One Way Ticket

Several hours had passed since Rachel and Cian had left the campsite. Rachel let him lead the way and paid more attention to their surroundings, looking for any sign of fresh water or fruit. Along the way they had picked a few various types of fruit but were unable to name the type of any of them. Rachel suspected some of it was a type of mango, but she wasn't sure. As time went on she became quite moody and Cian had given up trying to talk to her.

"Do you even know how to get back?" Rachel called to him, hardly able to keep the hint of annoyance out of her voice. They were deeper in the jungle now, quite far from the cliffs. They could barely see the sky let alone the smoke from the fire.

"No," Cian replied, looking back with a slight grin. "But we can find some higher ground to pinpoint where we are, and where we have to head to get back to camp."

Rachel was about to answer when she stubbed her toe on a rock protruding out of the ground, hidden by some leaves. Cursing, she tried to regain her balance and groped around for the branch to the side of her. Completely missing the branch she fell to the ground, which unfortunately was a rather steep bank hidden beneath the deep underbrush. She fell down the hill, unable to grab onto anything to stop her fall.

Finally she came to a stop on her stomach at the bottom of the bank. Luckily the ground wasn't hard there; if anything, it was soft and almost muddy. Sitting up with a groan, she looked around, finding herself almost sinking in the ground.

"What on earth," she muttered, backing up the bank to get a better look around. It was rather dark; they were still in the middle of the jungle and the trees blocked the sunlight from entering. However, she could see across the clearing in the jungle that she had landed in there was water. Quite a lot of water.

"Rach?" Cian called from above, sounding concerned.

"Down here," Rachel called, struggling to stand up. It was almost like a swamp where she was, but she could see the water further in the jungle. If they could get around to it, they would have a good source of fresh water.

A few moments later Cian slid down the bank to join her. "You okay?" he asked tentatively, as if expecting her to have a snappish reply as she has had for the past hour or so.

"Fine," Rachel mumbled. She motioned ahead of her. "Found some water. Can't really reach it from here, but if we go around we should be able to get to it. Maybe there will be a creek or something running into it."

"Doesn't look very clean," Cian commented, looking across the swampy waters. "You're right we should find a way around." He held a hand out to help Rachel to her feet.

It took several minutes to climb back up the steep bank. They began fighting their way through the underbrush, not wanting to lose sight of the water-it would be easy to try to make a circle around to the water and find themselves completely lost. Nearly half an hour later they finally saw a break in the jungle and the clear sky ahead.

"Hear that?" Rachel paused, listening. She could hear rushing water. "C'mon." She grabbed Cian by the arm, not wanting him to get left behind and hurried through the trees. It was easier to navigate their way through now as the jungle was clearing out.

Finally they reached the clearing. They were standing on a platform overlooking the other end of the island, which was hills and jungle. Not too far away was the source of water Rachel heard: a waterfall.

The waterfall was quite big, and fell down to a clear pool below. Rachel couldn't see a way to climb down; the rocks were too steep to climb. They would have to go back in through the jungle to find a way down to the pool that looked much cleaner than the swamp water they saw earlier. The stream running to the water fall seemed to go back deeper into the jungle. They hiked back up the stream before climbing down the bank to fill their water bottles and wash up a bit.

"What now?" Rachel asked, trying to ignore her empty stomach. She knew they should head back and inform the others of the fresh water, but she wasn't sure if she could make the journey without food.

"Are there any granola bars left?" Cian asked before splashing his face with water again. He shook his head, water dripping from his dark hair as he looked up to see her shake her head solemnly. "All we have is the fruit."

Cian sat back down on the bank and opened up his backpack. He took out one of the larger fruits they picked, the one that most resembled a mango. They had avoided trying the fruit earlier, in case it made them sick but now they couldn't go on without eating.

Cian bit into the fruit, unable to cut through the peel without a knife. He didn't speak as he used his teeth and hands to rip of some of the thin peeling covering the fruit before biting into the yellow inside of it. Rachel waited anxiously, ignoring her growling stomach.

"It's fine," Cian finally said after swallowing. "It just tastes like a mango, but not very sweet. Might not be ripe." Rachel sighed in relief before taking out one of the fruits for herself. It was all they had to eat for the trip back to camp. Luckily there seemed to be quite a lot of it around; there had been lots of the fruit throughout the jungle although often camouflaged in the leaves of the trees.

They sat at the bank for awhile, trying to rest. Neither of them were looking forwards to the hike back-what if they couldn't find their way back here again? Night would be falling soon and they were unable to see the smoke.

"I don't know about you, but I don't want to head back in the dark," Rachel spoke up after nearly half an hour of silence. She leaned back on her elbows, watching the water stream by.

"We won't make it back if we do," Cian replied bluntly. "We should stay the night here and head back tomorrow morning. If we do, we'll have enough light to see where we're going and try to make a trail back. It'll be slow but if we can clear a trail back, it won't be as hard to find our way here again."

Rachel nodded in agreement. She filled up her water bottle before picking up her backpack and heading up the bank to find some shelter in the trees. She looked around a bit while Cian filled his water bottle until she found some even ground underneath a larger tree. There she dropped her backpack and sat down, leaning up against the large trunk.

Cian left his backpack with her before he looked around to gather some wood. He returned after nearly half an hour, as the sun was beginning to set, and began to start a fire. Luckily he'd taken one of the lighters they had, and with the dry underbrush they gathered a fire wasn't difficult to start. They didn't make a large fire-they didn't want it to get out of control and only needed it for warmth.

Rachel lied on her back as the sky darkened, staring up at the stars through the branches of the tree. She tried not to think of the noises she'd heard the previous night as she drifted off into an uneasy sleep with Cian beside her, prodding at the fire with a stick.