Queen Of The Castaway Isle

Pain drives people more than they would expect. Rage, the burn, it fuels you to lash out in an explosion. Things you would never think to do normally when sane. Things you think you weren't capable of.

Destroy.

Rage and destroy. Smash everything around you for it's their fault for being in your way. For existing. That is their fault, their sin. For being there, existing while you hurt and hurt and keep hurting. Fuel to a forest fire, burning everything in its path.

"That's enough."

An unexpected bucket of sand, suddenly strangling the oxygen from the flames. Mr. Allen was not a particularly strong looking man. He was lean, average height, and long past graying. The glasses and occasional work vest made him look all the flimsier.

Yet he held on to the other man's wrist with a surprising amount of control. A sternness in the grim line on his mouth, the ever-growing stress wrinkles to his brow. Most likely from troublesome students.

A mother sobs on the dirt, clutching her two children to her battered and beaten body. Burnt from the rage that her husband was just inflicted. Has been inflicting.

He didn't beat his wife daily, not even weekly. Most of the time, life was fine.

Make breakfast, have his suit ready, take the kids to school, manage everything at home- everything, pick the kids up, clean them up and make them do their homework, have dinner ready. It wasn't all that hard. They even had a hired maid to help out. She didn't have to even work. It was all provided by her husband. She lived the leisurely dream.

All she had to do was be a good wife, and even that she couldn't do right. Not every day.

It's why sometimes, just sometimes, her husband would hit her. Would break a dish, her things, , her. Because she didn't do it right, could please him right. Her job wasn't hard. Just take care of the house, the family.

It was something so easy and she still couldn't do it right.

"I said that's enough. Put your hands down." reproached the older stranger.

The woman shook, wracked with sobs. He shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have intervened. It's no one's fault but her own. All because she couldn't do her job right. Couldn't take her of her family out there. Couldn't clean or put dinner on the table, there was no table.

Mr. Allen didn't hold back the feeling of judgment, glaring at the overgrown shitstain. Men who resorted to their fists, who beat their wives and children, were sc.u.m. Plain and simple as that.

"What do you know?! F.u.c.k off old man!"

"I don't need to know you. Everyone can see just fine."

It wasn't just his wife and children wincing. The crowds gathered even thicker, whispering and watching the show. How horrible, they whispered. How frightening.

Yet none of the young and fit stood up to him.

It took an airline attendant, far past his prime to make the first quick move. Blocking the raging man's fists at the wrists. It was a surprise to anyone. Giving a portly dark woman and a nervous-looking younger attendant the brief window to scoop in, pulling up the crying woman her two small children to safety.

"It-it's not what it looks like-" she choked, hiccuped. Not that anyone would believe.

Not what it looks like? How else can the physical act of a man hitting his wife be 'not what it looks like'. What else can it be?

"There there now. It's going to be alright." comforted the older attendant, using her strong arms and wide berth to heft the woman up on her feet. One of her dark arms, wrinkled if not for the fullness, already holding on to a hysterically sobbing child of about 5.

"No-no it won't be." sobbed the woman. Useless.

A child watches, tear stained, and with a blooming bruise to his jaw. The loose tooth he had freshly knocked out, soaking his mouth in quarters tasting blood. His mother sobs and sobs, even more so than his little brother. She's been hurt time and time again, he knows because he's watched it all, got hit a few times himself.

He watches and swallows.

It takes someone else to help. To his mother. To help them. A boy has been learning all the wrong lessons.

"Are you ok? Can you walk?" asks the younger nice lady to the little boy, a helping hand reached out.

He nods, cheeks puffing grossly.

As the nice ladies lead them away, his mother doesn't look once at the owie in his mouth. Dripping blood as he walks. He decides he's had enough of the thick icky taste and turns to spit it out. Still bleeding but better.

Another baby tooth lost.

The action does not go unnoticed.

"You bloody asswhipe." scowled Allens, already ready to block and pin the child abuser down.

"F.u.c.k off!!!"

That's just what he does, goes straight under and into the c.h.e.s.t. Slamming straight into the space between the ribcage, a headbutt to the chin, followed by a hold under the armpit. It took less than the time a kid needed to spit out a bloody tooth.

"You hit like one of my exes." snorted the old teacher, more to himself than anything, subjecting the much younger man down to the ground.

The bigger they are the harder they fall isn't said just for the repetition. This man slams to the ground, his head ringing, arms pinned and tied back as best as Allens can hold. Until the damn reinforcements come, he's making do with being gawked at.

