Chapter 1
The flames from the fire had been reduced to a few sparkling cinders within a pile of ash and charcoal. The calm ocean waves were climbing higher and higher up the shore, just barely reaching the edge of the fire, emitting a small hiss each time they met. The boy tending the fire was now occupied with other things. In the dwindling sunlight, he was determined to use it all to his advantage. His legs swung from the tree branch he had perched himself upon, and his hand scrawled frantically yet purposefully across a large, yellowing piece of paper. He was so involved in his work, he didn’t notice a figure appear from behind the tree line, and begin making its way towards him. Only did he lift his head up when he heard the defining sizzle of the remains of his fire being extinguished. A thick cloud of smoke released from where the fire once stood, and as it slowly rose higher into the evening sky, it revealed a young girl holding a wooden bucket in one hand, and the other hand on her hip.
“Sam,” she stated his name with a commanding sort of tone. “It’s almost dark. They’ll start to wonder where we are.” Sam stretched his arms and let out a deep breath.
“Yeah, I know. I caught so caught up in what I was doing.” He rolled up the piece of paper and tucked it away into his leather pack. Fiona rolled her eyes.
“How many maps of the island have you finished now? You really think you’re going to find something else out there?” Sam slung his pack around his shoulder and hopped from the tree branch, landing with a muffled thud in the sand.
“Well, if I stop looking, how can I ever be sure?” he grinned. Fiona let out a heavy breath and beckoned at him to follow her. The two of them had known each other all their lives. Although she was a few years older, they were the only two on the island who weren’t fully grown adults, and had been naturally drawn towards each other since childhood. Neither could remember a time where they weren’t the others closest friend, and the other inhabitants of the island could hardly recall any specific time where the two of them weren’t seen together. As they reached the tree line and began on the thickly wooded path to the village, Sam unrolled his partially finished map and tried to study it with what little light remained. He’d always had an immense natural curiosity, something which had gotten him into countless situations of trouble. As the one with a more rational level of judgement, Fiona felt as though she had a responsibility to Sam to keep him out of trouble. However, there were occasionally times where the two of them had to work on separate parts of the island for sometimes a week at a time. This was usually when Sam found himself in the worst trouble, since he had no one to anchor himself to.
The sun was completely set by the time they reached the village. Torches illuminated the clearing’s perimeter, casting dancing shadows on the locals as they closed up the market for the night. A line had already began to form at the far end of the village near the trees.
“Quickly,” Fiona said, pulling on Sam’s sleeve. “I don’t want to wait forever.” They picked up the pace as they passed through the town center towards the other side. Sam reached into his bag and pulled out a thin, but sturdy rectangle of wood. It was worn, with many bumps and notches in it, as if it had been used for many different purposes. A small hole had been made in the corner of the wood, just large enough for a strip of leather to be threaded through and tied as a sort of strap. Fiona had pulled one of her own out as well. As they stepped in line, the man in front of them glanced up at them. When he recognized who it was, a grin spread across his face.
“Well, look who it is. We were wonderin’ if you were gonna make it back today. Thought it’d be the day you’d finally take off. You really think there’s anything out there?” Sam looked up at him with an attempted smile that turned out to be more of a grimace, but Fiona just scowled.
“Yeah, we get it Clyde, worry about yourself,” she shot at him. The man chuckled some more and turned to face forwards. “You know, you’ve really built a reputation for yourself,” she whispered, so that only Sam could hear her. “Everyone’s just waiting for the day you’re actually stupid enough to do it.” Sam had no physical reaction to her lecture. All his life, he’d combed across every inch of land on the island, searching for something new to discover. He knew he had found it all ages ago, but he still charted maps in his free time with the slightest hope that there was something he’d miss, regardless of what it was. The only other option of exploration he could see was the ocean. Every since he could remember, everyone had told him that there was nothing out there but ocean. When he and Fiona were younger, some of the villagers had to them stories of people who had attempted to brave the dangerous waters, but had only had their boats crushed by raging storms that washed up on the beach days later. Sam knew that the dangers of the sea were very real, he’d seen typhoons that had swept across the island, causing nothing but destruction in their path. However, what he didn’t understand was how anyone could be so certain that there was nothing else out there, when nobody had actually made it far enough to know. Many of the village inhabitants knew of Sam’s plan, as he didn’t always know how to keep his mouth shut. Because of this, Sam was no longer allowed to work down in the bay where the fishing boats were kept. Sam was torn from his thought by Fiona, who elbowed him hard in the back.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed.
