Chapter 1

After weeks of planning from two of my childhood friends to celebrate my 40th birthday in Fiji islands, we were just about to depart from Montreal in Quebec Canada. I live about 2 hours from there but the prices they got on the tickets was only with departures from Montreal so here we are, freezing our asses off on a cold January day. Marc and jean, friends of mine for over 30 years offered me this trip as a present for my birthday. Big fucking deal! As if I want to be reminded that I'm getting up there; that half my life is gone and the better part at that!!

But that is beside the point. I guess after my wife, my cheating wife left me, my friends took it upon themselves to bring me out of my slump. Yea, 2 years ago my slut wife left me for a kid half her age and I took it hard. I've been on 2 dates in 2 years and I just wasn't in it. I still had these bad thought about my wife and her boy toy.

Well, if I was gonna get out of this, this funk slash depression or whatever the fuck you want to call it, Fiji or more precisely a small island called Levuka or something like that seemed like as good a place as any to get out of it. You see, Jean has an uncle who lives there all year round. He's a retired professional diver who used to work around oil platforms and established himself there some five years ago.

We planned to spend 2 weeks on his boat. I've seen a picture and it's a nice one about 60ft long if I'm not mistaking and it has everything need to be self-sufficient for diving and we expect to do a lot of it. Jean told me that his uncle just bought a new compressor to fill the tanks and we can keep diving for as long as we like because it works on solar power if we run out of gas or if there is a mechanical breakdown. Which means we can refill our tanks anytime we want and no need to come back to shore every day for it.

The boat is filled with scuba gear like harpoons, fishing rods, fishing nets and even some guns and ammo ... just in case his uncle said- you never know who you're gonna meet in these water! Me personally I think, better be safe than sorry and if I'm gonna be alone on the water with my friends, protection can't be bad.

"Rock, tomorrow at this time we'll be in the water my friend!" Jean told me with a smile plastered on his face.

"I know." And all I can do is smile and he knows it. We've been diving partners, him and me for more than 20 years ... we've seen about every wreck in the St-Laurence river, we've done rescue missions together and marc got the bug about 12 years ago tired of seeing Jean and me leave close to every week end to go diving at the rock quarry not far from where I live. All that to say ... we 3 love diving and spending 2 weeks doing just that, seemed like a dream, a dream that is about to come true.

The flight was uneventful so was the check out at the airport, we just had to find Jean's uncle and we were set. We didn't have to wait long because as soon as we stepped out of the airport his uncle was right there waiting for us. He had a big F350 to go around so we had room for all our gear and baggage. Marc and I even got in the back for part of the ride. All I could think of when looking at the smile plastered on marc face is that we must look like a bunch of young kids that were promised candy and they were just about to get it. I don't think we could have wiped those smiles off of our faces, even if our lives had depended on it.

After some time spent in the back of the truck [not recommended] I didn't need a life threatening experience to wipe that smile from my face ... the small forgotten fact was that six hours is what it takes to get to where we needed to be. After an hour, my smile was gone. After 2 hours, I was downright miserable. The wind was nice but the sun was hot and the cabin of the truck looked mighty nice at that moment. The rest of the ride wasn't as bad and we got to take a ferry to cross to the island we were going.

The water was absolutely mesmerizing and I could see lots of marine life going about. Just couldn't wait to be diving. At one point all 3 of us had our elbows on the railing of the barge looking down and this small shark swam under us and all 3 of our heads came up to tell the others but just by looking at each other, without a word we knew all 3 had seen it.

Our faces was telling the story. Moments like that stay forever with you and we knew we had just shared one of those moments. To top it off we hadn't even been diving yet! The best was yet to come or so I thought.

Finally, not six hours later but seven, we were at the dock in front of the boat in question. We looked at each other knowing we were about to depart on an adventure and even though we were tired from the long flight, the long ride to get here, we got a boost just from being here. It took us about 45 minutes to get everything in place on the boat, fixed ourselves a quick meal of jerky and fruit just to get us to the morning and off to bed. Jeans uncle wanted us to go back with him saying that he had prepped the basement for us but like we told him ... all we needed was this boat. What we had seen of the outside was just perfect but it was dark and we would know more tomorrow.

