The Island

When I woke up Niki’s arms had fallen limp away from me and her mouth was wide open. I almost laughed; she never had her mouth like that. I walked to the other side of the beach and saw Carrie with a leaf full of red berries. “Hey, I found some of these berries in the forest. Go get Niki and we’ll have some breakfast.” I jogged over to Niki and woke her up.

“Hey Niki, Carrie found some breakfast for us.” She got up slowly and greeted us with a smile. Before Niki could stop her Carrie swallowed a mouthful of the bright red berries. “Carrie no! Those are rosary peas! They’re extremely poisonous!”

Carrie looked terrified “Oh God, I ate at least another handful while I was picking them. I was just so hungry!” She began to hyperventilate and pace back and forth. “Well what’s going to happen?”
Niki was hesitant to answer “Are you sure you want to know?” Carrie nodded “Well they’re called rosary peas. We learned about them in my aggie class this year. They’re one of the most deadly berries. Symptoms take place over several days and include vomiting, convulsions, liver failure and eventually death.” When I looked at the girls they were both white as a sheet. Carrie broke down and started crying.

“Niki…” She sobbed “Oh God Niki, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” She threw herself on Niki and they cried together on the lonely beach. Then a few hours later Carrie threw up, a lot. She vomited until she was dry heaving and shaking, tears and snot running down her face and into her mouth. Once she had finished with that she started convulsing violently. Her entire body twitched and her head shook. We both held her down so she wouldn’t hurt herself. This cycle continued, with episodes lasting for hours at a time and Niki hardly ever let go of her hand. They slept together, ate together, and talked to pass time in between episodes. Niki would rub her back as she was sick and wiped the tears from her face. For the next three days I stayed away from them, not wanting to intrude on what little time they had left with each other. On the morning of the fourth day Niki awoke to Carrie being in a coma.

I watched as she shook her, desperately trying to wake her best friend, but she was beyond help.
And although Niki knew it, I couldn’t get her to leave Carrie’s side. At sunset I went over to her. “Niki,” I said “I think she’s in a coma. There’s nothing you can do.”
As she looked up at me with her teary eyes I could tell she already knew this. “Kyle, do you think she can hear me?”

“Maybe. Who knows? It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her, but it can wait until tomorrow. You need to eat.” We walked away from Carrie and ate breakfast, but I wasn’t really hungry. I knew how she felt. She was about to lose her best friend in the whole world. A better friend than even me.
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I only left her side to eat and relieve myself. For the whole day i sat by her and told her stories of our adventures. Holding her hand as i talked I swore she could hear me, and Kyle didn’t dare tell me otherwise. I smiled as I reminded her of when we went to see Harry Potter in the movie theater.

“Oh my God Carrie I just thought of that one time we saw Harry Potter in theaters. It was so funny. I remember before we went we watched a few of the other Harry Potter movies to give you background information because you hadn’t watched the whole series. Then we got all dressed up and you borrowed my green dress. And oh yeah, you borrowed a pair of my dress shoes too. It was so funny, we got all dressed up and as we were walking there I thought it would be good to take a shortcut through that awful little field with all the thistles! You were wearing open shoes and your feet hurt so bad. And my shoes were rubbing against my heel so I had to ask for a band aid when we got there.” I paused to compose myself, I hadn’t realized I was crying. Wiping my eyes I let out a breathy laugh.

“Oh man, it all seems so silly now doesn’t it? We thought we were so miserable and 10 minutes later we were sitting in armchairs and eating popcorn. Boy was it a good movie though. I remember being all shaken up afterwards and everything. Then my dad came and picked us up and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. We were all dressed up and we went to a sports bar for dinner! All those looks we got were priceless though…” I trailed off and started crying. That was then end of the story, but it didn’t feel complete. Tears trailed down my face slowly, one at a time.

“Carrie, come on. You need to wake up. I can’t be alone. I can’t be alone. I mean I won’t be alone because Kyle is here, but he’s a boy. You wouldn’t leave me stranded here with a boy would you?” I laughed a little but my voice cracked so it came out broken and strange, echoing in my ears.

