Isle of The Lost and Found

The fresh salt of sea air filled my lungs as the light of the midday sun penetrated my eyelids, turning the darkness red as it lit up my face. As I slowly opened my eyes I exhaled steadily, feeling myself become fully present in the moment and aware of my surroundings. Small waves danced and stretched over each other, generating their own white-noise lullaby. The turquoise water crashed gently onto the white, powdery sand beach, lapping at the surface beneath my feet before retracting back towards the seemingly infinite ocean that lay before me, boundless in its distance and its beauty. The calls of exotic birds punctuated the ambience, the kind of wild caws and howls that only seemed to develop in tropical paradises. I raised my arms up towards the sky, deeply stretching my body as if I were trying to grab the sun itself, feeling the sun-kissed warmth on my skin as I took another deep breath and felt a serene and true peace washing over me just like the waves below seemed to wash over this beach, purifying it with every pulse of water inwards and outwards, keeping the fine, white sand soft and pristine. Untouched. Perfect.

I began to stroll down the beach at the edge of the water, leisurely, not a care or thought in the world. I took in the sounds of nature, the ocean, the wildlife. The smells of the sea air, the feelings of the waves gently crashing up against my legs, the soft sand underfoot, enjoying the beauty of this paradise alone – Then I saw her. Standing at the edge of the water where the beach curved was a slim blonde woman, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, wearing a light, white beach-chic blouse and matching white shorts. As I got closer, I could see a clear look of confusion on her face. She seemed to be almost distraught. “Hey!” I called out to her as I got nearer. Startled, she instinctively flinched at another person's sound before spinning to her right side to face me.

"H-hey." She stammered, struggling to get the words out, clearly caught off guard by the presence of another. I forced a quick smile in an attempt to put her at ease as I quickly introduced myself. "I'm Arthur." I told her, stretching my hand forwards towards her, in a casual attempt to break the ice. She was too absorbed in her own world to even notice my outstretched hand. "Josie." she quickly responded, her eyes darting around the shoreline, a look of worry and confusion firmly painted across her face. I spent a few moments observing her as she studied the environment around us before I decided to try and spark up a conversation again. "Josie...Is something wrong?" I asked. She slowly turned her head back towards me, taking her focus off the tropical shoreline ahead of us. We stared at each other in silence for a few moments. I could see she had a pensive look on her face that told me without any words being spoken there was something she was thinking about asking me. I waited there in silence, watching her face change and her lips loosen slightly, pursing and nearly closing again in silence as she considered her next words. Finally, she spoke. "Arthur...Do you remember coming to this island? It's just...I don't want to sound crazy here, but I don't remember how I got here. At all. Where even is this place?"

As I pondered her question, reality hit me. I didn't know where this was either. How had I gotten here? Where was this place? Adrenaline and panic rushed through me in equal doses as I tried desperately, frantically, to search my mind for any memories of the past. I found nothing but blurred, skewed sounds, voices I didn't recognize, and moving photographs covered in specks of grit - The dirt of my mind's eye overlayed atop a past that felt like it could just as well have been yours as it was mine. I felt a sense of dread and confusion; I was completely unfamiliar with my surroundings and had no idea how I arrived in this place.

We stood there trying to make sense of what was happening. The once tranquil peace of the island had now become eerie and uncertain. After a brief discussion, we decided that if we wanted answers, we were going to have to start looking for them and that we should do so together. We spent the next several hours exploring as much ground as we could cover on the island, from its expansive shoreline to the lush jungles that its undulating hills carried in-land, caves and caverns. We even climbed a few of its large palm trees, helping each other scale them so as to examine our surroundings from a high vantage point, in hopes of finding any signs of life or civilization. As the day passed and we saw the sun making its journey downwards, we found ourselves faced with a conclusion that terrified us. We were the only ones here. There were no huts, no towns, and no other people. No boats in sight, not even in the distance of the azure ocean, now lit golden by the reflections of the slowly setting sun behind it.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a flood of images. It seemed as if my mind was trying to remember something but couldn't quite get there, instead presenting me with a series of snapshots and sounds in what I had assumed must have been my memory - bitesize chunks of my past that were still almost impossible to digest. I saw my hands placed on a steering wheel, gripping it tight as the airbag violently exploded. Shattering glass flying towards my face, tons of metal colliding before me, forcing each other to twist and contort in a fight that neither could win, ending with a fireball engulfing the interior around me.