"Look, I get it. I really do. The big bad world has gone to shit and you want to lash out." leans an elbow into the back of the man's skull. Voice in the man's ear, a little out of breath from the physical exertion but steady and scathing none the less.

"Except you can't hit the world. You can't do absolute bullocks to it. It makes you feel powerless,makes you feel something less than a man should be. Less than anything because that's what you f.u.c.k.i.n.g are. So what do you do when you can't beat the world? You beat your world."

Your little section of the world. Your home, what you can call yours. People you can call yours. Vulnerable people with no choice but to call you their own.

He would answer, rage back all the pain and frustrations, but the hit and fall knocked his lungs. When he screams, it's muffled in dirt and his own contracting c.h.e.s.t. All he wanted was to vent, to release the all consuming pressure.

Not get lectured, let alone pinned down by the skwrawny old lectuer.

"Everyone alright?"

The crowd breaks, a small band of tight and fit men make their way through, securing the subject. If they were suprised a the scene, the subject already down, they didn't show it. It was a smooth and professional line of motion, three men to the tie and lift the sujbect to his knees.

Allens, backed up and off, frowning as he rubbed the top of his forehead, still throbbing for the mixture of a growing headache and the headbutt from earlier.

"Would have been better if you all had gotten here faster." he scowled.

"Not bad for a civillain." remarked Cruz, eyeing the subject and ordering her men to take him to a holding. Somewhere away from the shelter, where the man could calm the hell down away from his wife and kids.

This wasn't their world, not the world as they knew it. There weren't any cops and certainly any jails. The holding more of a pit in a clearning than anything. Something they seem to be needing more and more as time went on. No papers to process, no permanent records to mark.

They were just stuck, all together and stuck.

"I handle teenagers back home."

"Teens these days cause that much trouble the teachers gotta jump in?"

"These days? They've gotten all soft. Their egos have inflated over the years but they're all back talk. Back in my day you brawled it out and broke some bones as a warning. God damn I'm old." sighed Allens, rolling his wrists.

"Hmmf, you must be talking about some prep school boys then. That's how they still do it my own neighborhood. Little gangster wannabees, the lot of them." snorted Cruz, watching as the chattering audience dispersed.

It was the same anywhere, rubberneckers at the scene. It was like a small village all over again. With only about 200 or so souls around, you start getting to know everyone by face. Give enough time stuck out here and they'll know everyone's name and story.

By the talk going around. No doubt everyone on the island would hear about this little drama by sundown. The news and entertainment sparse out here. If they weren't off foraging in the jungle or hidden far away, word will spread.

"You get any injuries? Anything that needs looking after?" offered Cruz, holding her hand out to inspect the older attendant.

"Nothing but my own body getting old. He's doesn' seem to be a big gym and protein guy. Stubborn jaw on that bloke, I'll give him that." still rubbing his wrist, he lets her do the check over.

Wasn't his first rodeo with fist fights and cleanup, not by a long shot, and out there it won't be his last. You can take the boy out of the borough, get him old and soft and god damn married to a man with bad tastes in shirts, but you can't take the punk out of him. Not that anyone had to know.

"You don't look to be that type either, but hey- I can't judge."

"My husband is, he's awful with his workouts. Gonna blow his hip one of these days, especially now that I'm not around badgering him. You're fine Ms. Cruz. Women are hell on earth is and when they figure that fact."

"Here here to that. When my mom and all the tias get together, everyone needs to get down and in shelter."

Give it enough time and you get to know people. It was bound to happen when trapped on a deserted island. Like soldiers and refugees in a war. Times were hard and as unbelievable as it may be, it would only get harder. Might as well exercise what little choice you did have.

Francisca Cruz's security team wasn't an official affiliate with the airline. They were just as passengers as anyone else. But the authority was a vague concept here. Nothing was official, nothing could be.

It was, however, an obvious choice to work together. A good mix of common sense and survival needs. Sure, everyone should ideally work together to keep each other safe. Fed and sheltered, able to hold out till rescue arrives. Kept strong, stable, and preferably not too traumatized from the experience. Ideally.

But when has the world ever worked out like that?

Even if both Allens and Cruz weren't far too old to be that disillusioned, their characters wouldn't allow for that. Both too hard-headed and strictly pessimistic about near anything and everything. There's a saying that people of the same kind find it hard to get along, and maybe in another more normal situation that would be true. Right now, they couldn't help but be a pair of the snarkiest old grouches in any sense of authority here.

"Recognize the d.i.c.k?" pulled up Cruz, confirming the older man's condition and getting to building a profile.

