Sean stepped forward hesitantly.

"I'm Sean," he repeated. "And this is Sam-". He pointed to the ginger girl beside him. The one that had stolen our compass. She rolled her eyes as if the whole ordeal disinterested her.

I think Carrie had found her new best friend.

"Amelia." He gestured to the girl with the beautiful long eyelashes. She smiled and waved shyly.

The Asian girl then quickly interjected before Sean could introduce her. "I can speak for myself, thanks. I'm Jackie. And no, before you ask. Not as in Chan."

No-one said a word.

She laughed, "I guess we're all as stupid as each other if we both managed to get stranded here."

Beside me, Kat took in a sharp breath.

"These guys are Jesse and Darnell." She stuck a thumb to the brothers, the shorter one first, then the taller one.

Everyone was silent for a few moments.

"We, uh, obviously have a lot to talk about here." Sean said officially (and a little uncertainly), after Jackie had spoken. He was obviously used to her interjections, I thought. "But do you guys want to introduce yourselves?"

We all looked at each other in disbelief. There were other people. Other people that were actually here with us. This wasn't a dream, or a fantasy. This was real. We'd found people (well, they'd found us).

"Carrie." Carrie announced hotly, stepping forward when no-one else seemed to want to react.

"Frankie." Kat followed, with a fake name. I giggled. You could always rely on Kat to turn a slightly awkward situation into a funny one with just one word.

Charlie stepped in front of them both, and shook his head in disappointment at Kat.

"This is Kat." He corrected, though he himself was hiding a chuckle. "You know what? Let's just say our own names. Real names, please."

We all said our names in turn, starting with Carrie on their left and ending with Jason on their right. Even he looked surprised, and I'd never known him not to be chill about, well, anything.

I looked from Jason, back to the group and caught Sean's eye. He smiled genuinely and I smiled a small smile in return. First impressions mean a lot after all, and he'd made a good one so far. He seemed approachable, trustworthy, and fun. Though I knew that I'd have to get to know him to confirm this.

Charlie cleared his throat, causing us to break eye contact and look at him. He was trying to get the attention of all fourteen of us.

(Fourteen teenagers on one island with no escape? Lord help us all.)

"Right," Charlie announced, clearing his throat again. "I think it's time we talked. Like, now."

***

Charlie invited the group back to our camp, where we had our tents and our logs set up. Sean looked impressed as
soon as he saw it.

"All this stuff was with you when you came?" He asked in disbelief.

"Uh, yeah," Charlie replied. "We had this big trunk."

"Looks like it was easy for you, then." Sam yawned. "Meanwhile we actually had to work to build something for ourselves."

She didn't sound angry. Just bored.

"I'll have you know that all this has been one of the hardest things I've ever had deal with. You of all people should know the trauma that comes from being stranded like this." Kat said, outraged at Sam's offensive comment.

Sam smiled patronisingly, "well, it seems to me that your life has been pre-tty uneventful if this is the worst experience-"

"Sam," Sean warned.

She only rolled her eyes.

"Those two might be a problem," Alex whispered to me. "The leader's HOT though."

I laughed quietly, fully expecting the impromptu comment from Alex. Even when she was surprised, hot people would not escape her mind. She simply wouldn't let them.

"How about we all sit on the logs and, uh, talk about... Whatever this is." Charlie offered, motioning to the logs and taking a first seat.

I noticed that Carrie ran to sit next to Sean, already taking a liking to him. I laughed with Alex, not really expecting anything less. It was simply classic Carrie.

There weren't enough logs for all of us, so Jason was the first to volunteer to sit on the floor. Eyelash girl Amelia sat next to him wordlessly. Kat sat on his other side.

Alex, Charlie and I took up one log side by side. Sean (and his alarmed
expression at Carrie's sudden proximity) took up the second with Carrie, which was comparably smaller than ours. The brothers - Jesse and Darnell - sat on the last log with Jackie, leaving Ben to roam awkwardly until Alex hollered at him to sit with us.

