Lydia didn't remember how she had fallen asleep, or with whom, or if she had covered herself with a blanket during the night, but when she felt the hardness of the sand under her body, the smell of the salty sea mixed with the ashes of the fire, her heart sank back into her chest.

She felt the sun's rays hitting her face directly, but still she didn't want to open her eyes. Far from feeling lazy, she didn't want to open them because she would see reality: she was not in her room, she would not see through her window the garden and her grandmother's dog; she wouldn't go down to have her grandmother's pancakes for breakfast, and she wouldn't go to class afterwards either. They were locked in fucking hell and there was no way out of it.

She snuggled closer to herself, still determined not to open her eyes, but she knew that people around her were already beginning to wake up. A body on her prevented the sun from bothering her again, but knowing her intentions, she spoke: "Do not even think about it." Lydia grunted after saying this, earning a kind laugh from Martha, who was already sitting up and looking at her. Toni raised her hands in surrender: she did not know the character of the British girl and she did not want to risk it either.

"You were sleeping too soundly. One can't even be sure anymore when somebody is going to die on us," Toni joked, but it was too early in the morning for the dark humor to amuse Lydia. She grunted at her again.

"Where is everybody?"

"Leah's found a phone. She says it was Jeanette's," Martha explained instead of Toni, who sat in front of the two girls.

"A phone?! Why wasn't I woken up?"

"I already told you! You were sleeping, and see what you would've done to me if I dared to wake you up."

"Sod off," Lydia murmured in response. She got up and stretched extravagantly, prompting glances between Martha and Toni. "Well, what's the plan for today? Sunbathing with some vodka, maybe going into the forest and have a massage and a spa session? I'm dying to know."

"You're coming with me, Lydia!" Rachel's sudden voice puzzled her, and she saw the girl walk purposefully toward the seashore. The blonde ran to her, detecting that the tone of her voice was not particularly cordial —not that she usually sounded so either, but Lydia did not feel like a good morning fight.

The British girl did not want Rachel, who was clearly angry, to unleash all her fury on her, so she just shut up and watched. The New Yorker was considering various options in her hands; she was trying to inflate the life jackets that had fallen from the plane with her own air, but they both knew that this was going to be an impossible task, since they were probably punctured.

The Californian turned when she saw the others slowly coming back. Dot and Fatin were carrying the slide left over from the plane crash, Toni and Martha were still trying to ease the pain in the latter's ankle, and Nora was walking from one place to another, not quite sure what to do. Lydia made eye contact with Leah, who was approaching the position of the two athletes.

"You're swimming up to the wreckage."

"Yes," Lydia answered. "There might be things useful to us. To radio, flares."

"The water's insane," Leah tried to raise awareness. "You see those waves, how they break in sideways? It's a fucking riptide."

"Did my sister ask you to talk me down?"

Leah and Rachel continued to fight some more, each more convinced that their plan was the one that would succeed. Still, Lydia couldn't help but agree with Leah —as much as the girl didn't give off a good vibe— the tide was rough, the waves were breaking hard, and even someone who mastered swimming couldn't tame those waters.

"Maybe we should try another way," Lydia piped in, earning looks from both girls. The blonde pointed her eyes at the huge mountain looming over them, and the other two girls instantly understood her intentions.

So the three girls set off, picking up all the mattresses and other objects that had fallen from the plane when it crashed, and brought them closer to the temporary camp they had set up.

"We're taking a walk," Leah announced, causing everyone to turn.

"And you're coming too, Texas. You've been out there, so you can lead the way," Rachel urged Shelby, who shared a look with Lydia, only to get a shrug in response.

"The way to... what, now?"

"That," the New Yorker pointed to the mountain just as Lydia had done moments before, and everyone's gazes followed Rachel's.

"We gotta know what this place is. There's no way we're alone out here."

"You know I'd be all in, but Martha—"

"That's fine, you should go," Toni interrupted Shelby's excuse, whose lips pressed into a fine line, knowing she would have no other excuse.

Lydia was getting tired of Toni's cutting attitude towards Shelby —what had the poor girl done to her?— so she gave her a reproachful look and shook her head, to which Toni only rolled her eyes.

"Well, it looks like I'm a yes, so," Shelby looked around to find something to take with her, so Lydia walked over to her and lent her a pair of sneakers. Shelby smiled gratefully at her.

"We're going to have a fucking good time," the British put her hands on Shelby's shoulders, pretending to massage her, and the Texan stirred at the sudden contact. Lydia frowned, somewhat concerned about her behavior. "Sorry. A little too soon to swear this much?"

"Hey, Rach..." Nora trailed off, chasing her sister with her eyes; but Rachel's look back never came. Lydia wondered what the dramatic moment would have been that would have ended the twins' relationship, but she didn't want to ask either.

