Island of the Lost - Survivor00 & Cheshire Pup

[Survivor00]

Elliot Dobson was going to die.

As he stood on the twisting deck of the Erusian galleon Juliet, looking up into the heavens that had damned them, he knew he was going to die.

Their ship had trespassed into sacred waters, angered the Gods that guarded these lands, and they had unleashed their absolute fury upon the ship. The skies above boiled over with black clouds, while arrows of lighting pierces the air around them. Mountainous waves â?? taller than any Elliot had ever seen - crashed against the timbers of the Julietâ??s hull, making them groan and pop. Their sails had either been ripped away by the winds, or were stowed below, leaving the ship at complete mercy of the sea. His clothes were completely plastered to his body from the stinging torrents that lashed at them from above.

A wave thundered against the hull, rocking the ship over â?? almost onto its side. With a whipping crack! one of the cannons broke looks from its restrains, tumbling down the canted deck, crushing a hapless crewmember underneath as it hurtled through the opposite wall and into the ink-black waves. Elliot wrapped a wet rope around his arm, using it to keep himself from being hurled overboard. The fibers dug into his arm painfully, but the ship miraculously settled out, listing horribly, but still floating. Still alive.

â??Keep those cannons secured!â? A voice bellowed over the shrieking wind. Captain Odessa Wilkins â?? an ox of a man â?? stood behind the wheel, despite the worst that had been thrown at him and his ship. He was determined to sail his ship and crew out of these hellish waters, and if Elliot knew the man, Odessa would personally murder the man that had sent them on this course.

Elliot scrambled to his feet, slipping on the deck as he rushed over to the nearest cannon. He lashed more ropes over the cannon, securing it as fast as he could before another wave had a chance to send him overboard. The Juliet dropped, the sea seemingly sucked out from underneath her keel. Elliotâ??s stomach rushed to his throat, and as he looked towards the bow, it was joined by his heart.

At first, he thought the ship was heading for a cliff, but as he saw the wind-whipped foam at the crest, he realized it was a wave taller than anything he had ever seen. It seemed to dwarf the galleon under its size. There was no way that the Juliet could survive this. There was nothing on Earth that could withstandâ?¦ grabbing the ropes that he had used to tie the cannon to the deck, he held on for dear life, closing his eyes as he turned away from the death that was to devour them.

He heard the Captain screaming at the heavens, voice raw, as the Juliet bucked once in protest as she slammed into the front of the wave, and then she was swallowed by the sea. Elliot had a fraction of a second to suck in a breath before he found himself under a mountain of black water. His body was pummeled by the waves, and the pressure crushed at his chest, but he held onto the ropes, even as the sea dragged at him, tried to pull him downâ?¦

Air.

Through a miracle or sheer, maddening determination, the Juliet clawed herself out from the depths, refusing to die. Elliot puked up a stomach of bitter seawater, finding himself on a deck eerily devoid of people. He swallowed down breath after breath into his pained lungs, gasping. The Juliet was hardly recognizable anymore, her masts stripped away, her gallery crushed and splintered. The Captain, the wheel, was all gone. Elliot found himself alone on a ghost ship, caught in the mercy of an angry sea.

Elliot also found that his shirt had been peeled right off his back by the force of the water. Wearily, he stood to his feet, squinting at the distant mass of land, illuminated only by flashes of lightning when it appeared behind the waves. The Juliet seemed to take a mind of her own, creaking miserably as she aimed her crushed bow towards the dark shapeâ?¦

Waves continued to crash against the galleonâ??s hull, but the worst of the punishment seemed to have subsided. The rains were lessening, and the waves grew smaller with each passing moment. Even the skies seemed to clear, the clouds that had seemed so endless that he couldnâ??t tell where the sea ended and the sky began breaking up and revealing the soft blues behind them.

The island grew closer to them, and Elliot cast his gaze upon the white-sand beaches. His stomach lurched as all he saw was the dead. Those men who had been washed overboard and drowned had washed ashore here, and their broken corpses littered the beach. Already, seabirds had risked the winds to rip and peck at their bodies. And the stenchâ?¦the stench of the dead was already beginning to rise, mixed with the sea breeze as it washed out towards the possessed Juliet. Elliotâ??s relief at survival quickly turned into fright as the Juliet seemed blindly determined to thrust herself onto the damned islandâ??s beaches.

She almost made it.

With a sickening groan and the sound of thick timbers being crushed, the Julietâ??s keel ground into the rocks some 500 yards off the islandâ??s shore. The whole ship bucked angrily, as if enraged she had been denied her home on the soft sands, but as the rocks gouged into her belly, the Juliet settled deeper into the waves and stilled, finally dying with a final wail.

