Escaping the Island: You are Invited!

Kropeti Island

Kropeti Island was a huge island for a month-long journey. It clearly overtopped everyone's expectations which unfortunately in a bad way. This island was twice scarier than what Stuart had imagined, it was darker than what they thought, it felt like they were being surrounded with dark energy and they were getting chills once in a while. They were just in the beginning and still on the shore, looking at the formidable entrance of the island, where rather green in colors, it was dark and dead.

The other boat had gone back, and the cameras started recording, and even with shaky hands Stuart still managed to press the play button on his camera which showed his pale face first before he switched the camera to let them see what they were seeing.

“How are we going to get in there? By group? By pair? Individually?” Nina asked meekly, glancing at them.

Stuart eyed the others as well, they seemed to be engrossed with looking around and thinking to themselves, and since he was standing beside the girl, it seemed that he was the only one along with Debbie who was on the other side which he met her eyes again, who had heard her.

“It’s better if we come together,” Debbie suggested, angling for their approval as she looked at all of them. They seemed to agree even though no one answered.

“What is so scary about this?” Marlon asked as he started walking forward, it seemed that he wasn’t scared nor intimidated by anything at all. “Come on and find those treasures.”

Drake and Craig followed him until all of them did. The feeling that someone was looking was still there, but it had somehow faded as they all were now preoccupied with starting the journey. Marlon took out his katana and sliced off the creepers to make way for them. Stuart was at the back with Stephan, he was the kind man who seemed to be outgoing but right now, all he could see on his face was seriousness.

He was a man with big, brown eyes, his hair was naturally curly. His skin was of a light tone, shoulders were wide and muscular arms. He was the tallest among everyone, and he also was the oldest as far as he knew since he was already twenty-six. He was naturally kind and gentleman too, he observed, he let the girls walk first. Though some of them were there because of poverty, he seemed like he was not one of those as he looked lowkey well off which was his Rolex watch on his wrist speaking for his fortune.

“How did you get here?” he asked after a while of just staring at him.

Stephan glanced at him and grinned. “Well, you know, curiosity kills the cat. I clicked the advertisement and an email came saying I’m invited, so I accepted.”

He was chuckling while shaking his head, taking everything lightly. He wondered if he was feeling nervous about their current situation or if he was just cool with everything. He just hoped they would work together and come out complete through cooperation with the others.

They continue walking further inside the scary, mysterious island. It seemed that the sun did not shower enough streaks on the island. The surrounding was still dark though the sun outside was scorching. It seemed that the fog circling the island was blocking any stray of yellow light, though it was still obvious that it was morning since they could still see enough of the surrounding. The leaves that hit their faces were wet, and the soil they were walking on was muggy, sticking to their shoes and gunky.

Stuart and the others stopped as Marlon’s hand raised and signaled them to stop as well. They were confused why he was acting like that. Marlon was looking around silently, he looked like he was listening to something that he only knew while the others were watching him in irritation because of his sudden stoop, especially the kids behind him.

“What are you doing? Stop being so weird,” Craig, who was behind Drake, remarked, tilting his head to look at the man. “Are you trying to scare us out?”

“Shh!” Marlon harshly shushed him. His eyes were wide as he looked at them, his pointing finger across his lips, and ears perking like a dog trying to listen to something. “Can’t you hear that?”

That made them aware of their surroundings. Stuart unconsciously took his katana out and listened carefully, the two girls seemed afraid as well as they moved closer to him, but they also held their weapon rigidly. He heard the sound of scratching just beside him, he looked at the others who also heard it as they were all looking at it with their eyes wide as if waiting for him to do something or waiting for whatever caused the noise to reveal itself, but nothing came out.

“See what it is,” Emerson told him. He was walking at the very end of the line, he was a silent man, looking like he didn’t care about his surroundings at all. He seemed to be the man who would join an adventure because of impulsiveness, and look at where it led him, yet he still looked hard to read as he always looked blank.

He sighed and slowly walked toward the side. His steps were careful, especially that the sound earlier was already gone and he didn’t know what was waiting for him. He walked further to the knee-leveled grassy part, but as he sheared off the grasses, he already went further than them, there was still no trace of something that caused the sound.

Unaware of everyone, something was creeping behind them ever so slowly and smoothly, its body crawling, trying not to make a sound. Its sharp tail was already ready to pierce into something. But it stopped whenever someone would look behind.

“There’s nothing-” He looked behind him to tell them that, but rather his eyes bulged, breath hitched, his mouth hanging open as he looked up.

The others were weirded out by his reaction, but when they looked up, they came face to face with the large, rocky, and thorny tail of a scorpion, ready to stab the person in front which happened to be Nina. The loud scream of the girl echoed in the whole island, luckily, before the tail could even pierce her, Debbie pulled her to the side and started running.

“Run!” Stephan screamed, running along with the others, and escaping the huge scorpion which they bet was at around five feet and when it stood with its feet, and its tail was scarily huge that they did not have a choice but to run and escape.

Stuart ran with the others, his pants were heavy as he looked behind him and found the scorpion moving fast. Its eyes were red, its claws were opening and closing as if waiting for something to fill those and pinched until it burst open, and they didn’t actually know how to take this thing down as they did not expect this kind of humongous creature would welcome them when they had just entered the mouth of the island.

He looked at the others. They had completely separated. He settled behind a huge tree, panting and running after his breath until it was even, he could hear the scorpion’s hiss behind him, and as he peeked, he came face to face on its tail. He cursed loudly. He rolled on the muddy soil, and as soon as he did, the tail pierced on the tree and went through the other side, almost piercing his head if he just did not move.

