The distinct, rhythmic whooshing of helicopter rotors rang out, and I ran out of the cave to wave frantically at the sky.“Here! Here!” I shouted, jumping up and down in an effort to be spotted. The chopper pilot banked toward us, and the noise intensified to a point where I had to cover my eyes or risk being deafened. Yvonne, Elsa, and Euphie joined me, and they all waved and shouted at the pilot. Slowly, the helicopter began to descend, and it landed on the grassy plain in front of the cave. The backwash from the rotors forced us to retreat to the mouth of the cave, where we waited until the helicopter stopped buffeting the surrounding air.“There’s a woman inside the cave. She’s dead,” I informed the first member of the rescue team as a squad of jumpsuit-clad men approached us. “And there’s one more man, too. He attacked me and I had to defend myself. I don’t know if he’s dead or not.”Right before m

Claire and Rosie looked disbelievingly at Elsa, unsure of whether to take her words at face value or not. After all, both of them were not very familiar with Elsa. Elsa oversaw the department that edited their videos, and bossed around the minions like me who did the grunt work, but was she to be trusted? Yvonne stepped forward, a big, welcoming grin on her face. Maybe they’ll believe Yvonne, since she’s in the same department, I thought. And Yvonne’s so well-respected within the ranks, too, since she’s been the top streamer for months now.“It’s okay. Really! You’ll be fine with us,” Yvonne chimed in, nodding eagerly. “We take turns to keep guard at night and we do it in pairs, so you won’t ever be the only one awake. We also share all our food with one another!” At the mention of food, Claire and Rosie perked up.“Sorry. I think we finished off most of the chicken in the stew. There’s some cass

The next day, our good luck held out. We went out hunting - or foraging, rather - again, and we managed to locate more cassava in another location. Since one of our concerns had been the possibility that we would wind up overpicking or overusing the natural supplies that we had found, the discovery of numerous cassava plants had been most welcome.“It’s already been a week. Do you think we’ll be rescued soon?” Yvonne asked, spooning some mashed cassava into her mouth when we sat down for lunch.“I agree. We should have been rescued by now,” Elsa added, her brows meeting as she frowned. We had done quite a fair bit to ensure that we could be found. Since it was difficult to keep a fire going on the beach while we took shelter in the cave, we gathered large stones and arranged them so that they spelled out “SOS” in huge letters on the beach. We took turns to go down and check that they had not been washed away by the tide, and

“What! Fresh water?” Yvonne exclaimed, her face lighting up instantly. The rest of the girls were just as eager, and Elsa and I led them there. First, though, we tied Bernard up and left him with Hans. Although Bernard had led us to the river as he had promised, none of us was under the illusion that he would behave himself if we let him loose. If we left him alone in the camp with Hans and all our supplies… I shuddered at the thought, and made sure that the ropes binding both Bernard and Hans were knotted as tightly as possible.“Wow, the water is so clear!” Claire marveled as soon as we arrived. The girls and I stood by the river bank, clearly grateful for our good fortune. The river was indeed very clear - it was so clear that we could see all the way down to the river bed, which wasn’t very far away. The water was shallow enough that we could stand comfortably in it, which meant that we didn’t have to be afraid of being washed away

“Where did Hans go?!” I shouted, my words exploding out of me in a deafening yell. I whipped out the kitchen knife I had stashed in my pants, the crude sheath of leaves I had constructed falling away as I charged straight into the heart of the cave, pointing my knife into the darkness. Horror washed over me as I sprinted into the cave, the girls following behind me, hot on my heels. We had left Hans in a shady spot out of the sun’s rays, along with Bernard. Although Bernard had cooperated with us and had given us vital information about the river, we had not trusted him enough to leave him unbound, since he could have raided all our supplies for himself. Leaving him in the cave alone with Hans had clearly been a mistake, even though both of them had been tied up.Only Bernard remained. However, he was lying so still that I knew that something had to have happened. Did Hans attack him, or did Hans simply eliminate him because he didn’t want to take him al