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“I can’t believe you’re okay. You disappeared. We tried to get a message through, and then we were put off by the storms. We thought you’d gone, but then once the storm cleared up, I managed to persuade them to send us out here to explore. I’m sorry we couldn’t come sooner, it took a lot of persuading on my part,” Bobby said. He looked so happy to see me. I glanced back at the brothers, who came up and shook Bobby’s hand. I remembered how they had been less than complimentary to him. Bobby instantly bristled with tension, but the twins did everything they could to defuse the situation.
“Thanks for coming to find us Bobby,” Thomas said.
“Yeah, you don’t know what we’ve been through, being stuck on this island with Amber,” William added. I glared at him, and nudged him playfully. It did the job of breaking the ice and Bobby laughed too. We let go of each other and I moved closer to the twins, wondering if Bobby could sense the attraction between the three of us.
“Where are the others?” he asked. Our heads hung.
“Daniel and Duncan never made it off the plane. Vincent was killed by a wild boar. It’s a miracle that the three of us are alive,” I said.
“But you are. You made it here Amber, you did what you’ve always wanted. You must be so proud! So…have you found anything?” he asked.
I looked at the others. “That’s…that’s kind of a long story,” I said. “I think we should take a walk.” Bobby looked at me strangely. The other two seemed a little worried, but I gave them a reassuring glance, knowing they could trust me to not betray their secret. Bobby mentioned that he had brought food and water with him, and changes of clothes for all of us. The pilot emerged and the brothers went up to the plane, giving me and Bobby a chance to talk. I led him up the beach and into the jungle, to the place where my parents had last been seen. I wanted to show him that they had made it out of the crash alive and had died with each other. I had spoken about it with him so much that I wanted him to know, I wanted him to know this before I broke his heart.
“I don’t know why, but they look so sad,” Bobby said as we looked upon the bones.
“They do, but I think maybe we’re just protecting. I imagine they were sad because they weren’t able to get word to me. They must have felt so guilty about leaving me behind.”
“They’d be proud of you now, looking at the woman you’ve turned into,” he said, his words brimming with adoration. I wanted to tell him all about the island, but I also wanted to tell him the truth before he did anything rash like kiss me. I inhaled deeply and turned to him, telling him that I had something to tell him. The funny thing was that he said the same thing simultaneously.
“Why don’t you go first?” I said.
Bobby ran his hands through his hand. “I’m really sorry to have to do this because I know this must have been hell for you being stranded on this island, not knowing if you were ever going to be able to get away, but the thing is it wasn’t easy for any of us at home either. We were all so worried about you and we stayed up all night trying to figure out what happened. Dani and I we…well, we spent so much time together that something just, I mean, I feel so bad Amber, and I hate to say this but the reason we became so close was because of you.”
I smiled, immediately alleviating the tension he felt. He looked at me, confused.
/> “I’m happy for you Bobby, really I am. The thing is, I found myself involved during my time here and I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”
“I guess maybe we weren’t really meant to be together if we fell in love with other people so easily,” he said.
“I guess not, but maybe in another life we would have had some fun together. Maybe it’s better that for now we’re just friends, after all, I’m going to need a lot of help to map and explore this island, and I definitely want you and Dani to be a part of my team.”
“Do you mean it? Don’t you want people with more experience?” he asked.
“You know what, I’ve been thinking about it and the only way to get experience is to actually do these things, and to be honest nobody has experience with the things I’ve found on this island.”
He sensed my excitement and his eyes gleamed brightly. “Tell me,” he said, and thankfully the awkwardness I feared had only lasted a few moments. We quickly fell into a rhythm of talking about our shared passion, and I was glad that I would be able to keep him as a friend.
“You’re not going to believe this, but there is an ancient civilization that lived on this island, and they’re dragons,” I said. Bobby looked at me blankly.
“Okay, are there like, toxic fumes on this island, because that’s just the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“No, I’m being serious, and I can’t prove it to you right now because we don’t have the time to explore the island, but dragons are real, and they lived here. This is going to be one of the biggest discoveries ever made and I can’t wait to share it with the world. All this time people have been calling this place a myth, saying that it’s nothing more than a hunk of rock and anyone who has been interested in it has just been filled with dreams. I’ve proved that it isn’t, and once we get proper analytical equipment on the island we can figure out how old this place really is, and learn more about the dragons that lived here. All our equipment got lost in the crash.”
“It seems like the three of you have been busy. You must have done a lot of exploring to learn about all of this without any equipment.”
“Well, there wasn’t much else to do with our time, plus you know me, I’m a natural at these things,” I said, flashing him a smile. I wanted to dodge the question of how I learned all this for the time being, needed to discuss with Thomas and William the intricacies of our lie, how we were going to cover up their true natures while still revealing the truth about dragons.
“How is Dani, and everyone else?” I asked.
“They’re good, and Dani was in tears when we didn’t hear from you. There was something interesting that happened actually, I almost forgot to tell you in all the excitement. A couple of days after you left, a very angry man went into the Professor’s office and I heard yelling. He didn’t seem too happy that the expedition had been approved. The Professor told him that funding had been secured, and he was actually irate. He demanded that it be called back, but we told him that it was too late now, and that he didn’t have any right to make such a declaration anyway. I don’t know why he was so opposed to you coming here.”
I immediately realized that was how Thomas and William’s uncle knew that they had come here and that we were alone on this island. He no doubt thought that he could simply come here, kill us, and keep the secret of his people intact.
“I suppose maybe some people just don’t want the truth to come out. They like the world to stay as it is.”
“Well, it seems as though you’ve gotten what you wanted. Shall we get off this island for the time being? Do you want to bring their remains with us?” he said, looking down at the bodies of my parents.
A wave of sorrow came over me. It would have been nice to bring them back and have a proper funeral for them, and to see them vindicated by their peers, but when I looked at them, I didn’t see two people who needed any vindication. I saw a couple who spent their last moments together, two people who died in the arms of the person they loved. They had lived their lives to the fullest and had stepped foot on a place nobody had been before. They had inspired me to follow in their footsteps, and although they had died far earlier than any of us would have liked, they at least died happy.
