A choice to make

Your first order of business was to create a shelter and a fire, both for cooking and signalling. Using a sharp rock you cut some fibres off a fallen palm tree and used the fibres as a rope to create an axe. So that was something, at least. This meant you could start working on creating a shelter, so you got to work before it got too hot. You were halfway through one tree when you remembered Paul. Realising he deserved better, you put down the axe and went to see about burying him. Figuring you might want to bury him away from your food and water, you found a small rocky outcropping that you could use as a grave marker. Digging with half a coconut shell, you found it was tough going but with enough effort you managed to dig a decently sized hole.

After recovering from the effort, you bought Paul's body to the grave and carefully lowered him in before covering him with sand again. You murmured a brief prayer and found a rock to use as a sort of pen or chisel and just wrote his name on it. That's all you knew. Sad that this was all you could for him, you returned to your camp and returned to work for a little while longer until it got too warm.

At noon you took a break, hiding in the shade of a palm tree, drinking some more coconut water as you stared in the direction of last night's pinprick of light. Had you seen it or not? That was going to drive you crazy, you knew. For all you knew, Rose was there with other people. Or, worse yet, all alone. Or even worse still, she wasn't there at all. Sighing, you tried to move your thoughts away from Rose and back to survival. What still needed doing today? More shelter, signal fires, maybe stack some rocks in an SOS pattern. Things like that. Maybe some more scavenging could be useful. The tide might have carried more luggage in. After a few hours of rest, you decided it was cooling down so you got back to work.

With a wry smile you realised that it was the first time where watching all those YouTube videos came in handy. Using techniques you'd seen, you managed to create some decently shaved logs you could use to create a shelter. Before long you had the first beginnings of a small cabin, no more than 6 by 6 feet, but it was a great start. There was no moss to put between the logs, so you made do with the women's clothes that you had found the day before. It worked just as well.

Before you knew it your second day on the island came to an end, with the sun starting to drop behind the horizon. Having prepared for this, you used the coconut fibres that you'd saved as tinder and soon set up a roaring campfire. Maybe this would attract someone's attention. For a while you looked into the fire, thinking about home. Your mom, your sisters, and of course, Rose. You would kill for news of her about now. You sighed and looked up in the direction of yesterday's light. There it was again. You stood up and stared at it. So there was life over there! They were doing the same as you were! Excited, you whooped and hollered for a while before calming down and sitting down. So you'd have to build a raft or something to get over to these people. Maybe Rose would be there with them. You sat down after that, drawing some plans in the sand, knowing that you needed to be careful not to want to do too much with the limited energy you had. You slept like a baby that night, both from exhaustion and the fact that you might not be alone after all.

The next morning you started gathering stuff together, though only until ater breakfast. You got a bunch of rocks and used them to spell out SOS on the larger beach. At the same time you collected the few pieces of luggage that had indeed washed up overnight. You decided to make a secondary SOS out of the empty suitcases but that was a concern for later. A spear to fish with would be nice, so that was your first order of business. Or should you work on a raft? You went through the newest luggage, mulling over the question as you sorted items in the bags into piles. At the very least you could probably wear some of the men's clothes, even if it was a tight fit on most of them. It was better than being naked. As you finished looting this time around you looked in the direction of the other island. So what should you do?