Post by champ103 on Mar 1, 2006 14:13:49 GMT -5
I asked Linda if she thought I should post the first half to volume eight, and she said I should, so hooray. It doesn't end with as much as a cliffhanger as I'd like, but it seemed like a suitable place to put the halfway mark. So...enjoy, and the second half should be ready in the next week or so.
Volume Eight
'Secrets'
-Kept hidden from knowledge or view; concealed.
-Dependably discreet.
-Operating in a hidden or confidential manner: a secret agent.
-Not expressed; inward: their secret thoughts. [/i]
Robert Jay opened his eyes. A startling noise had awoken him from his sleep, but as he sat up, he couldn't remember anything about his dream. He looked around; it was dark. Robert estimated that the time must be the earliest hours of the morning. What had awoken him? He had definatley ended his dream with a jump. He looked around. All the survivors were not lying down on the beach expected, but they were huddled around, moving further and further down the beach. Robert frowned. They were all murming, whispering to one another, pointing at Robert, laughing slowly and quietly.
Robert frowned, and murmured 'what?', although he couldn't hear his voice over the whispers. What were they doing? They were moving further away, walking down the beach, all interested in what was there. Robert hopped up, keen to see what was going on. It seemed like every single survivor of the plane crash was huddled around.
'What?' Robert cried. 'What the potato is going on?' No one replied. Just more and more whispers.
'What's in the box, Robert?' someone cried. Robert didn't recognize them.
'Tell us what's in the box Robert,' someone wailed in whisper.
'Open the box!' the crowed whipsered in unison. 'Open up, Amber...'
'No!' Amber cried. 'It's a secret!' Robert turned to face Amber. She was the only person in the crowd he recognized, but yet he couldn't recognize her at all. Something was different...
No. Everything was different.
'Amber, what's going on?' he asked. Amber crawled up to him, groaning in pain.
'It's the boat! It's the boat! You made the boat!' Amber cried, pointing up.
Robert frowned, and looked around. All he could see was the huge crowed of people, so he started to push past them. They all no emotions on their faces, just a slight look of pain.
There was a loud noise; the sound of a foghorn. Robert looked up, his hands against his ears, and he saw a huge ship in front of them. Like a ferry, it was big and grand and made of shiny metal.
'Robert is going to save us!' the crowd were screaming. 'Robert is the one to save us!'
Robert frowned, and began to walk up the stairs to enter the ferry, when something pushed him back onto the sands of the beach. All the crowed started to enter the boat, and Amber crawled behind. Robert frowned as they all walked on, and when the final crowd member set foot on the ship, the stairs seemed to fold into nothing.
The foghorn sounded again, and the engine of the ship started. It started to vibrate in the sea, and everything began to shake. All the crowd were looking down on him from in the boat, and Robert tried to run up and get on.
'There's no room!' Amber cried. 'There's no room for you, Robert. Not after you told everyone my secret.'
'What?' Robert cried. 'No, I-'
'Robert,' Amber whispered eerily, before she started to chant his name. The whole crowd, watching him from the boat began to chant: Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert...
'No!' Robert said, as the boat began to depart. 'Don't leave me here!'
'Why shouldn't we?' Amber said, and her whole body twitched with blood. 'You're going to die in twenty-four hours anyway.'
'My friend's old viola!' screamed Luis from the other side of the boat. 'Thar she...thar she...thar she...'
The rest of the crowd were still chanting his name, as the boat started to get further and further away.
'NO!' Robert cried. 'Stop! Come back! Stop!'
Robert...Robert...Robert...
'Robert!'
Robert snapped his eyes open. He looked up and saw Amber looking down on him.
'Are you okay?'
A few minutes later, Robert was sitting inside the medical tent next to Amber. Gigi was also present, although she was murmuring things to herself, with her back facing her two fellow survivors.
'What...what were you dreaming about?' Amber said. It was the first time she had asked Robert; before she had simply asked him again and again whether he was okay, and then suggesting he went to the tent.
Robert sighed. 'It was nothing.'
'You rolled almost six feet away from your bed in panic whilst you were sleeping,' Amber said. 'That can't be nothing.' She wiped a finger on his face, before showing him the bead of sweat she had picked up.
'And I don't think it's even human to be sweating as much as you were,' she expalined. Robert sighed.
'It was just a dream, you know?' he asked. 'Dreams are dreams...they're crap, they make no sense...they're like-' Amber clutched his arm tightly.
'Stop trying to avoid telling me what the dream was about, Robert,' she explained. 'I've known you for years, I can tell when you're lying.'
At this point, Gigi turned around at sat down by the two of them.
'Robert was just suffering from mild shock,' she explained. 'And I didn't mean to be eavesdropping, but Amber's right, Rob. This would have to be one scary dream to...'
'Okay, whatever,' Robert said. 'I just had a dream where a boat came to the island.'
'A boat?' Amber asked.
'Like a huge, grand metal thing, you know?' he explained. 'I just came from the jungle to find this huge boat waiting.'
'That's it?' Gigi asked. Robert shrugged.
'Yeah, pretty much,' he explained. He turned to Amber who had an obviously unsatisfied expression planted on her face.
'Don't try and lie to me Robert,' she explained. 'You know I can tell when you're lying. What else happened?'
'Everything was just...like a dream, you know?' Robert said. 'It was all weird, and everyone was...and then the boat left without me.'