“You’re up,” she said, impatiently. He looked forward to see that there was no one left in line before him. A man behind a wooden counter glared at him, and gave Sam a feeling that he’d been waiting for a while. Sam grasped his wooden block in his hand and placed it onto the table. The man lifted the block inspected it for a brief moment, looked back at Sam, and back at the block again. Raising his other hand, the man used a paint brush to mark the block, adding to the many marks of paint that already covered the block. The marks formed a loose grid shape across the wood.
“Next,” the man said, expressionless. Sam moved forward towards the path out of the village to his hut where he slept. He stopped at the edge to wait for Fiona, and glanced around the village one last time. Everyone had now either left the village, or they were one of the few left in line to turn in their blocks. As his eyes swept across the wooden huts littering the village, his eyes laid to rest on what he knew they eventually would. Tucked away in a corner of the village were a pair of large metal doors in the side of a hill. They intrigued him for a few reasons. First, the fact that they were the only structure on the island made of metal was fascinating to him, since it was such a rare resource. He was surprised they didn’t use it for tools, like the majority of it was. Secondly and most importantly, it was the only place on the island he had never visited. Ever since he had learned about it, he had tried to convince someone to let him in, and even attempted a break-in, but had only been unsuccessful. Fiona was walking towards him now, her expression told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Don’t even think about it.” She said as she walked past him towards the path. Sam rolled his eyes and took one last look at the doors before he followed her.
“Yes, ma’am”.
Chapter 2
A resonating crash awoke Sam with a start. He lifted his head off his straw pillow and gazed out the window of his hut. The sky was clear, and the moon sparkled off the sand far down the beach. He peered down the banks as far as he could in the dim light, but there was no sign of anything that would have caused such a sound. It had felt as if the entire island had been shaken by whatever caused such a disruption. Sam heard the flap of his hut being ripped open and instinctively jumped to his feet, ready for anything. Once he had turned, however, he realized it was just Fiona. She looked as though she had just jumped out of bed and raced across the beach to him as fast as she could, which was likely the case.
“Easy with that,” she said to him, through her heavy breaths of air. She reached over to his hand and took the knife from it. Sam looked down at his hands, stunned. He didn’t even remember snatching it off the bedside table. “You heard all the sounds outside, right?” She asked, stowing the knife into her back pocket. “There must be something awful happening down by the village. I heard people scream.”
“I just woke up,” Sam replied, still dazed. “I only heard one explosion though. Were there more?”
“I heard at least three on my way over to here. C’mon, we have to go, people might be hurt. Grab your bag.”
“Uh, right,” Sam’s head whipped frantically around the room, his eyes searching for the green supply bag amidst the clutter. He noticed the straps hanging out beneath a half-finished map he’d been charting the day before. “Alright, let’s go,” he said, and slung the pack over his shoulders. “Right behind you.”
The path through the jungle to the village was only about ten minutes with the light from the sun to guide you, but the night made it much more difficult, especially when the canopies of the forest blotted out what little luminescence they had at their disposal. The two of them would’ve had a hard enough time if this had been a leisurely stroll, but their current attempts to barrel down the winding path towards the sounds of machinery weren’t getting them their much quicker. Sam felt his foot snag on an overgrown root and he fell into the dirt, hard.
“Dammit, hang on,” he heard Fiona say. Sam wiped the dirt from his face and picked himself up off the cool ground. Fiona was rummaging frantically through her bag, until he heard her pull what sounded like a stick from inside. He heard the distinct scraping of flint against stone, until the jungle suddenly lit up in a dazzle of orange and red. Fiona lifted her torch high above her head as she flung her bag back around her shoulder. “We’re getting there,” she said, and began tearing down the now illuminated path again, with Sam close on her heels. As they got closer, a light began to emit from the distance, burning bright and hot as the torch in Fiona’s clutched hand. “Oh no,” Sam exhaled under his breath. Soon, jungle began to clear, and the pair burst out from the edge of the forest into an chaotic spectacle of fire. Homes and stables were engulfed in flames that spanned many meters high, and the heat from them was almost unbearable. If there were people here before, they had either fled or had been devoured by the flames. Sam wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there when Fiona grabbed him by the sleeve.