As I stood in silence, my mind reeling and spiralling from what I’d just witnessed, I found myself abruptly brought back to the present by Josie yelling, "Oh my god, are you seeing this?" I snapped my neck towards her, quickly examining where her line of sight was leading me before looking upon the sight itself that had given her such a shock. One of the palm trees around the centre of the lush forest that lay ahead of us seemed to be flickering, briefly disappearing before our very eyes before suddenly returning in a slightly modified position, sometimes it would return higher and be floating off the ground. "I don't understand. What on earth is happening here?" Josie asked me. It was a question I didn't know the answer to any more than she did, but I could tell she never expected me to answer anyway. I tried to push the fear of the unknown and unnatural sight down as deep inside me as I could, put on a brave face and pretend that as long as I acted as if I wasn't seeing the very laws of physics being broken before me, then everything would be okay. We both stood there for a short while, watching the flickering of the tree. I felt my hand trembling slightly by my side, the fear accentuating the cool breeze that glided along it, turning it to a thousand tiny knives of ice penetrating the pores of my skin, making my hands feel as if they were freezing from within.

I suddenly felt warmth glide across my palm as Josie slipped her hand into mine. Her touch eased my nerves and stopped the trembling. Bringing me back into the present moment as our fingers interlocked, I felt my breathing slow as I returned to a more relaxed state. We turned to face each other, still holding hands. "I think we should head back to the beach." Josie told me, I briefly thought for a moment and responded, "Don't you think we should make our way further into the forest? Where the tree was flickering? There might be something there." Josie quickly argued back, "Look, we haven't found anything in our searches. I think it makes the most sense to go directly to where we first started. The sun is setting, it'll be dark soon. This way we'll know where we are - well, as much as we can know where we are - and be ready to begin our exploration again at dawn tomorrow. We don't know if there's anything dangerous out here after dark." It made sense to me and we set about making our way back towards the beach we'd met on. However, even if it hadn't, I wasn't in the mood to argue. I still couldn't get the images of the flashback out of my mind. How did I transition from being in a fiery car crash to being on a tropical beach on some seemingly uninhabited island, besides this woman who also didn't know how she'd arrived here? I didn't understand what was happening and I didn't feel comfortable enough to share the flashbacks with this near stranger that walked beside me, even despite the strange phenomena we had just witnessed together.

We began to speak more on the way back. It was unspoken, but we both understood that it was our way of trying to put each other at ease, attempting to find some normalcy through casual conversation and trying to get to know each other. Unfortunately, this was made very difficult, since neither of us could remember our lives before here nor how we'd arrived at this location. However, we appeared to be familiar with some basics. Josie was 24, just two years younger than me. She loved animals and had always wanted to venture on a vacation to a tropical island, yet as far as she could remember, she'd never actually had the chance. "I know I can't be sure since I don't really remember anything before here, but I have a distinct feeling that's something we have in common." I told her, and she responded with a short gaze and a smile.

As we reached the shoreline, we sat down beside each other, staring out at the glistening ocean before us, the falling sun shimmering and swirling across the calm tides. Josie broke the silence. "Hey, Arthur?" I turned to face her, raising my eyebrows to gesture for her to continue vocalizing her current train of thought as she hesitated. "I was just thinking. Have you uh...Have you gotten hungry at all since we've been here? Or thirsty, or, hell, needed the bathroom even? I just realized we've been active all day and yet I've not felt a single need for food or water. Or to, I guess we could say, fulfil any of my, you know, bodily functions? I mean, that's weird right?" It was a thought that hadn't occurred to me before, yet as soon as Josie brought it up I realized the same had been true for me as well. Why didn't we seem to need food and water? This couldn't just be anxiety about our situation, surely?

Our conversation was interrupted by another strange phenomenon occurring before us as the sun began to change colour, transitioning from the golden hue we'd been observing into a deep shade of purple, before brightening and turning into a piercing shade of cyan. I found myself mesmerized by the unique sight ahead of us, my mouth falling agape as I witnessed with sheer awe the beauty of the radiating light. "Wow. This is...This is just...Wow." I whispered to Josie, continuing to look forward as I spoke. I heard a light sniffling sound and felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched. Turning to face her, I saw tears rolling softly down Josie's cheeks, glueing loose strands of her wavy blonde hair to her face as the wind forced the two together. The blue lighting seemed to accentuate the droplets of water making them almost shine and glow as it brought out all the most minute details of the texture of Josie's hair. I hadn't realised just how beautiful she was until this very moment, seeing her looking at me under this bizarre lighting.