The four girls set off, Shelby and Rachel leading the expedition, while Lydia was a bit more behind but not as much as Leah. The blonde waited for her with a questioning look, seeing how the two figures of the other young women were advancing, and Leah nodded soon after, almost thanking her for waiting for her. Maybe she wasn't too used to exercising so much so often.

"Yesterday we went left. Lydia ran off somewhere in here, so that's the only hint we followed."

"Let me come with you!" A voice yelled away from them, and they all discovered a breathless Nora advancing towards them.

Rachel looked exasperated. "Not happening."

"But I can help you."

"You helped enough."

"No, Rach. Do you know how bad I feel? I would tear my skin off."

"Maybe she should come, Rachel," Lydia spoke aloud, her hands covering the sun in her face. "The more, the merrier." The truth is that she had felt sorry for the violent exchange of words between the sisters.

"She would only slow us down," and like that, the four of them left, Lydia apologizing with her gaze to Nora.

Lydia was an only child, so she didn't know what it felt like to fight between siblings. Nor did she have cousins, or any other family member who resembled it. She had grown up alone, with the only company of her parents, who worked longer than they were at home, and with a babysitter. Lydia would have liked to experience everything siblings did, even those banal fights; but she supposed she didn't know what she was talking about, because she saw the rancor in Rachel's eyes like she had never seen it before.

Leah was still the slowest walker, often falling apart from the rest and trusting that Lydia would keep stopping until she caught up with them. The girl's gaze was blank, probably thinking about her own problems, and Lydia wondered if she didn't always have the same shocked look even before the accident.

"Everything alright? Need something to drink?"

"I'm alright, thanks," Leah passed. "This is just fucking crazy, that's all."

"What part are you exactly referring to?" Lydia retorted, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Last night, when the phone had battery and it was connecting us to the real world, suddenly dies. And the same happens this morning, but with a dead girl's this time, not to mention she had two phones and she kept this one from us. Isn't everything just too weird to be a fucking coincidence?"

"What are you implying with this?" Lydia leaned against a log to tie her shoelaces, and Leah rested beside her, her gaze following the other two girls so she wouldn't lose them.

"I don't know," Leah ran her hands over her face and rubbed her temples. "This is all too much. I just want to get out of here."

"What was your life like back at home?" Lydia asked suddenly in an attempt to distract the girl. Leah was silent, but the blonde shrugged. "I feel like I know from everyone but you. You know, Martha and Toni are best friends, Rachel and Nora always with their quarrels, Dot's obssessed with TV shows about surviving, which, considering the situation, is fucking great; Shelby does pageants and Fatin seems to hate her parents. What do I need to know about you?"

"Why would you need to know anything about me?" Leah questioned, but her voice wasn't rough: she was just curious. She was breathing raggedly as they had started up the hill, following Rachel and Shelby closer.

"Considering we're going to stay here more than we'd like, I wouldn't like to hit a nerve. I'll assume you haven't killed anyone, robbed a bank or are still obsessed with one of your exes," Lydia trailed off, laughing, imagining it was impossible for someone as shy and quiet as Leah, but she instantly shut up when she saw Leah's gaze travel from one place to another. "Shit, you are. I'm sorry, I will keep my mouth shut."

"What about you? Anyone waiting for you?"

"Apart from my grandma, I don't think so," Lydia smiled.

Leah nodded. "You drank last night, so I figured you'd have a boyfriend, or girlfriend, or whatever."

"Something I'm not really proud of, really," Lydia confessed, her brow furrowed. Leah just nodded and patted her on the back.

They continued walking, catching up shortly after the other two girls, who were climbing in silence. Lydia didn't stop to look at the scenery, but she figured if this were just a weekend outing in a safe place, it might even be beautiful. She calmly contemplated the trees, the bushes, each rock so as not to trip, and saw how the breeze of air stirred each leaf of that forest. For the first time since she had set foot on this island, she felt calm, although it did not take long for the feeling of anxiety to appear again.

They made it to the top of the hill before sunset, just as Rachel had predicted —she had pushed them to walk faster so they could get there before dark, which hadn't bothered Lydia's legs much, but it did Leah and Shelby's.

"Watch out."

"What do you think we'll see once we get up there?"

"A big ass ocean," Lydia muttered under her breath, but Rachel heard her and scoffed.

"I'm taking a break, sorry," Shelby announced, visibly tired and flushed, one of the Diet Coke they had found in her hands.

"I said we're almost there!" Rachel screamed, losing her mind again.