“Come, we have to find them!” She pulled him towards the center of the village. Sam couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The village where he was born, where he had been raised and where he worked all his life, was gone. The shock was too much for him to do anything more than stare wide-eyed at his surroundings.
They suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Sam turned his head forward towards their direction for the first time and saw that they had come to a stop in front of the large metal doors that protruded from the hillside. Sam had never been allowed inside.
“When you’re older, then you can see,” they used to tell him, when begged those who went in and out just for a peek on the inside. Now, the heavy metal doors gaped open, with one hinge ripped clean off.
“Whatever caused this,” Fiona began.
“It must have come from in here,” Sam finished her sentence before she could. Sam was suddenly flooded with the same feelings of immense curiosity that he once felt when he was younger. This was his chance to find out what was inside, his childhood wonders we’re returning to him at the most pivotal moment of his life. He was going to find out what did this to his home. Sam tore himself from Fiona’s grasp and raced through the doors without a moment of hesitation. He heard her calling at him to wait, but he was already inside. There was no turning back for him now. Not when he was this close. The room led to a massive flight of stairs downwards, which he took three at a time until he reached the bottom. He found himself in front of another door here. This one was open as well, however it did not show any signs of force as the other had. Sam reached out a hand and swung the heavy door fully open. The room was filled with things he’d never seen before. A large, metal table was placed in the center of the room, with piles and piles of stacked papers scattered across it. Atop some of the piles sat what looked like a folder, but it stood open with one side flat on the table and the other straight up at a 90-degree angle. There were blinking lights on one side of it, and a cluster of buttons on the other. Sam was fascinated, but there was plenty more in the room to address before he could focus on one thing. There were many foreign objects in this room, but one thing suddenly caught his attention that drew him away from everything else. On the wall, there was a map. Sam had seen many maps of the island before, he’d even made some of his own. This map, however, was clearly not of the island. Sam had seen countless maps of the island, he knew exactly what the perimeter was shaped like. This map was much, much larger, and showed many pieces of land Sam had never seen before. In fact, Sam had never even heard of a piece of land that wasn’t his island. The map showed land covered in white, orange, and red. Not just the green that he was so accustomed to. His eye suddenly came across something that someone had scribbled over the map. It wasn’t much, just a small circle in red marker, and Sam pulled himself in closer to see what it was. Battling against the dim light that illuminated the room, he managed to make out the outline of his island within the sea of blue. Sam stood frozen to the spot. The map showed land. Much, much more land than his little island. But how was that possible? All his life, he had been told that there was nothing else in this world other than this island and the endless sea. Could this be true? Could it all have been a lie? But for what? The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs behind him reminded him that Fiona was still coming. He turned to the door, prepared to show her his impossible discovery. As the door swung open however, he realized that it wasn’t Fiona. Two tall, hooded men rushed towards him before he could make a move. In the blink of an eye he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck, and a woven bag pulled over his eyes. He was unconscious in seconds.
Chapter 3
Sam’s eyes fluttered open. He was lying face up in bed. But it wasn’t his bed. The room he was in was completely white. There was a large window on the wall covered by a soft, blue curtain. Light was leaking around the curtain, which fluttered ever so slightly from the breeze coming through. The sounds coming in through the cracked window were completely foreign to Sam. There was a constant hum of noise emitting from the window, with multiple layers of sounds on top of that. Sam was so entranced in listening to what was outside that he jumped nearly a foot out of his bed when he heard the door open. He turned to look at who had entered. It was Fiona. Only she didn’t look like she ever had before. She was very clean, and her hair was tied up in a bun. Instead of her leather clothes and boots that she’d worn for years, she was wearing a white coat that fell down to her knees, with a blue shirt underneath. She was holding a thin piece of wood supporting some papers. Her expression was stern as ever, but there was a hint of sorrow in her eyes. They stared at each other in silence for a while.
“Hello, Sam,” she finally spoke. More silence. Finally he was able to bring himself to say something.