“You know what I mean right? As great as Kyle is, he’s also a boy. I mean, we’ve done so much together. We've had sleepovers and shared secrets and I took you dress shopping for the first time. Even though you weren’t very excited about it.” I smiled “You need to come back. I know you can.
You’re so strong, you need to come back to me. You’re like my sister. I can’t lose my sister.” My voice broke again but this time I didn’t recover. I screamed as loud as I could and pounded the sand. I felt a hand on my back and I crumpled to the ground. I dug my hands into my hair and curled them into fists, pulling on my scalp. Tears sprang to my eyes from the pain but I kept at it. Pulling and relaxing, only to pull again. I needed to feel something, anything besides the grief. Someone tried to pull me off the ground but I resisted, screaming. “Get away from me!Get away! Go away, go away, get away…” I began to rock back and forth, mumbling that phrase over and over again. I don’t know if I passed out or fell asleep, it might have been both.

When I came to my head pounded, my vision swam and my face felt crusty. I groaned and sat up as I sat up. I thought I might pass out again. Putting a hand to my forehead I saw Kyle sitting right next to me, as if he had been waiting for me to wake up. “Hey how do you feel?”

I laughed “Well, i’m not dead I guess.” His face grew grey and grim and at the same time the color flooded out of mine. “No…” He put a hand to his mouth and tears spilled out of his eyes. “No, no no!” A waterfall of tears flooded my face. I stood up so fast I almost fell down again and ran over to Carrie. Jamming my fingers to her neck I felt for a pulse but there was nothing. I recoiled as I realized how cold she was. Blubbering I shook her shoulders roughly. “No! Wake up! You can’t do this!” I shook her for a good while and even slapped her face but she didn’t flinch. I began to do CPR, pushing down on her chest with all my might. There was a snap as a rib broke but I kept going. I blew air into her mouth, getting snot all over her lips. The air filled her hollow chest and I pushed it out again in a last ditch effort.

I fell backwards onto the sand next to her, pulling my hair again until it burned and hot blood dripped down my face. My hands were all over my face and head, smearing blood all over me and twisting my hair into wild curls. I curled into a ball and rocked back and forth for a while until I finally calmed down. That didn’t last long though as when I got up I saw her body again. Rage swelled inside of me like a balloon and I screamed, thinking it would relieve the pressure. I screamed and kicked the sand and threw anything I could get my hands on. I was so angry. How could this happen? It was like a piece of my heart had been ripped off and burned. I destroyed our camp. Pots and clothing flew everywhere as I created a sandstorm on the beach. The whole time Kyle just sat and waited for me to finish. Hours passed as I alternated crying and screaming. I moaned and wailed and by the time I was done I hurt everywhere. My eyes were red and puffy, strained from all the tears I had shed. I didn’t think I’d ever cry again. Alright, I thought You’ve had a good cry, now it’s back to reality.

I walked over to Kyle and put a hand on his shoulder. “Alright, I think I’ll be okay now.” Looking down at him I forced a weak smile and he smiled back. But my smile quickly faded as I realised how permanent death was. You never come back, you never recover. When I told Kyle about it he thought for a long minute and responded “Think of it this way. She’s in a better place now.”

I scoffed “How do we know that?” He gave me a quizzical look. “Oh come on Kyle ‘They’re in a better place now.’ How stereotypical, how unoriginal. I expected more actually. How do you know she’s in a better place? What if she’s just gone? All she ever was, all she ever could have been, gone. Maybe there’s nothing after we die. Maybe we just cease to exist at all.” He looked surprised, shocked almost. Then he turned sympathetic.

“Have you no faith?” I giggled, only Kyle would say something like that. “I refuse to believe that there’s nothing after death. That doesn’t even matter though because either way her suffering is over. She will never starve, never cry, never hurt again. And I’d bet you anything that she’s watching over us right now, waiting for us patiently.” I smiled a little and nodded. It was better to be positive. Hell, I don’t think we could afford to be negative at this point.