She served army before this, even played SWAT. Civil abuse cases weren't exactly her thing but it wasn't an uncommon occurrence. If anything, the subject showed excessive aggression and looked to be losing too quickly. A risk to the general albeit small public.

They walked, getting away from any prying eyes and back somewhere they could damn sit down. Back to the shade of the plane maybe.

"Not particularly. Name was Moores or something like that. Sat right the f.u.c.k down while his wife was handling the kids and luggage before the flight. Ordered an unholy amount extra ketchup packets."

"Ahhh. One of those."

"The wife and kids thing or the ketchup hoarding."

"Will note both. F.u.c.k I'd honestly punch someone in the throat for a bottle of hot sauce. Would make things go down easier."

Allens hummed. He couldn't say the same as the Latina on spicy food tolerance but it was getting god damn dull. The days were muggy and hot, summertime sunshine with no air conditioning or ice maker. Not the best to keep food let alone work up the appetite.

They weren't at the point of starving but it was a fair concern. Foraged fruit certainly helped, and over time some oddballs were identifying more edible goods to bring back. God damn whoever knew that having a new age hippie woman on your side was useful? Or a some old retired fishing enthusiasts. Definitely some surprisingly useful sort of folk in a survival situation.

"Any word from those kids?"

She didn't mention any names, no additional info, but it was enough. Just the mention of it had Allens mentally groaning. A headache growing and imminent.

Of course, he knew. Pretty damn sure most the airlines knew, the second captain still reeling from the terrorizing impression Sophie made the eve before the great plane fiasco. Kind of hard to forget.

As insane and out of place this strange girl may be, she was also the most contributive oddball of them all. A seemingly common sort of young girl, very young if you were just basing off of looks. One that unbeknownst to the majority of this survival party, made a bad situation all the more bearable.

Since the beginning, when it was just her and the boy, those siblings were exceptionally fast at adapting. At being creatively useful.

Plain rough mats, woven with nothing but nature. Bundles of harvested bananas, staches and roots, fed directly to the airline's stores. Water, god damn all that water. It wasn't much in the grand scheme, not after they found the river, but at the time? Damn were they lost, only getting more worn and desperate by day with no word from the mainland. Not a single signal returned.

It wasn't so much about the material goods, nor the supplied food, though that was extremely helpful in reducing the ever-increasing burden out here. More it was the potential behind them. That more water even existed. That thing could be done. Awful as things were, something, anything could be done. Not to solve it, that would take a rescue charter, but same as ever, the ease the burden.

"Haven't seen a lick of then in two, maybe three days? Heard there was an incident, but last I saw they were playing with mud, digging awful at the shelter zone."

"Ooh damn, that was them too?"

"I fear so. You would think they had convinced the lot of the shelter and drag alongs to play in the mud."

"No no, I get it. It's just adobe basically. Mix it with star and sand, let it dry and it's good to go. What I'm more interested in was the foundation plan they seem to have going for them. Trenches and pits for rainwater, platform mounds, sections allocated and cleared. It's a unit plan."

"Where I'm from it could be cob houses. Looks like you've already seen."

"That's some white people environmental PR shit, mud has been around forever. Had to. Had to find where some of my men ran off too. They've gone crazy with nothing to do but break up fights. They're collecting river rocks and stomping adobe mix. I swear they think this is some HGTV happy home designer."

Cruz gave an exaggerated sigh when thinking about it. Her subordinates, most of them stripped of their clothes, stomping mud pits mixes that would eventually form their personal shelters. It was easier to work together. A group could set up and build a single platform or hut in a much faster time while together than apart.

Sure some of them got a little competitive, but there was little ways to let loose. There wasn't exactly any home to go to. Nowhere to decompress the shit of the day.

The chance to make their own 'home' was very much a blessing.

There was enough manpower going around for experimentation. The supplies being whatever you could find, were willing to carry back. If one wanted to pile up pretty stones to save mud while the other wanted to pillar and post tree branches in a round hut, well all the power to them.

Maybe Allens was right. There were like children playing with mud.

Adobe, cob, whatever one wanted to call it, it was just bud. But it worked and they had the supply for it. Mixed mus walls went up fast. It was something they could realistically get done to shelter all these people. Hell lot faster than making some fantasy wooden hut.

It would be foolish to think they could keep holding out in nothing but the wreck and empty space. Foolish to not do anything.

There was enough moping and panicking in the initial days. Now everyone had to buckle down. Gather food, gather supplies, get another damn hut built.