“Fiona,” his voice was weak, he was still groggy from whatever they had given him to knock him out. “Where am I?” Fiona closed her eyes and took a deep, long breath. She walked to the far side of the room, where the window was. One by one, she pushed each curtain to the side, allowing the light to shine in with full force. Sam raised a hand to block the sun from his eyes, but he still managed to catch a glimpse through the cracks of his fingers. Swinging his legs off the edge of his bed, he slowly stood himself up. His legs felt weak and wobbly, but he had to make it to the window to confirm what he’d seen. Reaching a hand out to grab the window sill, he gazed into the outside world the get a full look. They were high up, incredibly high. Sam’s gaze traveled farther and farther down until he could see the bottom. What he saw, he couldn’t believe. There were hundreds, no, thousands of people walking in what seemed like every direction. He could hear a gentle hum of voices, even from how high he was. Initially the most striking thing was the colors he saw. There were no green trees, no blue ocean or yellow sands. Everything was coated in different shades of gray. The ground was grey, the buildings, which were bigger than anything he had ever laid eyes upon, were all different tones of gray. His gaze left the roads below and rose upwards, where the buildings height surpassed his field of view. There were huge, flashing signs covered in light on some of the buildings. Different words continuously flashed across them, giving Sam hardly enough time to read them. Sam saw words like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, which did nothing but add to his confusion.
“What am I looking at?” he managed to say.
“You saw a map, didn’t you.” Fiona replied. “On the island. In the bunker.” Sam stared at her, and nodded his head. “Well, this is it.” She gestured her hand out the window. But Sam didn’t turn to look back. Instead, he stared at her, at her clothes, her hair.
“You knew?” He said, and as he said it, he felt his stomach drop.
“Yes. I knew all along.”
“But, why didn’t anyone tell us? We could have gotten off of that island years ago? What is this place?” He took another look out the window, awestruck.
“There’s nobody else,” Fiona said hesitantly. “The island, secrets, everything. It was all for you.”
Sam lightly stumbled back onto the bed.
“But, you’ve been with me for years. We’ve been friends forever. How could you know about this and not me?”
“I haven’t lived on the island my whole life,” she explained. “When we were forced to work apart was when I’d leave the island to work. Or I was in the bunker with others working there. My father started this experiment, and I’ve agreed to help him with his experiment.”
Sam couldn’t believe what she was telling him right now. The one person in his life he thought was his friend had actually been working against him his whole life. Everything they’d experienced together, everything that made him who he was, had just been an act to her.
“What’s so special about me?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he actually wanted his question answered.
“Well, nothing really,” she answered bluntly. “You’ve been raised since birth as part of a social experiment. Me and all the inhabitants of the island, are working for an organization trying to learn about how the human brain reacts to extreme sudden change. The results in the past have been quite incredible.”
“So you’re saying that I’m not the only one whose gone through this?”
“No. Many people have. In fact, many of the island dwellers have been in your exact position in the past.” There was a brief pause. Fiona began pacing around the room. “The experiment wasn’t exactly meant to end today. There was a mechanical failure in the bunker. That fire was not intentional. We had no choice but to bring you here after what you’d seen.”
The door suddenly swung open and an unrecognizable man walked in, dressed similarly to Fiona. In his hand he held a small box with a syringe in it.
“We’ll need to monitor you for a few days, and then you’ll return to the island.” Sam suddenly snapped out of his daze.
“You think I’m going back there after all of this? I’m never going back to that horrible place, I’ll go…” his voice trailed off as his gaze returned to the window. Where would he go? A small grin appeared on the man’s face who had entered.
“You’re going back.” he said calmly. “You’re just like the others. Once they realize the truth, their initial reaction is to have no intention of ever returning. But take another look outside. What do you recognize? How much of this do you understand?” Sam kept staring at the sky, and the buildings that towered above him. It was something out of a dream. The man was right. What was this place? This wasn’t the world to him. The man continued to speak. “You have nowhere to go, no idea what to do. If you think you’d last a minute in this society coming from what you’ve experienced in life, you’re wrong.” Sam didn’t say anything. He couldn’t think of a way around what he was saying. It was true. He couldn’t survive out there. He felt Fiona’s hand touch his arm, but he did not react. He didn’t even look at her.
“We’re going to take you back to the island. You can continue the life you’ve always lived. Soon, there will be someone to take your place on the island. A new subject for the experiment.” Sam did not react. Fiona sighed and looked over at the man, who was opening the box. He took the syringe out and inserted it into a small vial. Fiona turned back to Sam. “I’m sorry,” she said. The man walked forward and Fiona stepped aside to let him pass. Sam did not fight back as the man wiped a spot on his neck with a wet cloth, nor did he react as the needle broke his skin and felt the solution slowly send him in to a deep, dark sleep.