The mirror Dot had given her was hooked to her sweatshirt, and the girl twisted around so hard that the knot that tied it around Rachel's neck unraveled, causing the glass to slip out of her grip. The mirror rolled several times, the girls making gestures of hopelessness when they heard the stones dig into the glass.

Once again, Lydia's instincts did not fail her. She forgot that underneath there was a great cliff and that she was afraid of heights since she was a child; she just wanted to grab the mirror and get out of there. She ran to the cliff and reached out to catch it. "Stop, we don't need it."

"I can see it!" Lydia screamed from her position, the stones now digging into her skin as she was lying face down to reach the mirror. She had to get it back, or their long excursion into the woods would have been in vain. "I can get it."

"You can?" Rachel asked. Lydia listened to the tone of the girl's voice, determined to get the mirror but at the same time worried that she didn't want to lose one more girl.

"Lydia, stop, let it go," Shelby urged, trying to grab her from the fabric of her shirt. The image gave her chills, she didn't understand why, but the simple thought that Lydia, whom she had known for only a day, might fall, left her blood cold.

"It's okay, I—"

Her words were carried away by the wind. The stones slid down the mountain, pushing the mirror into the abyss and trying to carry the body of the young British woman as well. Lydia gasped when she saw that she would go headlong into the void, and her voice was replaced by cries of alarm from Shelby, Leah and Rachel, holding her as tight as they could, but nothing seemed to do.

Seeing the sea and the rocks so far but so close at the same time made her tremble. She paled like never before at the miserable thought that she was so close to death and could do nothing. She was paralyzed like when the plane fell, like when the car hit...

"I'm here!" A voice behind them bailed them out, Nora tugging at Lydia's shirt with a renewing force that brought the blonde back onto solid ground instead of being held in the air.

The five girls lay down on the floor, the thought still dancing in Lydia's mind that she might have died moments ago. She looked up at the sky and remembered to treasure it as much as she could, watching the clouds cautiously and taking a deep breath. Her chest rose and fell at an accelerated rate, according to the circumstances, and she looked down at her hands, which were shaking profusely. Her eyes were wide, as her mouth, and her hair covered the scratch the rocks had made on her cheek.

She got up slowly, still in shock, but she didn't dare look at the cliff. She knew they had lost the mirror, that there was little else they could do without it, but seeing death so closely evoked strange sensations. She wiped the blood from her face, and clenched her fists when she saw that she was still shaking.

The others looked at her almost with pity, as if they didn't care about the mirror either. Even Rachel, the most stubborn of all, seemed to be concerned about Lydia's condition. However, that seemed short-lived. "Fuck! Fuck, we needed that."

"The mirror? Who the hell cares about the mirror? Lydia almost dies!" Shelby called her out.

"No, no, she's right," Lydia chimed in, swallowing hard to keep the bile from building up in her throat. "We needed the mirror, maybe not today, but we don't know when it could come in handy. I'm sorry," her voice broke at the end, but she didn't understand whether because she was really sorry or because she was still a bit dazed. She got up and dusted herself off, trying to keep her balance. "I'm heading down now. I'd like to be alone," she added when Shelby decided to join her.

She left in silence, at a slow pace, under the watchful eyes of the other four girls. Shelby and Leah didn't like the idea of ​​her leaving alone after what had happened, and Nora passively berated her sister with her eyes. Lydia heard Rachel from a distance go into a rage, and she could almost imagine the vein in her neck swelling.

A part of her knew she couldn't blame herself for the loss of the mirror —there could have been a worse loss— but she kept thinking that perhaps at another time it would have served them, to make a fire, for example. The other part of her was somewhat enraged at Rachel, who seemed to have no emotions other than herself, as if the other girls were an obstacle to getting off that damn island.

In a fit, Lydia grabbed the largest stone she could find and threw it into the air. "FUCK!" She yelled at the same time. She heard the stone land not far from her, but didn't care. She hit a tree near her with intensity, perhaps to feel some pain, perhaps to shake off the rage she felt, but she didn't stop until her knuckles were bloody.

She followed the path they had used to climb up the mountain, for the marks of the four pairs of slippers were still there. She ended up on the sand shortly after, the sun burning her forehead and cheeks, and she instantly remembered her grandmother's advice. She scratched her face a little, as it itched, and guessed she would look like a mess. Her pants were ripped, her legs were scratched everywhere, her t-shirt was still bloody, her face had fresh blood from branches and stones and her hands were numb from the blows.

She walked without saying anything to anyone towards the beach, needing a moment to herself. However, Fatin followed her with her eyes, wondering what had happened to make her look so miserable. "Oh, fuck, Lydia. What the fuck happened to you?" She sat next to her on the sand, the waves rushing to her bare feet.