Sam stood, leaning on a nearby tree so she could still hear us.

Once we were all comfortable - well, as comfy as one can be sitting on a log - Charlie and Sean both spoke at the same time.

"We have some questions." Said Sean.

"How did you get here?" Charlie said.

"We'll go first," Sean offered. "What do you want to know?"

Carrie raised her hand, turning to Sam behind us. "Well, first. Why did you take our compass?"

Kat rolled her eyes. "Why would that be the first question? I can think of, like, 3 more important questions they should answer first."

Sam laughed as if the answer was obvious, "we didn't have a compass. You did. I think I can leave you to do the math there."

Kat sneered, "hasn't anybody ever told you that it's wrong to steal?"

Sam only laughed in response, "I figured that all the rules are out of the window when you're trying to fight for survival. But you wouldn't know much about that living it up with your fancy camp - would you?"

"I'll show you a fight for survival-" said Kat, leaping from her crossed-legged position and lunging at an unsuspecting Sam. Jason acted quickly though, so she was in his arms before she could even throw a punch. It's like he knew that it was going to happen.

"It's okay, Kat," he said calmly. Then he whispered something in her ear that must have been funny, because her determined expression dissolved and became joyous. She threw her head back and laughed heartily, seeming to have forgotten about Sam's provocation.

Kat even skipped back to her sandy seat next to Jason, a content smile on her face. I'd have to ask her about that later.

Sam looked uncertain, but triumphant when she said, "that's what I thought."

Sean sighed deeply, "anyway - I suppose you want to know how we even got here, how long we've been here ect. Jessie and Darnell, you guys wanna explain or should I?"

Jesse and Darnell both looked at each other, nodding their heads a few times and blinking rapidly for a few moments. I was a little creeped out until Sean pointed out that they have their own language, and it's their way of having a private conversation in plain sight. Pretty smart, too. I wouldn't be able to understand what they were 'saying' if someone gave me a cipher.

After a few moments they both shrugged - not in unison, because that would have been creepy - and shook their heads. Sean nodded in acknowledgement, then drew breath to speak.

Before he could say a word, he was cut off by an ear piercing scream.

"Carrie?" I said to myself, turning round at the presumed origin of the loud sound. Carrie was on the sandy ground, writhing in pain and clutching her pinkie toe. It took us all a few moments to actually digest what was happening - it actually took Ben to run towards her for the rest of us to react. Charlie was up and running soon after Ben, and even Kat looked a little worried. The other guys didn't seem to know what to do, so on-looked worriedly. Sam and Jackie were laughing.

After there were a substantial amount of people surrounding Carrie, she'd seemed to have calmed down. She was whimpering, however, and her eyes were closed.

"What's happened, Carrie? Can you speak? Tell me what's wrong." Charlie said calmly, failing to hide the urgency very much evident in his tone.

Sean was suddenly at his side, "Should we put her in the recovery position or something? I feel like we shouldn't leave her like this."

Charlie glanced at Sean briefly enough to show his contempt. His attention was back on Carrie in a second, and his eyes were glazed with uncertainty.

"Uh... Carrie? Carrie can you hear me?" he scooped up her clenched fist from the sand and held it in his. "Squeeze once for yes and -"

"Dude, I'm telling you we need to-" Sean interrupted.

"Can you please just leave this to me?" Charlie quipped back, bringing Carrie's hand to his chest protectively. Sean put his hands up in surrender. "Now, on the field, when one of us would get knocked over, the coach would always ask how many fingers he was holding up. If we couldn't speak, he'd ask us to squeeze once for 'yes' and don't squeeze for 'no'. Can you do that for me, Carrie? Once for 'yes', none for 'no'?"

Carrie squeezed once.

"Okay. Is it your pinkie toe that hurts?"

Squeeze.

By this time, the air was tense and silent as we watched Charlie work. I'd never seen him so authoritative and urgent, because I was so used to his humorous side. He was working almost robotically, always knowing what to do and when to do it. I couldn't help but think that we'd have been very stuck without him. No order. No leadership. Anarchy.