"Josie, what's wrong?" I asked her, softening my voice as I attempted to comfort her. She tripped over her own words, her voice croaking slightly as she struggled to get them out. "Arthur, I...I keep having these flashbacks, they're so horrible. I've been having them all day." She confided in me. Laying a hand gently on her shoulder, I asked, "These flashbacks, what happens in them?" Our eyes locked, her emerald pupils piercing deep into my very soul. My lungs felt as if they had sunk down into the deepest depths of my stomach. They filled it not with butterflies, but with a storm of agitated wasps, clearing a path through which pure dread could rise. I could see on her face that we had both just suddenly come to the same realization.

Clarity joined the images from the past as they rushed back in. I remembered the crash in its entirety now, a T-bone collision, caused by misfunctioning traffic lights turning the signals on my route green as a red sedan sped in from the right side. My mind became sluggish as the memory replayed, and I felt a split-second panic at the thought that the accident was too close to avoid. Turning to the side and locking eyes with the driver of the speeding vehicle, I felt time in slow motion. My eyes were drawn to the driver's face, who was screaming intensely from behind the wheel. I finally realized now that it was Josie in the other car.

The tsunami of memories and experiences from a past life cut short enveloped my brain. I saw my loved ones. I remembered snippets of my life from childhood through adolescence, all the way up to the recent collision. As the almost luminous green wave rolled onto the beach, encircling me, I found the tidal wave within also descending, washing away most of my questions as the sea had washed away many of the sand flakes I remained seated in. I was the one thing the ocean hadn't managed to stir, just as one singular question remained firmly in my mind still: "Is this death?"

As we both sat there in silence, I felt the weight of our situation begin to bear down on me. I tried to reason it out in my mind that maybe this was just a dream, but I couldn't do it. I knew it simply wasn't true. This really was death. I stared out at the sun, which had returned to its earlier golden tone. A mere shimmer of it remained above the horizon, its descent in the final stages. I couldn't help but think about all the things I would never experience, nor all the people I would never see again.

Josie, on the other hand, seemed to be in disbelief. "This can't be it." I heard her mutter below her breath, "It just can't be. There has to be something more. This can't be it." Turning back towards her, I could see the fear and desperation in her eyes as she desperately tried to cling to the hope that there was more left to our existence than this.

As the light faded and the stars began to twinkle in the sky above us, we both lay back in the sand, sharing a contemplative silence. A mesmerizing light show was unfolding, illuminating the darkness. An almost otherworldly aurora borealis, swirling and pulsing in a choreographed dance across the sky in a wide spectrum of colours. Blinding blues, vivid greens, deep reds and comforting purples tangoed, creating a bridge from the earth to the sky that seemed to glow with a life of its own. We stayed there, still and spellbound, admiring it as the sight continued to unfold, the patterns never repeating their movements, nor ceasing in their beauty. Gazing upwards at this sight, a warmth fell across us both. It was as if we had been gifted with this sight. Our compensation for a life in the real world that had been cut short was to be rewarded with a glimpse of a secret and sacred world. To be the only two witnesses to the universe's very own celestial dance.

"Arthur?" Josie's voice seemed calm and at ease now as she finally broke the silence, both of us continuing to observe in awe and wonder the elegance of this tropical sky. "Yes?" Josie let out a small sigh that radiated an energy of tranquillity and acceptance before continuing to speak. "I'm thinking that maybe this isn't so terrible, being here. I've never seen anything like this before." I spent a few moments trying to digest the idea before I responded, "Honestly, I think the thing I'm struggling with coming to terms with the most is all the things I never got to do, the experiences I never got to have, the memories I never got to create." Without even a moment of pause, Josie turned on her side to face me, stretching out one of her hands and placing it atop mine. "We can make new memories here. Together." It was the kind of epiphany I needed to come to before I could find any acceptance of our situation. Our lives may have been over, but our afterlife had just begun, and we wouldn't have to face it alone. As we closed our eyes, we both leaned in towards each other, caressing each other's faces with our hands as our lips met.

As dawn rose, we awoke together on the sand, our bodies still loosely intertwined as we shared the embrace we had fallen into in our sleep. We had begun accepting our situation, finding comfort in each other. We knew that we had to make the best of this. There was no way back to life as we knew it. However, we could find a way to live in love and happiness here together. We would spend our time exploring the island, swimming in the clear waters around us, feeling the soft sand under our skin, as well as each other's. Observing strange and beautiful phenomena that fought against everything we thought was possible. Experiencing the peace and serenity of this island and the company of each other that we had been gifted with. We endeavoured to make our own new memories and experiences through eternity. As we found acceptance within, hope and optimism came along with it.

We were dead, but we were alright.