Elliot stood to his feet, having been knocked down by the angry motions of the ship, looking over the rail at the shore, and down towards the waters that now lapped much higher against the Julietâ??s broken hull. The sea had invaded several decks, and the ship would never sail again. He walked up and down the length of the ship, his muscles aching horribly, bruises starting to appear on his skin from where the sky and sea had battered him. He groaned, sitting down and leaning against the railing, almost content to just stay there. Stay there until the death that had claimed the ship and the crew claimed him as well.

What had he done that deserved a punishment such as this?

Elliot wasnâ??t sure how long he sat there, curled up against the railing, but when he moved again, his joints felt stiff and awkward. With a groan, he stood again, looking out towards the beach once more. The dead continued to rot underneath the sun, the waves continued to roll up the beachâ?¦ The Juliet creaked beneath his feet, and Elliot realized that if another storm were to strike, the broken hull would be crushed against the rocks. As much as he dreaded leaving the ship, it was safer for him to be on dry landâ?¦

He scoured the ship for as many supplies that he could carry â?? any food that had survived the storm, any clothes, whether it had been his before or notâ?¦ He tossed those supplies in a barrel, sealed it as best as he could, and tossed it overboard. He would have to hurry, before the barrel filled with water, or was bashed against the hull. He grabbed a rope and tied it around the broken stump that had once been the mainmast, the wet rope digging at his hands as he tied it into a crude knot. He tossed the rest of the rope over the side, and began his precarious climb down.

It tore the first layer of flesh from his hands, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the pain, just trying to keep going forward. But the rope ended before the waterâ??s surface, the end slipping past his feet, and as he struggled to keep holding on, the rope lashed at his skin, drawing a long line of blood as he fell, crashing into the water ten feet below.

By luck, he avoided being broken on the submerged rocks, and thrashed his way to the surface, crying out in pain as he draped himself over the barrel, gasping for breath. Finally, he gazed wearily upon the shore, and began kicking, pushing himself closer to the island. His body seemed strangely weak, and exhaustion wracked his frame, but he didnâ??t dare stop kicking, or the current might drag him out into deep water.

It must have taken nearly an hour of fighting against the tides, but finally, the water was too shallow for him to swim, and he stood on legs that trembled and shook underneath him. He took a few steps and collapsed to the sand among the others. His vision swam, and he was cast into blackness.

 

[Cheshire Pup]

They knew the storm would bring them meat. Usually it just leaves fish scattered along the beach that sit there and rot if someone doesnâ??t take them. The scent usually draws the harpies and those annoying pesky birds usually stole most of whatever they could carry. But this time was different. This storm brought them men. A forked tongue flicked between red, luscious lips. Others slithered closer. Men always had the best meat and better then that the harpies never seemed interested in them so while the birds squawked and gathered up the fish that had been forced a shore the tribe slithered around the corpses and gathered them up. Bringing a large stick they tied the men to it and began to carry them back to camp.

However, one of them men seemed to awake along the way. The youngest in the group had been put to the task of watching incase one was revived. It never happened so there was no issue towards putting the young ones to such an important job. However when the man opened his eyes there would be strange sight waiting for him below. There was a girl, se looked young, seven years old at the oldest. She had yellow, catlike eyes and forest green hair. Dark skin covered her body and where her legs should have been she had a snakeâ??s tail with emerald colored scales. The childâ??s eyes grew wide when they met with those of the man and the girl lets out a shriek before slithering forwards.

Someone in the from nearly dropped the stick and he would be able to hear a flurry of hissing sounds. Some sounded like words, otherâ??s were words but in a language that he could not understand. The precession halted and the child brought back another woman. This woman had sun kissed skin and blue eyes, sapphire scales adorned her tail and there was nothing to cover her large, full breasts form sight. He might notice then that none of the women in this group was wearing any piece of clothing and all of them were very tan. The woman that the child brought back was given a dagger by one of the other snake women. The dagger was covered in strange markings, it was stone, not like the ones he would know back home. She rose the dagger above him and it looked as though she intended to kill but rather then meeting his doom he would meet the forest floor below.

Rather than cut him free they simply separated the section he was tied to form the other parts. The woman holding the dagger hissed something at the others and they nodded and resumed their procession, taking his shipmates from sight. Once the sounds of the others could no longer be heard she turned back to the man, smiling wickedly at him before turning to the only woman to stay behind with her and the child. The woman nodded and the girl with the dagger nodded back, then she brought the blade up against his skin and began to cut, stripping away every bit of clothing he had on him while he was still bound to the stake by the ropes. Once this was done the oldest woman of the three stepped forward and reached into a bag she wore over her shoulder.

The bag was full of some kind of goo that best resembled paint. Even more so as they began to write over his flesh in strange symbols while the woman said something. Wherever the paint touched there would be a slight itch. The woman was hissing some kind of incantation and as it went on the words sounded less like hissing and more like well, words. As the woman neared the end the pant began to glow then vanished completely.