The others were choosing their own way of coping. Most were just watching, like it was something happening on a TV screen rather than in real life. Some of us were playing with the sand or a piece of tree bark to try and distract ourselves from the situation. Others - Sam and Jackie - wee still chuckling loudly enough to be annoying.

"Okay, okay, I can't take this anymore," Jackie announced loudly enough for us all to pay attention. Tears were streaming down Carrie's face. "Tell 'em, Sam, oh please for the love of Netflix, tell them."

Sam was still chuckling a bit, but managed to contain herself to choke out, "Carrie's fine."

We all looked at each other in befuddlement and remained silent so that they could explain.

"While you guys were arguing and such, she got poked by a teeny crab. It was about the size of my pinkie finger," Sam began.

"But we told her it was a rare and poisonous type that we recognised because it was the same crab that killed our companion - what was his name... Carlos! That's it. We said that's why we took the compass, after Carlos' death no-one could take it anymore. He died after days of agonising pain-"

Carrie had risen and leapt on Jackie before she could finish. They were now a blur of red and black hair and sand as they rolled and Carrie screamed insults and a lot of phrases like "I can't *swearword* believe this".

Charlie just stared at them for a little while, and nodded at Jason. They both took their sweet time to stand up while the rest of us laughed hysterically, and eventually they both - soon after joined by Sean - struggled to pry the girls off of each other.

Charlie looked at the others, "well, I can tell that our time here is definitely not going to be boring."

Jessie and Darnell blinked at each other, clutching their sides at the hilarity.

**

"I have a feeling that you have a fondness for moodily looking in the distance at outrageous times in the night."

Charlie turned round and grinned at me. "Why aren't you asleep?" I  continued. "We're establishing the ground rules tomorrow, shouldn't you be getting some rest?"

It was a few hours after the crab debacle, and the other group had gone back to their site to get some sleep and gather up what they had so we could merge the camp. We'd agreed unanimously that we had a much better chance of survival if we stuck together, but we'd have to establish some sort of order if we were to co-exist peacefully before we found a way home.

"Yeah because we've all read slash watched Lord of the Flies," Alex whispered worriedly to me.

After a few simple decisions and pacts were made - such as trading knowledge and sharing food sources ect. in the events that we couldn't co-exist practically - we went our separate ways and tried to digest the information. Carrie went straight to her tent to try and relax after the day's events. Kat and Jason felt too excited to sleep and had wandered off to explore (not actually going into the jungle however as it was dark) and Ben was left with Alex. Their entire conversation was basically her talking flamboyantly and him blushing whenever she touched him. Yep, the boy had it bad. I resolved to talk to him the next day, as I hadn't had the chance to before.

"And I have the feeling you have a habit of finding me when I'm most pensive. In the boat, after the first G + T meeting.."

I raised my eyebrows in acceptance. "I think it's my radar. I happen to love deep conversations."

He laughed.

"Whatchya thinking about?" I asked teasingly, in hopes of brightening the mood.

"The stars, whether we can trust these new people... You." He responded immediately. The randomness of the statement left me in bewilderment.

I was glad he couldn't see my face heat up in the dark.

"As if it wasn't obvious enough, I just wanted to put the words out there. I like you, Corgy," he paused slightly, but not enough for me to react. "You're right, I should get some rest and - so should you. There're Kat and Jason walking towards us, let me just make sure we're all here and then we can turn in."

He got up and headed towards the camp, and I spoke just before he was out of hearing range.

"You were amazing today. With the whole crab thing," I said, with a raised voice.

He stopped to look back at me, "oh no, it wasn't even real, I didn't even-"

"You treated it like it was real, and that's what matters. I feel like we're in good hands, Charles. And I mean that." I turned to smiled at him.

"Well... Thanks." He replied uncertainly, and continued towards the camp.

And then I was left alone with my thoughts.