As soon as we wake up, a full inspection of the boat, inside and outside, will be the first thing to tackle. Making an inventory list of everything on this diving dreamboat will be a must. Who knows what's on it and what's needed.

Second, the groceries list, well, more like a beer run if you ask me, but who's asking right! In the end Jean did go spend the night at his uncle's place if not just to say hello to his aunt who he hadn't seen in over a year. Not 30 minutes after he left we were out for the count and dreaming of countless hours spent under the sea.

As I soon as I started to wake up I knew something was wrong. The first indication, and that's what I think woke me up, was that my hands were touching sand. I mean WTF! My first thought was, this is a dream, but the sun on my face was telling me that it wasn't.

I think my asshole just took a bite out of my pants it puckered so fast. I'm completely scared shitless, I'm not where I went to bed last night. In fact I don't have the slightest clue as to where I am. From what I can see I'm in a lagoon of some sort. I can see a gap of about 4 feet between two opposing cliffs opening up on a huge body of water about 200 feet all around. There's a small beach about 40 feet wide and about 30 feet up leading to a forest of tropical trees.

As I do a 360 I see cliffs all around like I was in the inside of a bowl. I try focusing on the sounds because I can't see my friends. They have to be close around but this lagoon is not big enough for me not see them. If they were here I would see them. I shouted for them all the same. I shouted till my throat hurt. They just weren't here, but how can that be? Why me? Why just me? I need answers and quick. I mean, I have to get into survival mode also. What should be my first thing to do ... maybe have a look around and familiarize myself with my environment, yea that seem like the thing to do! As I look around I see what seem to be a small spring that ends up in the lagoon. My fresh water, and by the look and taste of it, it's perfect, clean and cold. As I follow the spring up it leads to a small waterfall perfect for when I'll need a shower.

Like I said, this lagoon looks a lot like a bowl with a crack in it with water in the bottom. I'm thinking this was a volcano that erupted millions of years ago and this is just the tip of the crater. I need to get to the top of the ridges to have a better look around. I'm pretty sure I'm on an island but to be sure I need to get up there. I don't think it will be too hard since there's a lot of palm trees all the way up, about half a mile I guess. But first, a growl from my stomach reminds me that if I'm to even make it up there I'll need something to eat and I saw some oyster shells on the beach. Yep you guessed it ... time to dive. Now don't get me wrong ... I'm still scared shitless and my heart beat is high at the moment but survival mode takes over the fear which enables me to think more clearly. So yea food first then a 500ft climb.

Wow, the water is warm and clear. I can see all around the lagoon from under the water and there's hundreds of fish of all kinds and the bottom is littered with oysters and very big ones too judging from the size of the shells. I took as much as I could, filling my pockets and my hands and swam up. The depth of the lagoon is about 50ft and as I started my climb I noticed a shadow to my left so I turned to see what made it. I swear my heart stop. A shark! And a huge one at that, about 9ft long. Panic almost invaded me, till I notice him looking at the fish and not me. I swam up looking at it but that thing had eyes only for the fish and I just hoped it stayed that way.

I made it to the top without any problems if you don't count a 9ft shark 30 feet from you a problem and I had 11 big oysters for my lunch. I had to smash them between rocks and if you ever have to open an oyster with rocks ... be gentle, using as little force as possible. My first one got smashed so bad I couldn't eat it. Too many little pieces of shells. By the third one I had it to a science and could break just one of the shells by breaking them in the sand.

Washing the oyster in clear water made them edible but they were still a little on the crunchy side but to me it was more important to have something in my stomach. I would of like some fish also but that shark scared me. I need a way to kill that fucker or stop him from entering my lagoon. I found it funny that I was thinking of this lagoon as mine and I guess at the moment it was. I'm here with no one to contest it anyway!

