madibyrdâ:
â âż â âż â
Madi expected⊠a different reaction from Angie, if she was being honest. She just rambled on about people staying here for decades and not getting out and Angie seemed chill about it. Calm and collected for somebody who just learned⊠did Matthew or Esther or somebody else already told all of this to Angie? But even then it just didnât make sense, Angie being so okay with all of it. But then Angie said she didnât hear half of what Madi just said, and suddenly it made all the sense. Angie wasnât mad or freaking out because she didnât even pay attention to what she was saying. Then what was sheâŠ
Angie was sitting. She was sitting up when just a few moments ago she was finally lying down and Madi let out a long, worried sigh. But then again, wasnât this what she wanted? Angie to be up and be herself? SHe wanted it more than anything, but at the same time Madi wanted her to just lie down and spend half an hour resting, taking care of herself first and foremost.
âYouâre so not making this easy on me, but okay, keep sitting, but please donât go overboard with it. If you feel tired, just lie back down, and definitely no getting out of the bed, not yet anyway.â She was mothering Angie, she knew that, but she couldnât help it. She wanted to help, she wanted to make things better for her friend, and this was the only way she knew how. Making sure Angie took care of herself - something that she was prone to forget when she got an idea in her head. And that idea right now was getting out of this place. Which made all the sense, but Madi didnât want her to strain herself and push herself, potentially making things worse on her own health by chasing something that seemed impossible.
She reached out and took Angieâs hands and squeezed them, finding Angieâs gaze and holding it. âOkay, Iâm going to try again, please listen to me instead on focusing on getting up. Please. I⊠There are other people here. On this island.â It took everything out of her not to just rush through ever information, not to jump into another ramble. âLike, people who werenât on the plane, people whoâve been here longer. Like, a lot longer. Iâm talking years and decades, Angie. They all had accidents and crashes and all kinds of horrible ways they got here and they all got stuck here. No getting out. Nobody managed to find a way out of here, no matter how long theyâve been stuck here. And they tried. The guy who is their leader, Matthew, told me there are always people who tried, and nobody really managed to do, or at least they donât know about anyone who did. And heâs been here for two centuries, so heâs seen it all, really, and if people couldnât get out of here in that long of a time, weâre not going to be able to get out of here.â
She tried, she really tried not to word vomit, but at some point it just got out of her hands, to the point where she didnât even realize she told Angie Matthew has been here for such a long time, that wasnât her intention at all. âAnd yes, I know people are actively searching for the plane and for us, too, but we had to be close enough to the island that we didnât just end up on the bottom of the ocean, but even like that, even being that close, the boat we were on couldnât find us or the island, Angie. And itâs been weeks since we showed up here, and no signs of them at all. Nothing.â
Angie was a little surprised at how solemn Madi looked, but she tried to have some perspective. Itâd been a couple days and Madi probably hadnât even known if Angie was going to live, much less wake up completely fine (and she was completely fine thank you very much, and was ready to do whatever needed to be done to get back home). Sheâd clearly been worried sick, and then on top of that had to split her time between worrying and watching over Angie. So she sat still (for the time being) and paid close attention.Â
And the news was...not good. Angie found herself leaning in to listen to Madi as though they were sharing some awful secret, as though the doctor couldnât hear what they were talking about if he really wanted to, as if he didnât already know. Decades, Angie thought, until she thought she was getting dizzy and maybe needed to lie down after all. That made no sense, that was impossible. Sure, in this day and age planes might be lost in the ocean; it was rare but it happened. But for people to be lost on an island? Stranded with no one to find them? The whole prospect was a jigsaw of nonsensical pieces. With todayâs technology, surely people could start to be found.Â
No rescue teams and no ships? Stick Angie somewhere for decades and she wouldnât have cared how many coconuts it took, she was going to make a boat. What about all these people who had supposedly been here so long? They were just...okay with it? Had they landed on some entirely new society that was just independent of the rest of the universe? What did she mean, theyâre stuck?Â
And then Madi mentioned some dude named Matthew, who claimed to have been there for two centuries and it all clicked together. Angie sighed, thoroughly deflated, and sank down into the cot until she was lying down again. She stared at the ceiling of the tent and counted backwards from ten. Then she did it again, and this time she felt calm enough to speak. Her anxiety had spiked, and truly she could feel her blood pressure rising.Â
âMadi. We promised,â she stressed that last word as though she was reminding her of a sacred vow. âThat time when I had you over after work and we watched that documentary on Waco,â and wow, niche memory, but it was relevant here. âWe promised that whatever happened to us, we would never join a cult,â she turned to look at Madi now and gripped her hand tightly. Â
âSo I was out a few weeks. I get it, and Iâm really sorry I scared you, but Jesus Christ. We cannot join a cult,â she whispered, in case the doctor was actually listening and he was in the cult. âI know itâs scary, and weird, I get it, but no one lives for two hundred years. Madi, you - you know that. Just tell me they havenât made you do anything weird.â