'So that's what caused this?' Gigi asked, mumbling away as she tried to hide a grin. Robert frowned.
'Shut the hell up, Gigi, it's not funny,' he exclaimed. 'You'd be potato ing scared to if you were left on the island alone...you know what kind of things are out in that 'jungle of mystery'.' Gigi's grin was absorbed by a serious frown and she tried to contain her anger as she folded her arms quietly.
'Sorry,' he murmured. 'It's just...' he paused and looked down at the ground before adjusting his sweat-drenched bandana.
'It's just what?' Amber asked. Robert paused for a second, and sighed before replying.
'It just seemed so real,' he explained, and no one had anything to reply with.
'But it'll feel so good once it's over and done with,' Amber said, leading Robert into her bedroom. It was January, and as usual, Amber was going through her 'spring-cleaning' phase. This usually meant that she'd entirely clean out every room, move all the furniture around, and change their flat completly. This year was no different; perhaps, Robert thought, as she led him to her bed, she was more excited this year then she had been in the past years he had been sharing a flat with her.
It was four of them who shared the flat; Robert, Amber, Gigi and Sebastian. None of them had met before they'd become flat-mates, but they were pretty much all good friends. It was like some cheesy sitcom, and Amber was the outragerously organized character. Robert smiled; only for this episode. For the rest of the year, when Summer had reared its head, and Spring was another year way, she barely lifted a finger around the house. Robert tried to find why, when she hated cleaning for the rest of the year, but he couldn't find any excuse for her.
'If you start over there, by the desk,' she instructed him. 'And I'll...'
'Why the hell do you need me to help?' Robert asked. Amber smiled.
'Because the others are out,' she told him. 'And cleaning is much better when it's a team effort.' Robert paused.
'Don't say that again,' he told her sternly. Amber frowned, and the two of them started getting to work, with the occasional mindless chat hovering around the room now and then.
It wasn't until almost an hour after they'd started, when Robert was emptying a huge draw filled with stationary and files that any interesting conversation took place. In one hand he was holding a large bin liner, which was slowly being filled to the brim with useless old junk. In the other hand, he was pulling things out of the drawer, and at this point, he pulled out a box. He looked at it; it was an elegant looking box that was a short, fat cylinder that was about the size of his head. Carved patterns danced around the edges, and as he shook it, he heard a small thump. He tried to pull off the lid, but then he noticed a small lock keeping it shut.
'Yo Amber,' he said, holding it up. 'What's this?' Robert watched as Amber stared at the box.
She froze. Her eyes widened. Her breath got louder and stuttering. She rolled her eyes as she tried to think of what to say.
'Give it here,' she said, walking over. Robert held it out to his flat-mate, but as she was about to take it, he pulled it back.
'Not until you tell me what it is,' he explained. He could tell it was something important by the way Amber was longing for him to give the box to her.
'I...I can't!' Amber cried, and fell to her knees. 'Robert, please give it to me.' Robert frowned; her eyes were filling with tears.
'But...what is it?' he asked. 'What the hell is in the freaking box?' Amber paused.
'It's a secret,' she said.
'I can keep a secret,' Robert explained.
'No, you can't,' Amber said, staring at the box with her tear-filled eyes. 'No one can keep this secret. No one.' She sniffed and sighed. 'Just me.' Her face turned into an angry scowl.
'Now give me the box.'
'Robert, are you okay?' Amber asked. Robert sighed.
'I'm fine,' he said.
Just minutes later, into the jungle, at the front of the plane, Marc and Amber had returned. In his large hands, Marc was holding a piece of metal twisted to form a crowbar. The day before, the two of them had decided that it was late, and that it was impossible to open the door to the cockpit, but they had returned today, early in the morning when the sky was still dark and pouring down with rain, and they were ready to find out who was inside.
The two of them had both heavily assumed that it was a pilot who had been trapped inside; who else could have been in the cockpit at the time of the crash? Marc and Amber stepped into the front of the plane, holding their noses. It stunk of rotting, decaying dead bodies, even though they'd cleared almost all of them out when Michael had burned all the dead, almost a week ago.
'Are you ready?' Amber asked, taking a deep breath. Marc frowned; all he was doing was opening a door, but Amber was treating it like it was a difficult thing to do.
'Of course,' he said, swinging the crowbar slightly over his shoulder, before hacking it into the crevice where the door was jammed shut. There was a sudden sharp bang as he did so, as pieces of wood and metal from the door sprayed out slightly, landing at Marc and Amber's feet.
Amber coughed and winced, as Marc lifted it high above his shoulder again, and thrust it down again. The door snapped slightly, and more chips of wood came flying at them. Then they heard the whine again. Marc hurriedly raised the crowbar over his shoulder again and-
'Marc!' Amber cried. 'I think we can just pull it off now!' Marc ignored her, and thrust the crowbar down, just as Amber was walking past.
Amber let out a scream and fell to the ground as the crowbar slammed into her thigh. She placed her hand against it and felt the blood.
'Oh salsa...salsa, Amber, are you okay?' Marc cried, dropping the crowbar on the floor. It landed with a rickity sound as it banged onto the aisle of the front of the plane.
'Yeah...yeah,' Amber said, and looked up at Marc, her eyes filled with tears. 'I think you'd better take me to Gigi...'
