Chapter Text
The first thing Evan felt when he gained consciousness was the tingling sensation burning at his neck, like a thousand white-hot blades.
As he opened his eyes with plenty of struggle, it took time to adjust to the sudden brightness of the rich blue sky. His own vision matched the colour of the sky, only with darker splotches swimming in and out of his vision. He blinked to refocus them, squinting to avoid the intense sunlight.
Pushing himself up with the palms of his hands, he swiveled to take in the view in front of him. Miles and miles of open ocean, waves pulsing in and out of the shore; dragging grains of near white sand with it. His fingers dug deep into the sand, half expecting to feel something sharp poke him.
“About time you’re awake.” A voice came, following came footsteps almost muted by the sound of the waves.
Evan turned away from the view, squinting more as he looked up at the silhouette formed by the beating sun behind the person. As far as Evan could tell, that wasn’t Pandora.
“You’ve been unconscious for two days, we thought you were dead.” Okay. It was a male voice. British, as much as Evan could gather. That was good.
“Dead?” Was all Evan could get out, his dry voice raspy as he said the word.
“Yeah,” The silhouette moved closer, offering a bowl to Evan, “It’s freshwater, there’s a waterfall just behind the tree line.”
Evan honestly didn’t care if it was saltwater, freshwater or any other strange liquid that you could find on an island. It was something, he didn’t know one could feel so dehydrated after being unconscious. He thought that the body would somewhat help him out in that instance, but evidently not.
He felt euphoric when the water made contact with his lips, drinking it like his life depended on it. The majority of it went over his face, which also tingled with the same sensation as the back of his neck. When the bowl was almost empty, in a matter of seconds, he lowered it and smiled gratefully to the man above him. From the silhouette alone, Evan assumed that it was an older man.
That would be good, if he was stranded with a bunch of older people. He would barely have to do anything.
“Do you remember what happened, then?”
Evan furrowed his brows, he couldn’t bear to look up at the silhouette any longer without burning his eyes open. So, he looked down at the slightly dimmer sand and nodded.
“Plane crash,” Truthfully, Evan didn’t remember a whole lot about what happened, “Have you seen a girl, long hair, blonde?”
“I’ve seen many blonde haired girls.”
“Her name is Pandora, she has these big eyes and she’s quite tall for a gir—”
“She’s alive.” The other confirmed, “Are you Evan, then?”
Evan was widely confused, “Yes.”
“She told me about you. You’re her twin brother?”
“I am.”
“Younger by four minutes?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Cool.”
“I guess.”
“I’m Barty, if you were wondering.” Barty extended a hand, probably waiting for it to be shaken.
Barty definitely wasn’t expecting Evan to grab the extended hand and pull himself up by it. Once Evan dragged himself up, he smiled up at the other.
“Cheers.” Evan nodded once.
“You’re meant to shake the hand, Ev.” Barty laughed, "How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Cool.”
“You?”
“Nineteen, too.” Okay. So he wasn’t an old man, “Do you want to see your sister? We have a little bit of shelter, not much right now but it’ll get there.”
“Please.” Evan was so glad she was unharmed, so much so he never processed the second half of what Barty said.
When Evan started walking behind Barty, who seemingly knew what he was doing, he took in all of his surroundings. The vegetation was wild, roots of trees threatening to trip you up, many of the plants Evan had no idea what to call them. Most of the plants sprouted low from the ground, short but dense enough that Evan had to swerve around them as he walked.
“There’s not many of us left and what I can gather, we’re all the same age.” Barty grabbed a stray branch, swinging it back so Evan could get past without being hit in the face, “There was a flight attendant, but she must have had internal bleeding. Most of the bodies washed up eventually, some were buried in the sand and others were drifted back out to sea.”
“People know we’re here?” Evan questioned, stepping over a thick tree root.
Barty only shrugged, “They will eventually, planes don’t just vanish.”
“Right.”
“There’s no point in worrying about it—watch the rock, lad.”
Barty slowed slightly as he said it, nudging a jagged stone with the side of his shoe. It jutted out from the dirt at an angle, sharp enough that Evan could easily imagine it splitting skin if someone caught their ankle on it.
