2. Restless Night

After saying goodnight to everyone I went to my own bed. In under 10 minutes they're all asleep, but i'm stuck awake thinking of ways to escape this place. Then I heard something outside walking around. Maybe it's one of us, but i'm not taking any risks on this island. I grabbed a busted up knife I found in the woods yesterday when I got to the campsite. It was a weird styled blade and handle. The blade had a reddish glow with a crystal like material surrounding the blade. And the handle was made from a type of wood I never saw before. It was black wood, but the color wasn't painted on it was part of the wood. And a black cloth like material wrapping the handle. And whatever blacksmith made this was very lucky with these materials. Whatever they are.I decide to take it outside with me for protection, but when I look out there's nobody there. I walked out hoping I wasn't about to make the worst decision of my life.

I searched for a good half hour, but nothing came up. I decided to go on the beach since I can't sleep. Sitting down I lay the machete down next to me.The waves crashing into the shore made it hard to think. Still, I just layed there till the morning. Waiting for any sign of hope to come by, but it never did. The sun finally rises over the horizon, and I'm still awake. "I hope every night isn't like this." heading back I see Nat cooking something on the fire. "well you're an early riser aren't you Nat." she looks up to me as I put the machete into the backpack I had made. "yeah you could say something like that, looks like you aren't too different." i smile "yeah i guess so.¨"she pats her hand on a seat to tell me to sit down. I sit down on the log, and then she starts saying something."hey Jase i'm gonna search around the island for a bit today." "you're going alone?" she looks over at me "no dummy, you're coming with me." "oh yeah and why's that." I look over to see her pointing at my bag "because you have a machete to keep me safe." My eyes widened with surprise, how did she know about that. "How did yo…?" "i saw it last night when you went outside." She was awake? last i'd checked she was passed out on the sand. "fine, i'll go with you." she laughs at what i say "you say that like it's an option, well news flash it was a demand not a choice." really? she's gonna do that to me. This is gonna be fun.

7:20 am

"Ok, i'm gonna tell everybody we're going, so pack your stuff up." "ok, i will." after she tells everyone we head out to search around the island.

For hours we search the island with no luck finding something. "Hey Nat we've been searching for two hours now and still have only searched five percent of this place." she stands up fast and quickly turns around pointing her finger at me. "You're not giving up on me are you." I backed up a bit surprised that she snapped at that. "No, but i was just saying this is gonna take a while to… huh." in the middle of me talking she starts walking further in the forest. "What is it?" I say slowly coming up behind her. She doesn't answer, so I look at what she is. There's a tent of some sort. "Oh that's what you see." she nods "do you think we should check it out Jase." "I don't see any reason that we couldn't." I pull out the machete just in case.

I go in first, but it looks like nobody's been here for centuries. "looks clear to go in." "good." The tent has spider webs in every corner. The dust in the room was repulsive. It smelled like someone had died in there. "Oh god this smell reeks in there Jase, do we have to go in there." I look back at her. "Well you said you wanted to explore." "shut up asshole." She shoves me a little bit. I decide to search alone while she waits outside. "hm doesn't look like there's much here." something catches my eye "Huh, what's this." there was a piece of paper laying next to a makeshift bed. "it's a letter, wonder what it says." I open it up carefully to reveal what it says. i start reading, but it's in a weird font that's hard for me to understand. The paper is so old that merely touching it is enough for it to crumble into ashes.

It states, "If you are reading this i'm probably dead. I've lived on this god forsaken island for twenty years, and I'm starting to go mad. I've seen all of my friends die all one by one either by being hung or taken off somewhere and were murdered, some even went insane enough to commit suicide. It's madness, but besides all that there's a secret that I found out about this island. It's somehow been possessed, and all of the things happening are from this evil spirit lingering in the woods watching from the mountains and trees. I've hidden a weapon of utmost power. It's a knife I built myself; it's the only one that can destroy this demon that haunts this island. I've hidden it somewhere in the forest in hope that someday someone would find it and fix this place. I don't know exactly how, but it is possible to destroy this thing. I wish you the best of luck and please if you escape tell my family I love them. Bring the picture on the desk. It should prove it's me. Well good luck, and god bless you."

I look down at the desk, there's a picture of a man two little girls and a woman "aaaaahhhhh!" out of nowhere i hear a scream. I rush out of the tent and see Nat looking off into the distance at something. "What is it Nat." she says nothing runs over to me and gets behind me, then points to the woods. I take a closer look then I can see a body-like shape in the air almost floating. I stepped a little bit closer to the woods and saw there was someone hanging from a rope just like the letter said. "Jase, can we go back to camp? I'm really scared." i look back at her shivering in fear "yeah, you want me to carry you." she nods her head balling her eyes out.I turned around and kneeled down, then she got on my back and we went back after I grabbed the backpack with the knife in it. I wait until we're at the camp to show her the note. Sure enough she freaked out even more when she saw it. "We're literally on some kind of death island!" I stood up and put my hand over her mouth to make her shut up. "Quiet we don't want the others to know. She nods her head and I let her go.

Ryan walks in shortly after, "hey guys i'm gonna go get some more materials ok." we both look at him for a sec before i say "don't go alone" he gives me a confused look and then a huge grin "i think ill be fine Jase no need to worry.''Before I could say anything he ran off into the woods. "That guy could try and actually listen for once in his life." looking back at Nat still shaken up about what just happened i tell her "hey Nia i'm gonna go check up on Jess ok. try to relax a bit get that stuff off your mind." She nods and lays down and I go out. Nearing her tent I grab two apples before I go in. walking in i see Jess writing in a book. I look over her shoulder to see it. "Whatchya writing." she quickly closes the book "uh nothing." i sit down across from her "here i brought you something to eat"I toss the apple to her side and she picks it up with a smile "thanks jase i'm starving" she takes a huge bite into the apple with joy. "So, how's your leg doing." She looks at me with a mouth full of apples.

"It feels good, but i don't know how it looks." "wanna see". "yeah". We un-bandage her leg and it looks good. "wow". "what, is it ok?" "yeah it's healing really fast, you should be fine Jess." "oh, we'll that's a relief¨

We talk for about another hour, then I hear the other kids making a ruckus. I tell Jess to wait in the tent while I check it out. Walking outside I see everyone looking at the woods while a faint scream of terror came out of it. I look back and Jess is standing there. She whispers to me. "Is that Ryan?" I look back at the forest. "Dammit!" i say with frustration as i start running into the woods. After running aimlessly in the woods the screaming turned to faint choking making it harder to pinpoint where he was it kept coming in and out but still no sign of him. I stopped to catch my breath looking around. It sounded like he was right where i was but then the choking stopped and it fell silent. It was so quiet I could hear the buzzing of the flies flying around. Every tree branch creek was easily audible, the change in wind direction even.

Suddenly something wet had dropped on my face, I then heard the quiet sound of something tightening. Remembering what the note said I hesitantly looked up and saw a horrific sight. The liquid oozing down my face was in fact blood from my friend who I had seen hanging there off of a tree choking on his own blood. The smell alone made my eyes water. It was so disgusting but i couldn't help but to look upon it. You could see the fear on his face he didn't do this to himself, something else is here.