'But the pilot...the guy!' Marc said, gesturing to the cockpit door. 'We've almost...'
'I have to go to Gigi,' Amber snarled. Marc sighed, and looked out of one of the windows.
'Yo, Robert!' he cried out, upon noticing Amber's friend collecting wood nearby. 'Robert!' As he watched through the window, he saw Robert turn his head and frown. Marc drew his hand towards him, telling Robert to come to him. Robert sighed, shrugged, put down the wood in his hands, and started to walk to the front of the plane.
When he entered, Marc explained what had happened, and Robert stood there with a very concerned and worried expression on his face.
'So, can you take her down to Gigi...I would, but I have some stuff to do,' Marc explained. Robert nodded, no expression on his face, as he looked down on Amber, who was wincing in a crawling position.
'Come here then,' he said, taking Amber's hand and pulled her up. He let her lean on his shoulder, and the two of them started to leave the front of the plane.
'Yo, Amber!' he cried. 'Come back when you're fixed.' Amber nodded, and with that, she and Robert left the front of the plane.
'Robert, what was THAT about?' she cried, as they were walking back. 'You were looking at me like a zombie, seemingly ignoring everything that Marc was saying...I mean, what was it about?'
'It was about my dream, okay?' Robert snarled angrily at her. 'This happened in my dream. You were crawling towards me, bleeding...you were telling me I made the boat.'
'I was telling you what?'
'There was a boat,' Robert said. 'Everyone got aboard, everyone left me behind.'
'Robert, I don't understand....' Amber explained, as they broke out of the bushes and onto the beach. Gigi's tent was only a few metres away.
'I think...I think my dream is coming true,' he explained.
'Pfft,' Amber said. Robert glared at her.
'What?' he asked. Amber rolled her eyes.
'It's just a dream, Robert,' she explained. 'Dreams don't come true...dreams are just dreams.' Robert frowned and shrugged, before pausing in his step and grinning.
'Then why did it come true with you, crawling in pain?' he asked. Amber opened her mouth to reply, but first, Luis ran out of the jungle, holding a bizzare suitcase.
'Hey look!' he cried. 'I found some more of my luggage; my friend's viola!'
Robert's eyes widened.
'And then she gets all emotional about it,' Robert said, and paused before mimicing his friend. 'Ooh, no one can keep a secret...only me!'
Sebastian laughed, but Gigi remained sat at the table without expression on her face.
'You shouldn't be laughing,' she hissed. 'This is obviously something very personal to Amber.'
'Oh give it a rest,' Sebastian snarled. 'For ONCE, Gigi, can you not be so stuck-up?' Gigi frowned and took a spoonful of ice cream from the bowl in front of her.
'I'm not being stuck-up,' she insisted. 'I'm merely giving some thought to Amber. You're taking the piss of her, but you don't know what's in that box. It could be anything; something you'll regret laughing about it.' Robert paused.
'She's told you what's in there, hasn't she? You know!' he exclaimed. Gigi smiled.
'No I do not,' she said.
'Oh yeah...' Robert said, smiling and rolling his eyes.
'Fine, don't believe me then,' Gigi smirked. 'But I know that she's never once mentioned that box to me before.'
'She's never mentioned it to anyone before,' Sebastian explained. 'It must be one huge secret.'
'Exactly,' Robert said, holding a bottle of beer in front of him. There was a few seconds silence between the three of them, and as Gigi finished the last of her ice cream, she stood up from the table, and hovered along to the sink, to place the bowl and spoon in.
'Hey Gigi, Sebastian,' Robert said. His two friends paused. 'Wanna find out what's in the box?' he asking, rubbing his two hands together.
Sebastian broke into a smile, and Robert was sure that he saw one on Gigi's face too.
'Uh...J, is it?' Luis asked. 'Can you pass me that lotion?; my daughter here is burning up.'
He watched J sit on the beach, alone, quietly. Silently. There was nothing. She just stared out at the horizon twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, all the time since the plane crash.
'Uh...J?' Luis said. 'J?' Nothing. Luis walked over to collect the sun lotion himself.
'You know,' he said, sitting down beside J. 'It's rude to ignore people.' J said nothing. Luis frowned.
'We were ALL in the plane too,' he explained. 'We were all the crash; we've all been through what you've been through and we're not su-'
'No one has been through what I've been through,' J hissed.
'Well at least I got you talking,' Luis said, with a smile. J said nothing.
Luis frowned again.
'Well then,' he hissed. 'When you've stopped being rude, maybe you'd like to come for a chat.' With that, he stood up, the bottle of lotion in one hand, the other in his pocket. He walked away.
'I'm telling you!' Robert said. 'This is weird.'
'So what?' Gigi said, as she wound the bandage round Amber's leg. 'Now you think you have psychic dreams? Please.'
'He's been going on about it all day,' Amber said. 'It'll probably turn out to be a joke.' Robert growled.
'I'm right here, you know,' he snapped. 'And this is no joke; Amber, you're injured...Luis found his friend's viola...this is just like my dream.' Gigi ripped off the bandage, and taped it round Amber's leg.
'Well then,' Gigi murmured. 'What else happened in this magical dream, then?'
Robert sighed. He'd been explaining it for ages now, but nothing was getting through to Amber or Gigi.
