Run!

I'm prey on this island, Fox thinks as she takes several deep breaths to prepare for the ordeal. And when there's a predator after prey, the prey has to run for its life. So that's what I do now. It looks like a good two miles from here to there, and I can easily jog that distance - when I'm not already exhausted! But this is it; after it's all over, then I can sleep for a week. I can do this!

Jade narrows her eyes at the distant finish... and takes off.

Running on beach sand in bare feet isn't easy, and Jade's overworked body begins complaining almost at once. She ignores the pain, the discomfort, the growing stitch in her side. All her energy is focused on one thing: one foot in front of the other, as fast as she dares to go. She can't run at a full sprint, it would exhaust her before she could cover a tenth of the distance. At some point, someone is bound to come charging out of the woods after her, and then she'll need to pour on the speed, or stand and fight.

After a while, she has to slow down. Jade turns and splashes out into the surf, letting the waves wash over her and cool her down. The temptation to try and quench her thirst with the seawater is stronger than she would have thought, but of course that would be foolhardy. It does feel good to get the dried swamp-muck off of her, though her hair still feels like a ropy mess.

Then, she's off again, running a little slower, realizing that she spent her energy too freely before. Up ahead, a massive stone slopes up out of the sand, and Jade runs up its surface, jumping recklessly off the other side - it's a further drop than she had thought, but she sticks the landing and keeps her feet.

"Hey, what the fuck?"

"That's her! Come on, let's go get her!"

Great, Jade thinks... apparently, a couple of idiots had been hiding behind that rock and never saw her coming. She doesn't look back - her only chance lies in speed. Instead, she summons a reserve of energy and breaks into a near-sprint, racing across the wet sand. She can hear them behind her...

About a hundred yards ahead, Jade can see an outcropping of rock that juts out into the sea, and a massive wave comes in and smashes up against it, spraying high. Tide's coming in, she thinks. She changed direction slightly and makes for the rock, but not before she sees another man, tall and blonde with bronzed skin. That's Carlos! Jade realizes. His long legs eat up the distance between them - he's approaching much too fast!

Jade runs harder, harder than she ever has in her life! Up ahead she spies a fist-sized rock sitting in the sand, and she drops a hand down to scoop it up as if it were a ground ball hit between second and third base - then, in a move which once won the game for her softball team, she whips around and side-arms the rock at her pursuer.

The rock misses... but the handful of sand she flings along with it doesn't! It catches Carlos across the eyes, and he lets out an actual shriek as he stumbles and falls to the ground, trying to wipe the stinging particles away. Jade gets to her feet first, snatches up the stick which she had dropped, and keeps running. Her other two pursuers had stupidly slowed down during the exchange, but they're after her again now!

Jade's chest is burning as she reaches the big rock in the surf, but she's able to scramble up and on top of it. As she had hoped, there seems to be a hollow on the other side, worn into the rock by centuries of pounding waves. She stops at the edge, turning back, waiting for the other men to get closer... and for something else.

Then it comes, just as the men chasing her start to climb the rock themselves. A huge wave smashes into the rock just as before, spraying high, and in that moment Jade drops off the far side and scurries up into the hollow space. The water comes in and swirls around her, but she manages to keep her grip, and then the surf pulls back completely.

"Fuck, where did she go?"

"It knocked her right into the water, I saw her fall off! Come on, let's go get her!"

Another wave crashes in, smaller than the last but still impressively powerful.

"Dude, fuck that. I want a million dollars too, but I ain't gonna fuckin' drown to get it!"

I can't stay here, Jade thinks as the next incoming wave laps water up to where she hides. The tide's getting higher, and if a really big wave comes in, I could get pulled out there - and they're not kidding, a person could drown in that!

Carefully, Jade unfolds herself and crawls away along a short stretch of pebbly beach, then over a smaller rock outcropping and up onto dry ground, keeping behind a pair of good-sized palm trees. The two men who made it as far as the rock have turned and left; she can't see Carlos at all. Looking the other way, she can see that she's managed to cover an impressive amount of ground, at least half the distance from where she started running.

It takes about two minutes for her to really catch her breath. The water bottle in the pack she took from the snake victim is less than half full, but she's enormously grateful for it, and drinks it dry. She's about to stand up and start running again, but when she unfolds her legs they send a protesting pain all the way up her back.

Okay, I just ran a full mile about as fast as I'm able to run, Jade thinks as she slumps back down. Gonna need a little more rest, I think!