"IT'S MINE!" I shouted, it made me smile.

It took me about 2 hours to get to the top and to tell the truth, I thought it would have been much harder but going from tree to tree made it easy. I was able to see a family of monkeys. I couldn't tell which race they were and it really wasn't important to me except for the fact that they reassured me. I mean, if they were able to survive here, so should I. I think I lost another part of my underwear when my ass puckered up AGAIN after seeing a 20ft snake slithering not

5ft from me. It was just for the first second bebecause I recognized a boa when I see one. No danger to me if I don't bother it and I had absolutely no intention whatsoever to do that. Not that stupid! I saw some huge spiders, well I saw one spider about 4 inches long and to me that's HUGE! Now don't ask me what kind it was, I'm Canadian and the biggest one we have are a lot smaller then that one. It was a dark grey with lighter streaks of white with fury legs. The web was impressive and a dead giveaway as to where they are. Just by looking around I was able to spot a few web so I just had to stay away from those and everything should be good.

One thing I did notice was the absence of flying insects, flies, mosquitos and the likes which to me was a great thing but then again it was only about 2 o'clock and I haven't been here more than a few hours. My guess is, I would see some later on in the evening. I just hope there wouldn't be a lot bebecause I had no way to protect myself from them and if they stayed through the night I will end up with more hole in me then a dart board.

As soon as my head past the ridge I knew my chances of survival had just gone up by a factor of five. Why five you ask? I see five smoke columns from different places around the island and it's a BIG island.

From what I can see, and I see everything from here, this island is huge and I'm at its highest point. The shape of it reminds me of a shelled peanut with my lagoon on the end of it. I'd estimate the length of it at 13 miles and about 4 miles from side to side. Right below me, no more than half a mile away I can see smoke from a fire with people around it. And from the looks of it all the smoke I see must mean more villages like this one. My mind is going crazy now. People! ... I'm not alone!! Now to make contact but how? I can't just walk in there!

As my mind is going through all the ways I can go about meeting them I notice a fleck of white in the forest on the left side of the island. It was just too white to belong here making it stand out. What the fuck could that be? All I could see was the green of the trees and a small speck of white. Not enough to know what it is but enough to know it's not natural.

I estimate it will take me 3 hours to get to that speck of white but I keep looking back at the village. I can make out what looks like a boar on a spit over the fire. I count 3 women going about the boar. I can see from here that they all wear the same thing, a small piece of leather covering their lower parts and nothing up top. There's a few kids running around that I can see but only one male. From what I can see, he's holding a spear. Another women came out from one of the huts and called one of the kids and that's all I can count for now.

Getting out of site and in the direction of the white speck, my mind was still on the village. There has to be more men for sure. I saw 4 women and there's 5 or 6 kids all about. But what had me thinking the most was the spear the man had. I mean we are in 2014. I would have expected a rifle or at least a bow and this guy had none of that. Maybe I was on an island with little to no contact with the outside world which meant that I was screwed again ... fuck!

Just 10ft going down and all I was seeing was brown and green the foliage was so thick. I just hope I was keeping to my bearing. I had no way to know but by the angle of my descent. Going down seemed harder then up but I found the speck and you wouldn't believe it. It's the fucking boat! I was so stunned when I finally realized what it was that I didn't see the root sticking out of the ground and I literally fell on my face! How ... in ... the ... hell did that get here!

Just by looking at it, it was evident that it was dropped from the air. Its V shaped bottom was flat and obviously unrepairable. All I could do was salvage all that I could and bring it to my lagoon. I was elated at finding Jean's uncles boat but terrified at finding out how it got here and if the boat is here maybe my friends here also, now that is a nice thought!

But again, how did it get here? "MARC! JEAN! "I shouted. My friends where are they! I looked around the boat about 200ft all around and there's nothing. The ground doesn't even look to have been walked on in ages as if no one comes to this side of the island. I did see a pack of boars and a deer or what looked like one but bigger so I know I can hunt for food here if there's more and where's there's one there's more.