'There was a boat...' he explained. 'A huge, professional ferry. Everyone was chanting my name, everyone got on the boat...it was taking us off the island.'
'So now a boat is going to wash up on shore, and whisk us all away?' Gigi said, making a crazy hand gesture.
'No,' Robert said, staring into the distance. 'I'm going to make the boat. I'm going to save us all.' Robert watched as Gigi and Amber exchanged looks, and then they both tried to hide as much laughter as they could.
'Wow, you're a modern day Jesus Christ, Robert,' Amber giggled.
'Shut up,' Robert hissed. 'Shut the potato up, Amber.' Amber paused.
'Woah, sorry...' she muttered. 'We were only having a laugh.' She looked up at Gigi and they exchanged smiles in Robert's expense. Amber stood up from the chair and stretched her injured leg.
'Want to have a real laugh?' Robert hissed. Amber looked down, unsure of what was coming. Robert smiled and folded his arms. 'Then why don't I tell everyone what was in that little box of yours?'
Amber was at work. Robert, Gigi, and Sebastian were at home. It was a day since Robert had informed them about Amber's box, and for the twenty-four hours since, they had been planning. Robert had been making sure that he knew where the box was, and Gigi had been furiously questioning Amber about keys, and where she kept them. They had been silent assassins, working on a deadly plot.
'This is evil,' Gigi said. 'Are we bad people?' Sebastian laughed.
'Yes,' he explained.
'That didn't help,' Gigi replied. 'I don't know how you got me into this.' Robert smiled.
'It's because you want to know what's in that box,' he explained. 'You're just like me and Seb.'
The three of them were in Amber's bedroom, sitting carefully on the beds, trying to make no signs that they had intruded.
'Gigi, did you find the key?' Robert asked. He was whispering, even though the three of them were the only people around. Gigi frowned and looked down at her feet.
'Not exactly,' she said. 'I asked if I could borrow her house key, and she gave me this.' With that, Gigi stretched one hand deep into her pocket, and with a metallic rattle, pulled out a key ring with many, many keys; an uncountable amount of keys.
'What the hell?' Sebastian asked. 'Why does Amber have so many potato ing keys?'
'Maybe there's a lot of potato ing boxes?' Gigi suggested with a smile. Robert smiled, but he had a feeling that it was right.
'What about you, Robbo?' Sebastian asked, as they turned their attention to Robert. 'Did you get the box?' Robert raised an eyebrow.
'Pfft, of course I did,' he explained, angry that they'd ever doubt him. He reached down beside the bed, and pulled up the box. Exactly like it was when he'd found it with Amber, the box was smooth; Robert had had to wipe a whole layer of dust from it's wood, and so he'd come to a conclusion that it was something Amber had hid for a long time. He sort of expected that she'd forgotten it was there-if he were her, he wouldn't have let him near the box. Hell, he wouldn't have even asked him to help clean, knowing that an apparently huge secret lay in the very same room.
Robert snapped awake from his thoughts, and held out an open hand.
'Pass me the keys,' he explained. 'And let's open this baby up.'
Gigi did so, and the next twenty minutes were spent in silence with the occasional murmur of guidance or help. Key after key after key after key; they didn't fit no matter how Robert tried to shove them in. Once or twice, the key fit, but after trying to turn it, it became established between the three of them that it wasn't the right key to the box.
And then finally, when it came to one of the last keys, it fit neatly into place on the lock of the box. As it did, Robert turned his glaze to Sebastian and Gigi, who were sitting on the bed either side of him.
'You think...?' he began, but didn't finished his sentence. Instead, with his right hand, he turned the key with a quick hand gesture. There was a click.
Then silence.
'What do you think is inside?' Gigi asked in a very hushed and very quiet voice. Sebastian shrugged, and Robert stared down at the lid of the box.
'There's only one way of finding out,' he explained, and with that, using both hands, Robert flicked open the lid of Amber's box, and all three of them looked inside.
'What?' Amber snarled, and stood up. 'WHAT? You...you...?'
'That's right,' Robert said. 'We know.'
'But...' Amber whined. She turned to Gigi. 'You lied,' she murmured. 'You all LIED to me. You knew it was a...how did they...' Amber's eyes filled up with tears, and she covered her face with her trembling hands.
'How could you?' she cried, and with that, she stormed out of the tent, stumbling and limping as she left Gigi and Robert in an awkward silence.
'Smooth,' Gigi murmured sarcastically a few seconds later. After a few more seconds, she stood up and began to leave the tent herself.
'Gigi, wait-' Robert began.
'I don't want to hear it, Robert,' Gigi hissed in return. 'You just HAD to tell her, didn't you? You HAD to be as immature as you could and retaliate with that, didn't you?' She sighed. 'She'll never forgive us. Not now that she knows that we know...Robert...this is huge.'
'No,' Robert barked. 'Not now, not that we're on this island. It's small, it's tiny, it's minute compared to our problems on this island.'
'Not for Amber,' Gigi reminded him.
'potato Amber,' Robert explained. Gigi opened her mouth to gasp, but didn't make a noise. 'I know that my dream was telling me things, and I know that it was telling me to build a boat and get us off this island.' He stood up and started walking over to the opening in the tent, much like Gigi was. They both looked out of the opening, and saw the heavy rain falling down on the beach, along with lightning and thunder raging through the skies. Robert knew that there was know way he could build a boat in this weather.
