The Heart of the Dragon

It took a while, but Angie finally managed to drift off into sleep, already dreaming about being rescued and taken back home where she was reunited with her parents. But her enjoyment was short-lived when she was suddenly woken up by a sound and found herself still in the seat of the wrecked jet and on the deserted island. She was about to go back to sleep when she suddenly heard the same sound that woke her up, the sound of what sounded like something had knocked into the jet. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel light.

Not knowing if she should check it out or not, Angie turned to everyone to see that they had fallen fast asleep to notice anything. Fearing that there may be something out there, Angie knew she needed to look in case she had to warn everyone. So after pulling out her pocket knife, she quietly made her way to the broken door that had been placed in front of the opening as the next best thing. She first peered through the crack to see if she could get a glimpse of anything, but nothing.

Knowing she needed to go out, she slowly pushed the broken door to the side and poked her head out. Using the light from the moon, she gazed around for a sign of the noise, and that’s when she heard the noise again causing her to jump. She expected it to be some kind of animal, but instead, she saw that a piece of the jet had slid off from the body and onto the sand. Sighing in relief to see that it was the jet, she closed the door and headed back to her seat.

But as she snuggled back in her seat and closed her eyes, a pair of feet jumped off from the top of the jet and landed softly in the sand without making any noise. The figure then quietly made his way to the cracked window of the jet where he peered inside to see Angie trying to sleep. Since her eyes were closed, she didn’t notice the figure watching her with his green eyes. He stared deeply at her with interest until she turned her body towards the window causing him to step out of view.

Not wanting to wake up anyone, the figure took off into the forest, not even looking back.

When morning arrived, Angie was surprised to see that she was still alive and that she had been able to sleep through the night. She gave a sleepy moan as she turned her head to see that everyone else was still asleep. She checked the time on her watch- 9: 45 am. Since she was already awake, she decided to get up and look around in hopes of finding anything that could help them. So after slipping on her shoes, she quietly got up from her seat and headed out the jet as she stepped into the sand.

Everything looked the same as yesterday, same deserted island, same destroyed jet. That is until she spotted something that caught her eye, something that wasn’t there yesterday. There were footprints in the sand, footprints that came from the jet and into the forest. She examined the prints some more, even though she wasn’t skilled at studying prints, she could tell that they were most likely young and male. But she couldn’t think of any of the guys who would go out into the woods at night, she knew they would never do that, none of them would.

“Angie?” a sleepy voice called as she turned around to see Tammy who was still limping from her pain.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Look” Angie pointed down at the footprints.

“Why are there footprints going into the forest?” she questioned puzzled.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. These footprints weren’t here yesterday, I just found them this morning.”

“Who the hell would want to go into the forest?”

“Well at first I thought it was one of you guys, but then I realized you guys aren’t dumb enough to go off into the forest by yourself.”

“Exactly” Tammy agreed.

“Besides, these footprints look like they belong to a young male, but I know it couldn’t have been Eli or Jackson, I know Eli is a heavy sleeper, and I noticed that Jackson still had his shoes on when I woke up.”

“Well, if none of us did it, then who did?”

At that moment, both girls began to feel goosebumps coating their skin.

“You don’t think-?” Tammy’s eyes widen.

Before they could say anything else, they ran back to the jet and hurried inside.

“Okay let’s not jump to conclusions just yet” Angie suggested while trying to stay calm.

“Angie-” Tammy hissed “I swear to God if those footprints belong to a wild cannibal-“.

“Hold on a second” she cut in “If those did belong to a cannibal, why didn’t he kill us last night when we were sleeping? Surely he must have spotted us.”

“Maybe he ran off to his tribe to tell them about us so they could come back here to ambush us!”

“Oh, shit” Angie breathed, thinking she might be right.

Just then they heard a moan as they turned to see the guys waking up.

“What are you girls yelling about?” Eli yawned.

“There are cannibals on this island!” Tammy blurted.

“What?”

“Hold on” Angie held her hands up “We don’t know that for sure.”

“Then how the hell do we explain those footprints?!”

“What footprints?” Jackson asked.

The girls led them outside where they showed them the prints.

“Whoa” Eli gasped “Okay now I’m more scared.”

“I’ve studied prints before” Mr. Monroe stated while observing the prints “And I think you’re right Angie, these do look like they belong to a young male.”

“Well is it a young male cannibal?” Tammy demanded with fear in her voice.

“I can’t tell by these. But like I said before, nobody goes into the forest.”

“Uh, we have to soon” Jackson put in “We’re already running out of food, sooner or later we’re gonna have to search the island for a food source.”

“Well, how much food do we have?”

“If I’m correct, it should last us only one day.”

“Oh no,” Tammy whined.

Mr. Monroe let out a sigh “Alright when it’s time, we’ll go out and look for food.”

“Unless we become food for the cannibals” Eli put in with fear in his eyes.