"Everyone's alright," the blonde just said. She let Fatin wipe away the visible blood, but her face was made into a grimace every time the salt came in contact with the wound. "I let the mirror fall, though."

Lydia related the events to Fatin, from how they had decided to forget the wild sea for another day and go up the mountain, through the loss of the mirror, and ending in Rachel's anger. "That wasn't your fault. You could've fucking died, okay? What matters is that you're alright." Against all odds, Lydia leaned on the contact Fatin provided. "Rachel's a bitch sometimes. I won't allow you to go all depressed on me. It's a shame I finished my bottle of alcohol last night."

Lydia chuckled, the dark gaze on her eyes gone. "It's because you're a whore."

Fatin bit her lip, pretending to be turned on. "I'll beg you to say it again, I'll melt with that accent of yours."

"WHORE!" Lydia exclaimed, and both she and Fatin burst into laughter, the guilt that had previously filled her chest fading by the minute. "I needed that."

"You're not a whore, though, are you?" Fatin let out a chuckle when she saw Lydia's face to those words. "I can tell. You seem like the girl who waits until she likes someone to go all the way. You're sweet."

"Oh, Fatin, how I would like to tell you that's true," Lydia winked at her as she got up and brushed the sand off her, aware of how messy she looked.

The girl widened her eyes, incredulous at Lydia's words, and chased her across the sand until she reached her, when they had already reached the small camp they had set up, and the other girls stared at Fatin and Lydia's interaction, all bruised but with a childish smile that lit up her face.

"Okay, besties, we're still in hell," Dot welcomed them in her own way, but neither of them seemed to care too much. Lydia met Shelby's gaze, who nodded at her as if glad she was okay. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"I almost die, but hey, I'm still here. What did you find?" The British answered, noting a black bag in front of Dot.

"Shelby did, actually. It was the pilot's. It has plenty of medicines. Here, take this," the Texan offered her a bottle that could read alcohol. "You better desinfect those scratches or it'll be worse for you."

"God knows what kind of animal has pissed on those trees you barged into," Leah muttered, and this only made Lydia rush to apply the alcohol to heal herself.

She saw that Toni was further away from the rest, and understood that, again, it was due to Shelby and Martha. Lydia approached her, thinking that they were in special circumstances, and that although she had not been friends with any of these girls before, she did not want any of them to be left out of the group in this situation. Lydia didn't quite catch the look Shelby gave her before sitting down next to Toni, at least a meter apart.

The British hissed in pain at some point, but Toni didn't take the hint. She wanted to be alone, she needed to be, now that it seemed that her best and only friend had replaced her with someone like Shelby, who seemed so superficial and fake... That infuriated Toni. Why couldn't Martha see that it was just circumstances, that someone like Shelby would never befriend her? Sometimes Martha was so naive that it only angered Toni.

"You need to tone it down," Lydia said before taking a sip of her coke. Toni gave her a cold look. "I can feel the jealousy burn through your eyes."

"If you're here to lecture me about how to handle my feelings, save it."

"I would never do that," Lydia offered her some of her coke, and Toni reluctantly accepted it. "I have the feeling we'll be here for more time than we would like, so I'd like for all of us to, at least, be cordial to each other. I think there's no need for you to be jealous of Shelby. I mean, it's not like Martha's going to forget all about you suddenly."

"Yeah? What would you know about it? You don't know what it's like to be alone."

Lydia's heart felt a prick after hearing those words, but she only smiled sadly. "I've basically grown up alone. My parents worked a lot when I was young, so I was left alone with the babysitters or with neighbors that offered to take care of me. I wasn't used to having much attention on me, so everytime someone showed any interest, I'd cling to them. I would get very jealous when they had other friends, because I understood they had gotten tired of me and they would dump me. But most of the times that's just our perception. People aren't our property, they are entitled to have their life, too. If they care, they'll stay no matter what," Lydia snatched the drink from Toni, who was staring at her, but Lydia couldn't decipher whether it was a look of understanding or a 'stay away from me' look. "Martha's not going to leave you after this. You'll still be her best friend, if that's what you're so afraid of."

"I'm afraid of her getting hurt," Toni confessed in a small voice, her eyes not meeting Lydia's. "How can she not realize Shelby is just using her to her own interest? She'll forget all about her in a heartbeat as soon as we get out of here."

"It's Shelby we're talking about. The girl prays before eating cheese crackers," Toni snorted and Lydia just smiled sympathetically. "Let Martha loosen up a bit. I'm sure she'll appreciate it if you start being nice to everyone here."

"This is me trying," Toni scowled. Then she added: "I hate you."

"What did I even do now?"

"Your voice, your stupid accent. It sounds so posh and so... strangely conciliatory."

"Oh, shut up, will you?"