'Amber's probably out crying alone in the rain,' Gigi murmured, as the two of them chose to keep shelter, and as they sat down again in the tent. 'All because of you.'
Volume Eight
'Secrets'
-Kept hidden from knowledge or view; concealed.
-Dependably discreet.
-Operating in a hidden or confidential manner: a secret agent.
-Not expressed; inward: their secret thoughts. [/i]
Robert Jay opened his eyes. A startling noise had awoken him from his sleep, but as he sat up, he couldn't remember anything about his dream. He looked around; it was dark. Robert estimated that the time must be the earliest hours of the morning. What had awoken him? He had definatley ended his dream with a jump. He looked around. All the survivors were not lying down on the beach expected, but they were huddled around, moving further and further down the beach. Robert frowned. They were all murming, whispering to one another, pointing at Robert, laughing slowly and quietly.
Robert frowned, and murmured 'what?', although he couldn't hear his voice over the whispers. What were they doing? They were moving further away, walking down the beach, all interested in what was there. Robert hopped up, keen to see what was going on. It seemed like every single survivor of the plane crash was huddled around.
'What?' Robert cried. 'What the potato is going on?' No one replied. Just more and more whispers.
'What's in the box, Robert?' someone cried. Robert didn't recognize them.
'Tell us what's in the box Robert,' someone wailed in whisper.
'Open the box!' the crowed whipsered in unison. 'Open up, Amber...'
'No!' Amber cried. 'It's a secret!' Robert turned to face Amber. She was the only person in the crowd he recognized, but yet he couldn't recognize her at all. Something was different...
No. Everything was different.
'Amber, what's going on?' he asked. Amber crawled up to him, groaning in pain.
'It's the boat! It's the boat! You made the boat!' Amber cried, pointing up.
Robert frowned, and looked around. All he could see was the huge crowed of people, so he started to push past them. They all no emotions on their faces, just a slight look of pain.
There was a loud noise; the sound of a foghorn. Robert looked up, his hands against his ears, and he saw a huge ship in front of them. Like a ferry, it was big and grand and made of shiny metal.
'Robert is going to save us!' the crowd were screaming. 'Robert is the one to save us!'
Robert frowned, and began to walk up the stairs to enter the ferry, when something pushed him back onto the sands of the beach. All the crowed started to enter the boat, and Amber crawled behind. Robert frowned as they all walked on, and when the final crowd member set foot on the ship, the stairs seemed to fold into nothing.
The foghorn sounded again, and the engine of the ship started. It started to vibrate in the sea, and everything began to shake. All the crowd were looking down on him from in the boat, and Robert tried to run up and get on.
'There's no room!' Amber cried. 'There's no room for you, Robert. Not after you told everyone my secret.'
'What?' Robert cried. 'No, I-'
'Robert,' Amber whispered eerily, before she started to chant his name. The whole crowd, watching him from the boat began to chant: Robert, Robert, Robert, Robert...
'No!' Robert said, as the boat began to depart. 'Don't leave me here!'
'Why shouldn't we?' Amber said, and her whole body twitched with blood. 'You're going to die in twenty-four hours anyway.'
'My friend's old viola!' screamed Luis from the other side of the boat. 'Thar she...thar she...thar she...'
The rest of the crowd were still chanting his name, as the boat started to get further and further away.
'NO!' Robert cried. 'Stop! Come back! Stop!'
Robert...Robert...Robert...
'Robert!'
Robert snapped his eyes open. He looked up and saw Amber looking down on him.
'Are you okay?'
A few minutes later, Robert was sitting inside the medical tent next to Amber. Gigi was also present, although she was murmuring things to herself, with her back facing her two fellow survivors.
'What...what were you dreaming about?' Amber said. It was the first time she had asked Robert; before she had simply asked him again and again whether he was okay, and then suggesting he went to the tent.
Robert sighed. 'It was nothing.'
'You rolled almost six feet away from your bed in panic whilst you were sleeping,' Amber said. 'That can't be nothing.' She wiped a finger on his face, before showing him the bead of sweat she had picked up.
'And I don't think it's even human to be sweating as much as you were,' she expalined. Robert sighed.
'It was just a dream, you know?' he asked. 'Dreams are dreams...they're crap, they make no sense...they're like-' Amber clutched his arm tightly.
'Stop trying to avoid telling me what the dream was about, Robert,' she explained. 'I've known you for years, I can tell when you're lying.'
At this point, Gigi turned around at sat down by the two of them.
'Robert was just suffering from mild shock,' she explained. 'And I didn't mean to be eavesdropping, but Amber's right, Rob. This would have to be one scary dream to...'
'Okay, whatever,' Robert said. 'I just had a dream where a boat came to the island.'
'A boat?' Amber asked.
'Like a huge, grand metal thing, you know?' he explained. 'I just came from the jungle to find this huge boat waiting.'
'That's it?' Gigi asked. Robert shrugged.
'Yeah, pretty much,' he explained. He turned to Amber who had an obviously unsatisfied expression planted on her face.
'Don't try and lie to me Robert,' she explained. 'You know I can tell when you're lying. What else happened?'
'Everything was just...like a dream, you know?' Robert said. 'It was all weird, and everyone was...and then the boat left without me.'
'So that's what caused this?' Gigi asked, mumbling away as she tried to hide a grin. Robert frowned.