Evan stepped over it carefully.
The ground beneath the vegetation wasn’t soft like the sand had been. It was uneven and packed with layers of roots that twisted across the earth like veins. Some were thick enough to rise from the soil entirely, forcing them to step over them one by one.
Above them, the canopy shifted restlessly in the breeze, the palm leaves scraped together with a dry, rattling sound.
“The water is unpredictable,” Barty went on as they kept moving. He reached out to push a broad green leaf out of the way, holding it aside long enough for Evan to pass without it slapping back into his face. “But we’re not exactly dying of thirst. There’s fresh water, and fish that surround the island. Plenty of animals around too.”
He gestured vaguely toward the trees with the hand that wasn’t scratched open.
“Birds,” he added. “If we can’t catch a fish.”
Evan glanced toward the treeline instinctively.
He hadn’t really noticed the noise before, but now that Barty mentioned it, the place was full of sound. Small chirps and distant cries echoed somewhere high above them in the branches. Something rustled deeper in the vegetation, something small judging by the quickness of it.
“You’ve not tried? To fish?” Evan asked.
“Nope.”
Barty ducked beneath a low-hanging palm leaf, brushing it aside with the top of his head. The leaf swung back slowly once he passed, its shadow flickering across Evan’s face as he followed.
“We have a shelter covering some supplies,” Barty continued, as if that answered enough of the question. “Marlene and Regulus helped with that.”
He stepped over another root, then paused just long enough to move a broken branch out of the narrow path they’d been following.
It seemed less like a proper trail and more like a direction people had simply walked enough times that the plants had begun to bend away from it.
“So are you like a leader or something?” Evan asked after a moment.
Barty glanced back at him briefly.
For the first time since they’d started walking, the sunlight managed to slip through the trees enough for Evan to properly see his face.
He looked about their age after all.
Brown hair, slightly messy from the humidity. A cut along his forehead where dried blood had gathered near his hairline. His expression wasn’t particularly serious, though.
If anything, he looked faintly amused.
“I’m just Barty, mate.”
He pushed another branch aside as he said it, holding it back again so Evan could pass.
The jungle seemed thicker the further they walked.
The air was hotter here too.
It sat heavy on Evan’s skin, clinging to the back of his neck and shoulders like damp fabric. Even the shade beneath the trees didn’t seem to cool anything. Sweat had already begun forming along his temples, sliding slowly down the side of his face.
Somewhere behind them, faint but constant, Evan could still hear the ocean.
The waves rolled against the shore in slow, distant pulses.
Evan followed Barty a little further through the tangle of trees, vegetation beginning to thin almost without warning.
One moment there were leaves brushing against Evan’s shoulders and roots catching at the soles of his shoes, and the next the trees opened out into a wide break in the jungle where sunlight poured freely down to the ground.
The change was immediate.
Heat gathered in the clearing like it had nowhere else to go.
The air felt heavier here, thick and damp, carrying the scent of wet stone and something faintly sweet from the surrounding plants. Evan stepped out from beneath the canopy and squinted slightly as the brightness hit him again.
The first thing he noticed was the sound of water.
Not the distant rhythm of the ocean this time, but a constant rushing noise that filled the clearing.
He turned his head instinctively toward it.
A waterfall spilled down from a dark cut in the rock wall at the far side of the clearing, white water tumbling over smooth stone before crashing into a pool below. The fall itself wasn’t huge, but it was strong enough that mist hung faintly in the air around it, catching the sunlight in pale drifting clouds.
The pool beneath it was wider than Evan expected.
Clear enough that he could see the pale rock lining the bottom near the edges where the water stayed shallow, though the centre darkened into a deeper blue-green where the fall struck the surface.
Freshwater, then.
That explained the bowl.
Water streamed away from the pool in a narrow run that wound between the rocks before disappearing again into the trees.
For a moment Evan simply stood there, taking it in.
The place looked almost peaceful.
If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought it was some kind of hidden tropical lagoon someone would photograph for a travel brochure.
But the illusion broke quickly.
The shelter was the next thing he noticed.
