Faith

The stretch of beautiful blues spread across the horizon look more mesmerizing than anything I have ever seen. The blue of the ocean and the blue of the sky blur somewhere far away from our reach, but the tranquility they send to my soul is extremely overwhelming.

"It's beautiful," I say as I look over to Joy, who seems equally enchanted by the beautiful nature spread across our eyes.

"Yeah, it's just amazing," he adds immediately and squeezes my hand gently, that he's still holding in his own.

"Come let's check out the forest side," he says and we slowly walk towards the other edge.

Our eyes are met with a stretch of greenery spread across this side of the island, large trees hovering over and hiding the actual geography of the forest under them. There's no way we can spot the stream from up here. And, the forest looks dense from all the sides, it's definitely not worth it to try and venture inside unarmed.

Joy looks at me with a similar disappointed realization reflecting in his eyes. I had two strong hopes from this hike, and none of them worked in our favor. No city anywhere nearby in the direction we came from, and no human establishment anywhere in sight.

Disappointed? Yes.
Surprised? No.

I always had this possibility at the back of my mind, and atleast I am not unprepared for this mentally. I wanted to have some ray of hope to look forward to, but there is nothing we can hold onto yet. We can just continue focussing on survival for now.

I turn around and my eyes take in the hilltop again. It's like a small playground, with a few shrubs and trees scattered at a few places. I continue looking around until my eyes fall on the fourth end of the hilltop. There's one end we hiked up,  second has all ocean everywhere, that is the direction we came from, and third has all forest everywhere, followed again by ocean beyond it. But, what's on the fourth side?

Curiosity gets the better of me and I start walking slowly towards the fourth edge. My intuition tells me we'll definitely find something worthwhile this side. Something really crucial that will change things for us.

I walk barely a few steps when Joy reaches my side.

"Where are you going?," he asks curiously.

"The fourth side. Let's check that out too." I say.

He sighs, but nods and takes my hand again.

"I don't think there is anything except ocean that side too," he says.

"Yeah maybe, but we should still check, just in case," I reply, not telling him about my intuition.

As we near the fourth edge, we hear sounds of water falling with force. But, not like the normal waves everywhere else around the island. Stronger. Fiercer. Louder.

As soon as we reach near the edge, both our faces light up with happiness. So, this is where that stream meets the ocean.

A waterfall.

"Wow..", Joy looks at it with amazement.

"This is totally, unbelievably awesome," I add.

Joy looks at me with his eyebrows furrowed. I point towards the beach between this hill and the waterfall in front of us.

"Look, this beach here ends with the same stretch of rocks that begin on our usual side of the beach. If I hadn't found that cave to hide that day, I might have reached this side towards the waterfall already."

Joy looks at the long stretch of rocks joining the two ends of the beaches and nods.

"Yeah probably, it looks like a long walk though," he adds.

I nod in agreement, then look towards this fourth slope of the hill.

"Also, this end isn't much steep either. Should we try descending from this side? We can walk back to our side over the rocks," I say excitedly.

He looks at me, shakes his head and chuckles.

"You remember you have an injury, right?," he asks amusedly.

Damn this injury.

"But...", I begin.

"No buts, Faith. We're going back from the same side that we came from. We can't take risks, once your injury heals we can come back here from the rocky way," he says in his firm, no-room-for-arguments tone.

I huff annoyedly and he smiles like an idiot.

"If you want me to carry you back to the cave, we can descend from anywhere you say," he says and grins.

He knows I don't want that, he's too smart for his own good.

I look away irritatedly and sit under a nearby tree, my eyes still fixated on the waterfall. It's just so beautiful, and I can't wait to stand under it and enjoy the feeling of a shower all over again, but obviously a hundred times better than that.

Joy comes over and sits next to me. His hand reaches for mine again as he looks into my eyes.

"We'll go there soon, I promise. Just not today. Okay, sweetheart?" he says in his sweet voice again.

This time all I see is sincerity in his eyes. Was he not flirting that time too? I didn't look back at him that time. He seriously has a new, sweet side to him?

I shake my head mentally. This is crazy. Either I am imagining things or I really misjudged him back then.

"Okay," I mumble and he gives me a heart warming smile. I smile back at him.

We take out the berries we carried with us and start eating them. Our eyes stay transfixed on the waterfall as we enjoy the lingering and comfortable silence we share with each other.

However, the silence doesn't last too long, because we hear a sound we never thought we would hear anytime soon. God really must be in a good mood today to send two awesome surprises our way. Is this the light at the end of the tunnel they talk about?

We both get up immediately and look in the direction of the sound. When we finally find the source of the sound, we can't help but scream with excitement.

An aeroplane.

Joy runs towards the middle of the hill and jumps and screams out towards the plane. It isn't too high up, but it is impossible for anyone to hear us for obvious reasons. They may see us but we would just appear like tiny dots. How the hell would they understand we are stuck and we need help?

I move towards the edge again, looking at the beach below, the waterfall, any object, plant, tree, rock, anything that can help us to invite the attention of the pilots or the passengers. But, I see nothing that can help us immediately. In the long run, yes, I can definitely think of something. But there's nothing I can think of right now.

I sigh and turn around towards Joy. He is still screaming at the plane angrily. He can be really sensible at times, but right now he's just being a little kid.

"Joy.... Leave it. We can't do anything right now," I scream in his direction.

He looks at me momentarily, then looks back towards the sky.

So adamant.

I decide to go back towards the tree I was sitting under earlier, but as soon as I put some pressure on my ankle, it twists again and I lose my balance.

Shit.

"Joy....... ", a scream leaves my mouth without my consent.

I stumble backwards and before I can steady myself again, I slip off the edge.

I try to grab the end of the hill, the rocks, the dirt, anything... but nothing comes within my reach. In an instant, I feel a pull dragging me downwards against the wind, till I crash down on my side, over rocky surface of the hill, some feet below the hilltop. I topple and tumble down the slope, as the world around me spins round and round and round, till I feel a thud against my forehead and everything goes black.

But I hear a faint scream in distance.

"Oh my God.... No, No, No Faith! Shit!"

Then, everything goes silent again.