'Shut the hell up, Gigi, it's not funny,' he exclaimed. 'You'd be potato ing scared to if you were left on the island alone...you know what kind of things are out in that 'jungle of mystery'.' Gigi's grin was absorbed by a serious frown and she tried to contain her anger as she folded her arms quietly.
'Sorry,' he murmured. 'It's just...' he paused and looked down at the ground before adjusting his sweat-drenched bandana.
'It's just what?' Amber asked. Robert paused for a second, and sighed before replying.
'It just seemed so real,' he explained, and no one had anything to reply with.
'But it'll feel so good once it's over and done with,' Amber said, leading Robert into her bedroom. It was January, and as usual, Amber was going through her 'spring-cleaning' phase. This usually meant that she'd entirely clean out every room, move all the furniture around, and change their flat completly. This year was no different; perhaps, Robert thought, as she led him to her bed, she was more excited this year then she had been in the past years he had been sharing a flat with her.
It was four of them who shared the flat; Robert, Amber, Gigi and Sebastian. None of them had met before they'd become flat-mates, but they were pretty much all good friends. It was like some cheesy sitcom, and Amber was the outragerously organized character. Robert smiled; only for this episode. For the rest of the year, when Summer had reared its head, and Spring was another year way, she barely lifted a finger around the house. Robert tried to find why, when she hated cleaning for the rest of the year, but he couldn't find any excuse for her.
'If you start over there, by the desk,' she instructed him. 'And I'll...'
'Why the hell do you need me to help?' Robert asked. Amber smiled.
'Because the others are out,' she told him. 'And cleaning is much better when it's a team effort.' Robert paused.
'Don't say that again,' he told her sternly. Amber frowned, and the two of them started getting to work, with the occasional mindless chat hovering around the room now and then.
It wasn't until almost an hour after they'd started, when Robert was emptying a huge draw filled with stationary and files that any interesting conversation took place. In one hand he was holding a large bin liner, which was slowly being filled to the brim with useless old junk. In the other hand, he was pulling things out of the drawer, and at this point, he pulled out a box. He looked at it; it was an elegant looking box that was a short, fat cylinder that was about the size of his head. Carved patterns danced around the edges, and as he shook it, he heard a small thump. He tried to pull off the lid, but then he noticed a small lock keeping it shut.
'Yo Amber,' he said, holding it up. 'What's this?' Robert watched as Amber stared at the box.
She froze. Her eyes widened. Her breath got louder and stuttering. She rolled her eyes as she tried to think of what to say.
'Give it here,' she said, walking over. Robert held it out to his flat-mate, but as she was about to take it, he pulled it back.
'Not until you tell me what it is,' he explained. He could tell it was something important by the way Amber was longing for him to give the box to her.
'I...I can't!' Amber cried, and fell to her knees. 'Robert, please give it to me.' Robert frowned; her eyes were filling with tears.
'But...what is it?' he asked. 'What the hell is in the freaking box?' Amber paused.
'It's a secret,' she said.
'I can keep a secret,' Robert explained.
'No, you can't,' Amber said, staring at the box with her tear-filled eyes. 'No one can keep this secret. No one.' She sniffed and sighed. 'Just me.' Her face turned into an angry scowl.
'Now give me the box.'
'Robert, are you okay?' Amber asked. Robert sighed.
'I'm fine,' he said.
Just minutes later, into the jungle, at the front of the plane, Marc and Amber had returned. In his large hands, Marc was holding a piece of metal twisted to form a crowbar. The day before, the two of them had decided that it was late, and that it was impossible to open the door to the cockpit, but they had returned today, early in the morning when the sky was still dark and pouring down with rain, and they were ready to find out who was inside.
The two of them had both heavily assumed that it was a pilot who had been trapped inside; who else could have been in the cockpit at the time of the crash? Marc and Amber stepped into the front of the plane, holding their noses. It stunk of rotting, decaying dead bodies, even though they'd cleared almost all of them out when Michael had burned all the dead, almost a week ago.
'Are you ready?' Amber asked, taking a deep breath. Marc frowned; all he was doing was opening a door, but Amber was treating it like it was a difficult thing to do.
'Of course,' he said, swinging the crowbar slightly over his shoulder, before hacking it into the crevice where the door was jammed shut. There was a sudden sharp bang as he did so, as pieces of wood and metal from the door sprayed out slightly, landing at Marc and Amber's feet.
Amber coughed and winced, as Marc lifted it high above his shoulder again, and thrust it down again. The door snapped slightly, and more chips of wood came flying at them. Then they heard the whine again. Marc hurriedly raised the crowbar over his shoulder again and-
'Marc!' Amber cried. 'I think we can just pull it off now!' Marc ignored her, and thrust the crowbar down, just as Amber was walking past.
Amber let out a scream and fell to the ground as the crowbar slammed into her thigh. She placed her hand against it and felt the blood.
'Oh salsa...salsa, Amber, are you okay?' Marc cried, dropping the crowbar on the floor. It landed with a rickity sound as it banged onto the aisle of the front of the plane.
'Yeah...yeah,' Amber said, and looked up at Marc, her eyes filled with tears. 'I think you'd better take me to Gigi...'
'But the pilot...the guy!' Marc said, gesturing to the cockpit door. 'We've almost...'
'I have to go to Gigi,' Amber snarled. Marc sighed, and looked out of one of the windows.
