An abrupt snapping of bamboo alerted me from my slumber. My eyes cracked wide open, taking in their surroundings as the storm clouds turned the shelter into a dark cell. My pupils dilated twice their size when I found myself all on my own, Youngjae nowhere to be seen neither on the hammock nor on the sand. I leapt up to my feet, accidentally dropping Sandy onto her back before breaking my way through the collapsing shelter.

          “Come on Sandy!” I call, holding a leaf open for her. The bamboos could no longer hold the thick blankets of leaves, and was eventually plummeting to the ground. Sandy chased after me as I ran back to Youngjae’s shelter, in hopes to find him there, but he wasn’t. Luckily enough his shelter was still standing, unlike mine. 

          “Go Sandy, go find Youngjae!” I say, giving her back a quick ruffle. Sandy immediately began sniffing at the earth, before leaping in the direction towards the bridge. I hustled quickly, keeping up right behind her as she sniffed and pounced through the mango trees and shrubs. Panic endorsed me, bringing me down into a pit of all the possible things that could’ve happened while Youngjae came out here.

          The idea of him being disowned by the monstrous weather made me fret even more as we bundled further and further into the woods. How could he have come out this far? I firmly put my trust in Sandy’s sense of smell. Ever since she lost her bark, I’ve been training her to track down explicit smells so that she didn’t end up causing more harm to herself. By the time we reached the meadow of silver bark, we were dripping wet. Sandy pounced towards the vanilla pit and there—

          Youngjae lay on his front with his frame tucked snugly in a fragrant patch of the vanilla. His clothes stuck to his skin from the moisture, and delicate droplets of the rain rolled down the fine pale features of his face. How did he manage to fall in such a celestial place? Flustered from the situation, I called his name and crawled towards him. “Youngjae?”

I softly shook him by the shoulder but when he didn’t respond, I began to panic twice as much as before. Is…he?

          “Youngjae…” I cooed, pushing him so that he was lying on his back with his head in my lap. I brushed the streaks of wet hair from his forehead and felt my heart curdle as I witnessed his skin pale and cold. Sandy lumbered towards his legs and let out a small mewl, before at a swell in his ankle. I gasped and rested Youngjae’s head carefully back on the ground before going over to see what Sandy had discovered. His entire left leg was swollen and discoloured, instantly signifying that he had been infected by something. It must’ve been a scorpion.

          I’d been bitten by one of those just a few months back and I had no idea that they existed on the island. It happened near the volcano. Sandy and I were playing hide and seek and somehow, the scorpion managed to sting me straight in the arm. My first instinct was to the venom out using my mouth, and then eventually I started treating it with dabs of warm seawater.

          The wound healed in less that two days, but that had only been because I acted fast. I didn’t know how long Youngjae had been out here suffering from the wound. It could be much more critical since he fainted before being able to do anything about it. Nervously looking towards Sandy, we both knew that there was only one way to help him. But had I been too late?

~*~

          I scooped Youngjae up into my arms and headed back towards the fall with the rain still showering down on us. I wrapped him up in my shirt and tucked his head against my chest to keep him warm, my arms squeezing tightly under his knees. I climbed the both of us carefully across the rocks before dipping in the cave behind the waterfall. I rested his small body against the rock and watched the reassuring movement of his chest rise and gently fall. his hair away from his face, I rested my palm against his forehead and felt his temperature slowly come down. It worked. “Stay here with Youngjae,” I whisper to the female, scratching gratefully behind her ears. “I’ll go get some things for the night, okay?”

Sandy obediently curls her body around my calves before nestling next to Youngjae, her chin against his abdomen.

          I grin at her compliance and head out towards my wreckage to grab my flints, clothes and wood. After transporting the things from my shelter to the cave, I head back out to get us dinner. I use my handmade net to catch shrimps from the river and return with some bananas and seawater. After lighting a fire, I remove Youngjae’s wet shirt from his body and move him closer to the flames so that he can warm up. His skin glistens from the radiating heat and his hair mimics the bright red flames lighting the cave into a soft glow.

          I heat the seawater up in the shell of a coconut and dab it onto his wound with very little pressure. Youngjae stirs in his sleep and whimpers, clutching my shirt with nimble fingers and sweaty palms. A lonely tear seeps from the corner of his eye and rolls into his hair as I watch over him. Gently, I use my thumb to wipe it away and feel my heart stop the moment his eyes flicker open to meet mine. 

~*~