It had been built along the edge of the clearing near a shallow indentation in the rock wall that passed loosely for a cave. The opening wasn’t deep enough to offer much protection on its own, more of a hollow in the stone than a proper cavern.
Someone had tried to improve it.
Large palm leaves had been dragged over the entrance and layered awkwardly across a frame of branches that had been wedged against the rock. Some of the leaves were already beginning to curl at the edges from the heat. Others hung loose where the branches hadn’t been secured properly.
It was the sort of shelter people built when they had absolutely no idea how shelters were meant to be built.
Which, Evan supposed, was exactly the case.
A few bags sat beneath it, clustered together where the shade from the rock kept them out of the direct sun. Airline bags by the look of them, the sort first-class passengers were handed before long flights. One of them had been turned upside down, its contents spread across a patch of dry ground.
Clothes, toiletries and plastic wrappers.
And luckily, a few bottles of water.
Someone had clearly been trying to organise things.
A couple of figures moved slowly through the clearing.
They all looked exhausted.
That was the first thought that struck Evan when his eyes adjusted enough to focus on them properly. Everyone moved with a certain heaviness, like the heat itself was dragging at their limbs.
One girl knelt near the scattered supplies, pushing items into small piles with deliberate care. Sweat had dampened the fabric of her shirt along the back, and strands of dark hair stuck to her temple where the humidity refused to let anything dry.
Another person sat on a flat rock not far from the water, hunched over what looked like a folded paper map — one of those small emergency maps airlines tucked into the seat pockets. The boy held it open between both hands, studying it with an intensity that suggested he was trying to solve a problem that had no real answer.
Near the edge of the pool, someone else sat with their feet in the water, staring blankly at the surface as the waterfall churned endlessly nearby.
The only constant sound in the clearing was the rush of water and the occasional rustle of leaves when the wind moved through the surrounding trees.
Evan stopped walking without really meaning to and for the first time since waking up on the beach, something in his chest shifted.
Up until now everything had felt distant, like the aftermath of a dream he hadn’t fully woken from yet.
Even hearing about the crash had felt strangely disconnected, like Barty was describing something that had happened to someone else.
But standing here; actually seeing the clearing, the shelter, the scattered belongings and the tired figures moving slowly through the heat, something settled in his stomach with a quiet, sinking weight.
This was real and they hadn’t just crashed.
They were here.
Stranded.
The thought landed heavier than he expected.
His stomach turned slightly.
Adrenaline had carried him through the last several minutes without much resistance with the rush of waking up, the relief of water, the simple fact that Pandora was alive.
Now that rush was fading. And as it faded, the exhaustion underneath it began creeping back into his body piece by piece.
His head felt strangely light, the heat pressing down harder than it had before. He swallowed, suddenly aware of the dull ache spreading behind his eyes.
They were genuinely stuck here.
The realisation arrived quietly, but once it did, it refused to leave.
Evan exhaled slowly through his nose.
Behind him, Barty stepped into the clearing as well, brushing his hands briefly against his trousers as if dusting off bits of leaves from the walk.
“Welcome to our luxury resort,” he said lightly.
Evan didn’t answer.
His gaze had already moved past the shelter, past the waterfall, searching the faces in the clearing.
“I reckon I’m gonna throw up.” Evan muttered, almost too casually for the sudden drop in his stomach.
“Well,” Barty kicked at the sand, scraping a shallow hole into the ground with the side of his shoe, “Do it in there. I suggest you don’t, your body needs whatever’s left in it. Also, we have no toothpaste.”
“God.” Evan dragged a hand down his face.
“I do actually know how to keep your mouth clean, though. You wanna know?”
Evan scrunched his face up, “Why do you know that?”
Barty must’ve ignored the question and grinned widely, “Well, you don’t need toothpaste, so you can just use a cloth on your finger to brush them.”
“Great.” Evan turned away from Barty, scanning the very few faces again, “Where’s Pandora?”
After Evan asked the question, nothing happened. The waterfall continued its steady rush against the rocks, mist drifting lazily through the warm air. Someone near the supplies shifted a bag slightly. The boy with the airline map turned a page, still squinting down at it like it might eventually give him an answer.