'Yo, Robert!' he cried out, upon noticing Amber's friend collecting wood nearby. 'Robert!' As he watched through the window, he saw Robert turn his head and frown. Marc drew his hand towards him, telling Robert to come to him. Robert sighed, shrugged, put down the wood in his hands, and started to walk to the front of the plane.
When he entered, Marc explained what had happened, and Robert stood there with a very concerned and worried expression on his face.
'So, can you take her down to Gigi...I would, but I have some stuff to do,' Marc explained. Robert nodded, no expression on his face, as he looked down on Amber, who was wincing in a crawling position.
'Come here then,' he said, taking Amber's hand and pulled her up. He let her lean on his shoulder, and the two of them started to leave the front of the plane.
'Yo, Amber!' he cried. 'Come back when you're fixed.' Amber nodded, and with that, she and Robert left the front of the plane.
'Robert, what was THAT about?' she cried, as they were walking back. 'You were looking at me like a zombie, seemingly ignoring everything that Marc was saying...I mean, what was it about?'
'It was about my dream, okay?' Robert snarled angrily at her. 'This happened in my dream. You were crawling towards me, bleeding...you were telling me I made the boat.'
'I was telling you what?'
'There was a boat,' Robert said. 'Everyone got aboard, everyone left me behind.'
'Robert, I don't understand....' Amber explained, as they broke out of the bushes and onto the beach. Gigi's tent was only a few metres away.
'I think...I think my dream is coming true,' he explained.
'Pfft,' Amber said. Robert glared at her.
'What?' he asked. Amber rolled her eyes.
'It's just a dream, Robert,' she explained. 'Dreams don't come true...dreams are just dreams.' Robert frowned and shrugged, before pausing in his step and grinning.
'Then why did it come true with you, crawling in pain?' he asked. Amber opened her mouth to reply, but first, Luis ran out of the jungle, holding a bizzare suitcase.
'Hey look!' he cried. 'I found some more of my luggage; my friend's viola!'
Robert's eyes widened.
'And then she gets all emotional about it,' Robert said, and paused before mimicing his friend. 'Ooh, no one can keep a secret...only me!'
Sebastian laughed, but Gigi remained sat at the table without expression on her face.
'You shouldn't be laughing,' she hissed. 'This is obviously something very personal to Amber.'
'Oh give it a rest,' Sebastian snarled. 'For ONCE, Gigi, can you not be so stuck-up?' Gigi frowned and took a spoonful of ice cream from the bowl in front of her.
'I'm not being stuck-up,' she insisted. 'I'm merely giving some thought to Amber. You're taking the piss of her, but you don't know what's in that box. It could be anything; something you'll regret laughing about it.' Robert paused.
'She's told you what's in there, hasn't she? You know!' he exclaimed. Gigi smiled.
'No I do not,' she said.
'Oh yeah...' Robert said, smiling and rolling his eyes.
'Fine, don't believe me then,' Gigi smirked. 'But I know that she's never once mentioned that box to me before.'
'She's never mentioned it to anyone before,' Sebastian explained. 'It must be one huge secret.'
'Exactly,' Robert said, holding a bottle of beer in front of him. There was a few seconds silence between the three of them, and as Gigi finished the last of her ice cream, she stood up from the table, and hovered along to the sink, to place the bowl and spoon in.
'Hey Gigi, Sebastian,' Robert said. His two friends paused. 'Wanna find out what's in the box?' he asking, rubbing his two hands together.
Sebastian broke into a smile, and Robert was sure that he saw one on Gigi's face too.
'Uh...J, is it?' Luis asked. 'Can you pass me that lotion?; my daughter here is burning up.'
He watched J sit on the beach, alone, quietly. Silently. There was nothing. She just stared out at the horizon twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, all the time since the plane crash.
'Uh...J?' Luis said. 'J?' Nothing. Luis walked over to collect the sun lotion himself.
'You know,' he said, sitting down beside J. 'It's rude to ignore people.' J said nothing. Luis frowned.
'We were ALL in the plane too,' he explained. 'We were all the crash; we've all been through what you've been through and we're not su-'
'No one has been through what I've been through,' J hissed.
'Well at least I got you talking,' Luis said, with a smile. J said nothing.
Luis frowned again.
'Well then,' he hissed. 'When you've stopped being rude, maybe you'd like to come for a chat.' With that, he stood up, the bottle of lotion in one hand, the other in his pocket. He walked away.
'I'm telling you!' Robert said. 'This is weird.'
'So what?' Gigi said, as she wound the bandage round Amber's leg. 'Now you think you have psychic dreams? Please.'
'He's been going on about it all day,' Amber said. 'It'll probably turn out to be a joke.' Robert growled.
'I'm right here, you know,' he snapped. 'And this is no joke; Amber, you're injured...Luis found his friend's viola...this is just like my dream.' Gigi ripped off the bandage, and taped it round Amber's leg.
'Well then,' Gigi murmured. 'What else happened in this magical dream, then?'
Robert sighed. He'd been explaining it for ages now, but nothing was getting through to Amber or Gigi.
'There was a boat...' he explained. 'A huge, professional ferry. Everyone was chanting my name, everyone got on the boat...it was taking us off the island.'
'So now a boat is going to wash up on shore, and whisk us all away?' Gigi said, making a crazy hand gesture.