It wasn't all thanks to those kids, but it was a good part started and run by them. From the silent mysterious Sophie, ordering things lefts and right like the playground boss from behind the siblings, playing bashful. To the brother, still so young but already with a furrow to his brow. The lanky kid just screaming competent despite his overall youth, strength in how he carries himself and just seems to be getting things done. Far more than you could say for the majority of people here. All the way down to the pretty girl often in a ponytail, chattering away at the shelter. When she speaks it ranges from laughter to basket weaving, petty island gossip to edible roots and how to prepare them.

It's because of those three that the shelter zone, a place for the ill and weak, was the most productive. Aside from the main staff parked in and around the plane, the shelter was the most organized and just stable place to be.

Don't know what to do with your time, your hands? Go to the shelter. There was always a task to lined up to be done.

From gathering and weaving vines to damn building something sustainable to live in. It was more productive, hell it was just easier to join along with the plan going on there. Especially if you weren't the strongest or most capable solo, like most people were.

"There's something off about these kids." grumbled Allen, grimacing at the inevitable stains on his clothes.

He knew it as much as he knew which students were bound to be troublesome. Almost as much as when he knew when his husband was up to some idiotic shit again. God he misses that idiot, he misses home.

Maybe he'll let it go if those troublemakers can whip up some god damn solution to the lack of baths.

"Meh, maybe. But I was the same kind." reminisced Cruz.

It wasn't the streets but her own childhood was a rough and tough one. Before the army got her, she was already quick to adapt, quick survive, even if it meant ripping off some ears.

"Where did that boy say their family was from again?"

"...Vietnam? I think."

Cruz whistled low before remarking "Well that makes damn sense then. "

They pass by where a woman still sobs. Someone visibly gentler tending to her wounds, at least to ones on the surface. The ones that can still be treated. The children nowhere in sight.

Probably for the best.

A woman like that could hardly look after herself. Let alone two vulnerable young ones. Everyone deserved better than that, especially the kids. But really? There wasn't much to be done. The cracks were already there. The burden already weighed even before this downed flight.

"There's beginning to be some talk I hear." starts Cruz, turning away from the sight.

Women like that were pitiful, but had little sympathy from Cruz, despite being a woman herself. She wasn't fond of them, especially at that age. Already an a.d.u.l.t yet so childish. Crying and waiting for someone to save them. It rubbed her wrong when she's been busting her a.s.s to make it out in this world. Of course the husband was even worse for getting violent but, damn. It was just a nasty cycle.

"What kind of talk?" follows Allens.

He did more than his part earlier. He too had little care, little sympathy, once the bloody kids were out of the picture. A woman like that reminded him of a tad too much of his own mum. Not the kind of psychology he wants to confront on this particular day.

"How a portion of us work. We do our best in whatever. Hunting, building, all that shit. While the rest of them just..."

Eat and shit.

Do absolutely nothing.

It was harsh but it was a reality that a few couldn't help but voice their complaints. A grating on their tired nerves, the sunburnt big bites. A number wore themselves weary, and even more did little past moping.

"We'll work on better-assigning people to duties, you work on enforcing it." repeats Allens.

Really it wasn't all up to him, he was only one of a part in the airline staff. They were all only human. Stuck in the same situation, the same sense of terror and stress just like anyone else. But unlike everyone else, they had to keep it together. They had to be the ones to move on, for everyone's good.

"Yeah yeah, nag and tear whoever's in charge up. I don't know how long everyone will take so nicely to what we got." waved off Cruz.

Before she let him go though, Cruz couldn't help but poke and grin. It was the kind of look she would be ashamed to admit resembled her gossiping mother and aunts.

"What do you think those kids will pull out next?"

To Cruz, it was other people's reactions that were so amusing. Trouble aside, that Quan siblings had a knack for shocking people silly. From the first snake incident to the bikes, anything they pull out was fairly impressive. More entertaining than the usual petty gossip around here. The young doctor was particularly interesting to watch since that brat was usually so pokerfaced.

"Do you mean what I hope for or what will happen? Because I hope they bring more of those wild vegetables but I know they're bringing disaster. Eventually."

"Anything more specific? You see them more when they stop by. Come on, my subordinates are running a bit of a bet if you catch my drift."

"I can't predict a thing. I just know it's going to be something awful. "

"Great. Real helpful there-"

Another crowed. Right under the shade and safety of the place. This time it was mainly the recognizable crew and familiar faces. Two particular heads of black brown hair, standing deep center of it all stood out. Primarily because, speak of the devil, those were two of the kids had just been talking about. The third either not far away of just too short in the mess.

"You know what Allens, nevermind. I'll just find out personally."

"God look at their faces. Whatever it is, it's going to be bad. I just know it."

"Only one way to find out."