He ran away from it, scurrying his way forward and even slipping as his life depended on it which actually it was. He saw Marlon hiding from a tree and peeking on their way when he ran to the side to keep him safe and out of its eyes and the scorpion followed, for some reason, Marlon also followed and hid in another tree with his eyes focused on the animal. He had no choice but to run forward, he seemed to have a plan, while all that Stuart had in mind was to run until he got to mislead it.

The others were watching at the back, shivering at how its thorny tail hit the trees and would almost hit Stuart too. They couldn’t do anything, or maybe they could, but they wouldn’t risk their own lives to save someone else’s, especially that it was just the start yet.

Marlon, however, was different from all of them. When Stuart got past him, and the scorpion came after him without seeing him, he closed his one eyes and licked his lip, counting one to three and threw his katana in the air, at the same time, he took his gun as well, and shoot its body, causing a loud hiss from the animal, and a small squeak from Nina from the loud bang of the two shootings.

The scorpion’s tail was sliced off squirming on the ground like a squid’s tentacle, and the scorpion itself suddenly went to another route and vanished in their eyes, leaving the tail slowly starting to stop its frantic movement.

“Yow!” Drake called out cheerfully, holding the camera, jumping up and down as he made sure Marlon was on cam. “I got that on my camera! You’re so cool, bro!”

Stuart panted heavily, holding his knees as he looked on the ground and let his sweats drip on the muddy soil. He looked at the side where Marlon was, he was grinning and proud of himself, his long hair was already damp with sweat, and if he didn’t tie his hair into a low ponytail, then they might be look-alike, though Marlon seemed to be looking like a gang member because of his multiple tattoos on his arm.

“Are you still good?” He asked, yelling at him from a distance while the two youngest were gushing over him with their cameras, treating him like a sort of a hero. “You cannot survive by just running. You have to think and fight back. Stop being weaklings.”

His brows furrowed. Did he just call him a weakling?

“Here, water.” He looked in front and found Debbie with a bottle of water in hand and still a stern look. “He’s right with the first part, but it was just his boastfulness talking so don’t mind the last part.”

“You have to lead us, bro! You’ll lead us to fortune!” Craig declared with bigotry, he was even raising his hand as if trying to persuade people of something.

He accepted the water and just drank it, trying not to bark back a reply to the man who loved the attention given to him. Nina and Stephan were looking at the tail that was already turning black which they did not know why. The previously scary and intimidating tail was slowly turning into decayed flesh inside the darkening shell.

“Where are we now though?” Nina asked, making the other stop and becoming alert to where they were as well. They looked around the surroundings, and only the seemingly endless trees were seen around, and the previous entrance they walked through earlier was gone and they were already trapped inside the infinite island.

“It doesn’t matter, we are bound to be here and look around the island anyways.” Marlon walked past the two and took his katana, he crouched and switched his katana. “Look who’s getting the two hundred million dollars.”

Stuart almost let out a snicker as he shook his head, it was official that this man should be one of those people whom he didn’t want to be with no matter how he saved him. He just couldn’t stomach boastful people, it was making him remember those other staff members in the bank he was working with before, he knew these kinds of people wouldn’t do anything good to him. He looked at Debbie when she was the one to snicker, expressing the way she hated how the man was acting, she was freely expressing her disappointment.

“We should continue. What are the things we have to find again?” Debbie told and asked them. She took something on the side of her bag using her one hand as the other was holding the monopod, it was the brochure that the organization had given them. “Diamonds?”

“Anything, I guess,” Stephan said, holding the same brochure while they were walking toward them. “We can get anything without order, as long as we can get them.”

“After all, we don’t know this island and where these things were. We will just go with the flow on whatever this island would give us,” Emerson added, shrugging with his hands on his waist.

Stuart nodded in agreement on what they said. The island was huge, and they only have one month, they didn’t know exactly where they would start on looking for these things as they weren’t given any map or something, they would just really be believing in their instincts on where to go and which way to take, which really was not a good strategy especially that they have the time of stay and they would have to find for the entrance where the speedboat was.

The creatures were also there as well, and who knows if this island hid the undiscovered creatures of the world. The scorpion they just encountered was so huge, seeing a scorpion larger than their hands was already scary, what more the previous one that they got against was almost taller than a person. They didn't even know if there were more of that or if there were animals that would surprise them more than that.

It was such a dreadful surprise after only an hour of reaching the island.

They continued walking, looking around, and were now more alert of the surroundings and their steps. The only noise that was heard was the sound of the crickets and the crispy crackling of the foliage when they stepped on it. No one was talking, but there were people talking in a hush, apparently, almost all of them were doing that, since they still had to vlog and be entertaining even with the nervousness they were feeling on the surroundings and the seemingly never fading out eyes that were watching them from where they were.

He was really outgoing as he kept on saying all the things that were only in his imaginations which were the possible creatures that might come out in front of him which only meant to scare the viewers, but it turned out the two girls beside him were also getting scared as he was mentioning dinosaurs as there had the most possibility since they would be looking for their fossils which meant that there would possibly dinosaurs around too.

“Let’s stop first. I’m so tired,” Nina pleaded, sitting as she breathed heavily.

Stuart looked around as they all stopped, looking for the possible way they might take. They had been taking the straight path, or wherever Marlon would want to take, but they seemed to not find anything still. But what weirded him out was the surroundings themselves, especially when he found the decaying tail of the scorpion.

“Isn’t this the place where we were earlier?”