â??Did it work?â? the child asked as she looked up at the strange creature that he now recognized as the leader of the tribe.

â??It should have. Ladi has not failed us yet.â? The woman said to the child. It seems that Ladi was the only woman. Then the snake with the stone dagger turned to the naked boy. â??Hello there boy.â? The woman said to him, then looked him up and down. â??You care human, yes? Not many humans survive the way here. The last man to make it alive died twenty summers ago. Of course, he would have lived longer If he had chosen to stay with us.â? The woman said, sounding bitter towards whoever took him.

The older woman tied a rope around his neck like a leash. â??Your tails work, yes?â? the woman asked him, referring to his legs. â??My name is Nagia. You will follow us back to the village.â? The girl told him, not giving him another option. After that the little girl went behind him and untied the knots that held him to the stick, allowing him to fall into the mud of the trail they were taking. The sun was high in the sky so it was warm mud but mud all the same. â??You humans are always so unstable.â? She said condescendingly before she began to slither away, not bothering to see if he stood up yet and holding the end of his leash. If he didnâ??t get to his feet very soon he would end up being dragged through the mud.

 

[Survivor00]

Elliot wasnâ??t sure exactly what brought him back to consciousness first, the aches that jabbed through his body, or the rocking motions that seemed to tug against his wrists and ankles. It took his weary brain several long moments to comprehend that he was bound by ropes of some sort. He cracked his eyes open to gaze upon the muddy ground that was moving by below him. He felt the scrape of wood chafing against his arms, legs, and back, and as he lifted his head to see what had happened, he saw a little girlâ?¦with the tail of a snakeâ?¦ His eyes widened and is mouth opened, but her scream pierced the jungle as she darted away from him.

The post he had been tied to jerked once, making his head bounce, and pain swim around in his skull once more, but his heart was racing. What was that? Strange sounds, hissing noises as rasped words, filtered into his ears yet he could not understand them. But then the motion stopped, leaving him hanging there, wishing that he had never woken up. Two figures returned: the child, and a proud-looking woman who also slithered on a snake-like body. The fact that she was completely exposed did little to him right now, too afraid to take notice of her nakedness. His eyes were quickly drawn away from her form when the twisted dagger came into his view. He struggled against his bonds, his eyes wide. Savages! They were going to kill him! When she raised the dagger, he turned his head away and closed his eyes, not wanting to see his death coming.

The dagger struck something â?? he could hear it â?? but there was no pain. After a long, heartstopping moment, he noticed that he had been separated from the procession of dead men, watching as the strange, snake-women carried them away? For what purpose? Seeing them trussed up as though they were to be roasted on a spit gave him a chilling idea of what they intended to doâ?¦ But what of him? He was alive when he certainly should not have beenâ?¦ And the fact that he was now in the middle of the jungle, with what he assumed was their â??leaderâ??, the child, and another female â?? wielding a dagger â?? did not give him any comfort.

His blood chilled at the grin the sapphire-scaled woman gave him, watching as she turned to the other woman. She approached him with the dagger, and he could do nothing to escape his bonds. He felt the daggerâ??s cold blade press against the skin of his belly, before the woman expertly slid it downward, not cutting him, but leaving a trail of goosebumps down his flesh. As the knife reached the ties of his pants, he squirmed again. â??What are you doing?!â? He coughed out, his eyes wide with panic, but she simply stripped the fabric away from him, cutting away his pants and underwear, exposing him to them. The humid jungle air pressed against his skin, and he shuddered, confused. Was this a test by God? His mind retreated back to the story of Eve being tricked by the serpent into eating the apple. Were these serpent-women supposed to represent seduction? Why would they have stripped him?

But he watched her as the â??leaderâ?? retrieved a strange bag of some sort, opening it to reveal some kind of pasteâ?¦ Scooping it onto their fingertips, the serpent-women painted it onto his flesh, as he winced at the sudden itchiness that it left. Squirming, he heard them hissing, much like snakes, as they painted. But as they continued to paint his flesh in foreign runes, their serpentine hisses began to change. They became more pronounceable, less like snakes, and more like human tongues. Soon, he could understand them completely, although he feared what manner of witchcraft was used to make it so. The runes disappeared from his skin, leaving him once again, naked.

The young creature spoke first, and he looked at her, still horribly confused and scared by the events that were taking place. His throat felt as though it was stuffed with cotton, and he could not speak. He could understand her as she spoke to him in now-familiar tongues, but still he could not respond. She spoke of a dead man, one from 20 years beforeâ?¦the woman looked unnaturally young for her ageâ?¦ He felt the rope loop around his neck like a leash, and he made a noise of surprise, but he held his tongue. Then the ropes were undone and he found himself falling into the mud, coughing as he pushed himself up from the dirty ground.

Dragging himself to his unsteady feet, he walked after the woman, apparently not having much choice in the matter.