Then movement came from the far side of the clearing.
A girl who had been crouched near the edge of the pool lifted her head.
Her hair caught the sunlight first.
Long blonde strands, slightly tangled now, falling past her shoulders in loose curls that looked lighter at the ends where the sun had been bleaching them. She pushed it back from her face slowly, squinting toward the entrance of the clearing where Evan stood beside Barty.
For a moment she simply stared.
Like her brain was trying to process what her eyes were seeing.
The expression on her face shifted rapidly through the confusion, then disbelief and then hope. Then she stood up.
Bare feet splashed lightly in the shallow edge of the pool as she stepped out of the water. Her dress clung slightly around her knees where it had gotten wet, the fabric a pale baby blue that moved easily in the breeze.
It was the sort of dress that belonged somewhere in a field full of flowers, not on a jungle island after a plane crash.
“Evan?”
Her voice carried across the clearing, soft but sharp with sudden disbelief.
Evan didn’t realise he’d been holding his breath until that moment.
“Yeah,” he said, lifting one hand slightly. “Hi.”
That was all it took.
Pandora crossed the clearing quickly, nearly slipping once on a damp patch of stone near the waterfall before catching herself again. The hem of her dress brushed against her ankles as she moved, bare feet kicking up little bursts of dust from the dry ground.
When she reached him she didn’t slow down.
Instead, she threw her arms around him.
The impact knocked a breath out of Evan’s lungs as she hugged him tightly, one arm around his shoulders and the other around his ribs like she was making absolutely certain he wasn’t about to disappear again.
“You idiot,” she breathed into his shoulder.
Evan blinked once, slightly startled by the force of it.
“I’m okay,” he said automatically.
Pandora pulled back just enough to look at his face.
Her eyes were wide and there were dark shadows beneath them that hadn’t been there before. A thin scratch ran along her wrist, and there was dried salt tangled faintly in her hair.
But otherwise she looked fine.
Unharmed, thank god.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“I’m not,” Evan replied.
“I know that now.”
“I’ve been told.”
Pandora studied his face for another second like she was double-checking that he really was standing there in front of her. Then her gaze shifted slightly over his shoulder.
Toward Barty.
Her entire expression softened immediately.
“Oh my Gosh,” she said, stepping away from Evan.
Barty, who had been standing a few feet away watching the reunion with mild interest, raised his eyebrows slightly as she approached him.
Pandora grabbed both of his hands without hesitation.
“Thank you,” she said quickly. “Thank you so much.”
Barty blinked once.
“You don’t—”
“No, seriously,” Pandora continued, squeezing his hands with surprising intensity. “If you hadn’t pulled him out—”
“He would’ve drowned, yeah,” Barty said casually.
Evan glanced sideways at him.
Pandora looked like she might start crying again.
“You saved him,” she insisted.
“Well,” Barty shrugged slightly, “Regulus helped.”
“Still.”
She let go of his hands but didn’t step back very far, still looking at him with overwhelming gratitude.
“I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like dragging two people out of the ocean.”
“It was more floating than dragging,” Barty said. “Very collaborative effort from the tide.”
Evan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“I swear I’m okay,” he said, mostly to Pandora now.
Pandora turned back toward him immediately.
“You were unconscious for two days.”
“I’ve heard.”
“You could’ve died.”
“But I didn’t.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
Evan lifted both hands in surrender.
“I’m okay,” he repeated.
Pandora stared at him for another second.
Then she exhaled slowly, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders.
“You look awful,” she said.
“That’s rude.”
“You’ve got sand in your hair.”
“I woke up on a beach.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Evan ran a hand absently through his hair, immediately feeling the grit she was talking about.
“Right,” he muttered.
Pandora smiled faintly despite herself.
Behind them, Barty shifted his weight slightly, glancing between the two of them.
“Family reunion successful, then?” he asked.
Pandora looked back at him again, her expression brightening instantly.
“Yes,” she said.
Then she added, a little more seriously this time—
“Thanks to you.”
Barty gave a small shrug like it was nothing.
But his eyes flicked briefly toward Evan and lingered there for just a moment longer