Breakfast was not a pleasant affair. The food was just fine, yes, but the problem was that one's digestion was generally not improved by having one stare at you. All throughout breakfast, Nicholas stared at me. I could see that he was looking at me and watching me out of the corner of my eye, so I continued eating and chatting with the rest of the girls as per normal. After hearing what he had said the previous night about killing me once I had outlived my usefulness, I was determined to try and avoid riling him up.I just hope he's not suspicious of me, I thought fervently. He might come after Euphie and I if he thinks we're up to something.After breakfast, Nicholas made his move. We had gone to the river to wash out the pan, and had already rinsed the leaves we had been using for plates, stacking them neatly on the ground of the cave so that we could use them again. After we were done with the chores that breakfast had brought about, Nicholas approached me, sauntering o

We had no choice but to wait. The Komodo dragon looked like it had settled in for the long haul too, since it remained at the bottom of the tree, arching its squat neck to look up at us. Its long tongue flicked in and out, as if tasting the air – or tasting our fear and sweat – and I shuddered."Why did you come here?" I asked Felicia, trying to distract myself from the ravenous beast right below."I needed to do something," she replied, before her eyes narrowed. "And what on earth were you doing, then? Answer me, Forrest Chapman!" I glared at her instinctively, responding to her anger. "Were you following me?""Alright. I guess I was," I replied, resigned. There was no point hiding it from her, since she had figured it out. "I was following you. I don't trust your brother entirely, and I thought he sent you on a mission.""He didn't," Felicia muttered, scowling at me. "I just had something I needed to do.""Something with a hunk of boar meat fro

"Anyway, there's one more thing you need to know. If you want to be with me, Forrest, you'll have to stop associating with all the rest of the girls," Felicia continued. She blinked her large, doe-like eyes at me, and I could have sworn I detected a hint of amusement from the shock I had to have displayed upon hearing her words."What?" I blurted out, unable to contain my dismay. "Why would I have to stop hanging out with the rest of my colleagues? They're your colleagues too, you know!""I'm possessive, don't you see?" Felicia said lightheartedly. She nudged at my hand with hers, interlacing her fingers with mine. I would have seen it as a sweet gesture, but the way she had casually asked me to renounce the rest of the girls made it seem a little creepy. "I don't want to share. In fact, I never share my things. If you're going to be with me, then you're going to need to tell the other girls to leave!"A chill ran up my spine. Since none of us were particularly skille

I did not consider myself a man who got angry easily. Unlike others – Hans came to mind – who raged at every little inconvenience, I considered myself fairly level-headed. Flying off the handle was not something I was known for. Still, Nicholas’s incredulity stoked fury in me, and I stalked toward him, infuriated by what he had just revealed.“You’re a selfish son of a bitch, aren’t you?” I spat, looming over him where he sat. “So much for working together! You don’t give a shit about any of us – you only care about your precious sister! You couldn’t have cared less if the Komodo dragon mauled me to death. You left me, Elsa, Yvonne, Euphie, and Rosie to die! Is that what you call teamwork?”“This is all a misunderstanding, Forrest,” Nicholas began, getting up. “I didn’t leave you all to die. I came back to grab my machete, since I didn’t have it on me earlier. See?”

After eating, we split up and went back to our respective places to sleep. The girls would be sleeping in the cave for one last night, since there was hardly that much animosity between them, whereas I had ceded the shelter to Nicholas and Dave. There was a part of me that felt that I was being too charitable, but when I looked at them lying down under the shelter we had built together, I knew that I had not lost out on much. The shelter provided a rudimentary roof over one's head, but it provided no real protection from the elements. The benefits were mainly psychological, after all. I curled up around the second fire I had built, dropping off to sleep."Forrest, wake up," someone whispered. I took a while to surface from sleep, having been tired out from the vicious fight with the Komodo dragon earlier that day. The wounds on my shin were still smarting, although the clove paste had helped quite a lot.Rubbing my eyes, I looked at the person who had whispered in my ear.