuck. We’re marooned on an island, with no way to escape, and no magical cliché ship that just happens to pass by and save us. This isn’t a movie.”

Misha was silent for a moment, her green eyes glittering with some unknown emotion. I could see the cogs whirring in her brain. I’m sure she understood what was going on, but she had always been more hopeful than me. More naive.

“It’s not all terrible here. We have a makeshift hut, there are plenty of trees to gather fruits and vegetables from.” I turned around and gestured at the trees surrounding the beach we were sitting on. “We can cook with a fire, and eat fish or the local wildlife if we want some meat. The predators here aren’t too dangerous thanks to the traps we set up. It’s not that bad, honestly.”

Even with my convincing words, I could see that I wasn’t able to sway my friend. She wasn’t willing to accept the truth, but that would only make her unhappy in the long term while she stayed here. I cared for her, which meant that I didn’t want to see her spirit die as she slowly realized that there was no help coming for us. It was better to get it over with quickly.

“That day in the storm, when our sail boat sank,” Misha slowly began, her tone becoming more confident with every word she spoke. “I knew I wasn’t going to accept my death, and neither were you. That’s why we’re still alive here, on this island. No disastrous vacation is going to kill us off.”

“Yeah, and-” I interrupted, trying to show her my point of view, even though I knew it was futile.

“That’s why I’m not going to accept our fate.” She continued over my words, making me grumble in annoyance. With a hard look and clenched fists, she looked me in my eyes as she spoke. “If I agree that we’re going to have to live like this for the rest of our lives, away from our family and friends, it will be like a second death.”

There was a moment of silence between us, no sound but those of the tropical birds and chirping insects. It felt almost like a stand-off, like from the cowboy shows we used to watch in our dorm in college.

Finally, I caved and spoke first, reluctantly. “It’s not like I like it either.” I grumbled, tearing my eyes away from our glaring match as I stared down at my bare feet on the sand. “But you have to admit, we’ve been sitting here every single day for hours. It’s been months now, and no help has come.”

As I looked back up at Misha, I saw that she wasn’t looking at me, but instead at the ocean. All the sympathetic feelings that had been rising were crushed by this show of nonchalance at my admission.

“What makes you think that this will do anything?” I bit out in a scathing tone. “Just give up. At least enjoy the island, think of it as a tropical vacation or something, I don’t care.”

There was no reaction to my words. It seemed like she had tuned me out. I let out an explosive sigh, and decided to go back to the hut we called home. It was better than being ignored, anyways.

As my sand-coated feet walked away, I finally heard a noise from the silent girl on the rock. Turning around with a withering look on my face, ready to chew her out for ignoring me, I stopped in my tracks.

“Well,” Misha began, a triumphant look in her eyes. “It seems like the waiting was worth it. Guess what I see right now, at sea, coming right at us?”

The sound of a ship's horn rung between us.