'No,' Robert said, staring into the distance. 'I'm going to make the boat. I'm going to save us all.' Robert watched as Gigi and Amber exchanged looks, and then they both tried to hide as much laughter as they could.
'Wow, you're a modern day Jesus Christ, Robert,' Amber giggled.
'Shut up,' Robert hissed. 'Shut the potato up, Amber.' Amber paused.
'Woah, sorry...' she muttered. 'We were only having a laugh.' She looked up at Gigi and they exchanged smiles in Robert's expense. Amber stood up from the chair and stretched her injured leg.
'Want to have a real laugh?' Robert hissed. Amber looked down, unsure of what was coming. Robert smiled and folded his arms. 'Then why don't I tell everyone what was in that little box of yours?'
Amber was at work. Robert, Gigi, and Sebastian were at home. It was a day since Robert had informed them about Amber's box, and for the twenty-four hours since, they had been planning. Robert had been making sure that he knew where the box was, and Gigi had been furiously questioning Amber about keys, and where she kept them. They had been silent assassins, working on a deadly plot.
'This is evil,' Gigi said. 'Are we bad people?' Sebastian laughed.
'Yes,' he explained.
'That didn't help,' Gigi replied. 'I don't know how you got me into this.' Robert smiled.
'It's because you want to know what's in that box,' he explained. 'You're just like me and Seb.'
The three of them were in Amber's bedroom, sitting carefully on the beds, trying to make no signs that they had intruded.
'Gigi, did you find the key?' Robert asked. He was whispering, even though the three of them were the only people around. Gigi frowned and looked down at her feet.
'Not exactly,' she said. 'I asked if I could borrow her house key, and she gave me this.' With that, Gigi stretched one hand deep into her pocket, and with a metallic rattle, pulled out a key ring with many, many keys; an uncountable amount of keys.
'What the hell?' Sebastian asked. 'Why does Amber have so many potato ing keys?'
'Maybe there's a lot of potato ing boxes?' Gigi suggested with a smile. Robert smiled, but he had a feeling that it was right.
'What about you, Robbo?' Sebastian asked, as they turned their attention to Robert. 'Did you get the box?' Robert raised an eyebrow.
'Pfft, of course I did,' he explained, angry that they'd ever doubt him. He reached down beside the bed, and pulled up the box. Exactly like it was when he'd found it with Amber, the box was smooth; Robert had had to wipe a whole layer of dust from it's wood, and so he'd come to a conclusion that it was something Amber had hid for a long time. He sort of expected that she'd forgotten it was there-if he were her, he wouldn't have let him near the box. Hell, he wouldn't have even asked him to help clean, knowing that an apparently huge secret lay in the very same room.
Robert snapped awake from his thoughts, and held out an open hand.
'Pass me the keys,' he explained. 'And let's open this baby up.'
Gigi did so, and the next twenty minutes were spent in silence with the occasional murmur of guidance or help. Key after key after key after key; they didn't fit no matter how Robert tried to shove them in. Once or twice, the key fit, but after trying to turn it, it became established between the three of them that it wasn't the right key to the box.
And then finally, when it came to one of the last keys, it fit neatly into place on the lock of the box. As it did, Robert turned his glaze to Sebastian and Gigi, who were sitting on the bed either side of him.
'You think...?' he began, but didn't finished his sentence. Instead, with his right hand, he turned the key with a quick hand gesture. There was a click.
Then silence.
'What do you think is inside?' Gigi asked in a very hushed and very quiet voice. Sebastian shrugged, and Robert stared down at the lid of the box.
'There's only one way of finding out,' he explained, and with that, using both hands, Robert flicked open the lid of Amber's box, and all three of them looked inside.
'What?' Amber snarled, and stood up. 'WHAT? You...you...?'
'That's right,' Robert said. 'We know.'
'But...' Amber whined. She turned to Gigi. 'You lied,' she murmured. 'You all LIED to me. You knew it was a...how did they...' Amber's eyes filled up with tears, and she covered her face with her trembling hands.
'How could you?' she cried, and with that, she stormed out of the tent, stumbling and limping as she left Gigi and Robert in an awkward silence.
'Smooth,' Gigi murmured sarcastically a few seconds later. After a few more seconds, she stood up and began to leave the tent herself.
'Gigi, wait-' Robert began.
'I don't want to hear it, Robert,' Gigi hissed in return. 'You just HAD to tell her, didn't you? You HAD to be as immature as you could and retaliate with that, didn't you?' She sighed. 'She'll never forgive us. Not now that she knows that we know...Robert...this is huge.'
'No,' Robert barked. 'Not now, not that we're on this island. It's small, it's tiny, it's minute compared to our problems on this island.'
'Not for Amber,' Gigi reminded him.
'potato Amber,' Robert explained. Gigi opened her mouth to gasp, but didn't make a noise. 'I know that my dream was telling me things, and I know that it was telling me to build a boat and get us off this island.' He stood up and started walking over to the opening in the tent, much like Gigi was. They both looked out of the opening, and saw the heavy rain falling down on the beach, along with lightning and thunder raging through the skies. Robert knew that there was know way he could build a boat in this weather.
'Amber's probably out crying alone in the rain,' Gigi murmured, as the two of them chose to keep shelter, and as they sat down again in the tent. 'All because of you.'