Darkness. That’s all I could see when I woke up. I look over at the clock, 6:12 AM. Why didn't my alarm go off! No, I’m gonna be late! My flight leaves at 6:45 and the airport is 20 minutes away!  I still had to take a shower and get dressed and…and…and-
“Stop.” I said to myself. “You’re hyperventilating again. Go take a quick shower and get dressed.”
I love that little voice in my head, it always knows what to do.
I ran to the shower and turned on the water. As the water was running I sprinted to the side of my messy bed and grabbed my clothes that I had prepared and my suitcase. I ran the suitcase down stairs by the door and ran back up to the bathroom. I undressed and jumped into the shower, AAAHH HOT!! Being the idiot that I am I never felt the water to see if it was good. I hurried and finished my shower, got dressed and headed to my car with my suitcase in hand. I checked the time on my watch, 6:20. Perfect! I’m going to make it on time and catch my flight to Hawaii!
I made it to the airport and I guess I had just checked in on time because they started to close the door to my flight. I got on the plane and started to relax. I looked down at my passport, Ray Williams. At least they got that right. “Everything is alright, you made it and now you’re going to Hawaii to see mom and dad!” I told myself. Grrrrrrrrrr. That’s my stomachs way of saying, “Hey stupid! You missed breakfast!” but luckily they had brought me some peanuts to hold me down for a little while.
Oh! I’m sorry, I totally forgot to tell you, this is the story of how I got stranded on a not so friendly island.

“Nobody Panic!”
Those are the first words I heard as I awoke feeling groggy from my nap. I felt the plane start to shake and rock as people were yelling and screaming. I wasn’t fully aware of my surrounding yet because I had just woken up but my eyes began to clear and I could see all of the people onboard. Little children and young tourists crying, they knew that this could be the end. When I looked to my left to look out the window all I saw was a cloud of smoke trailing from one of the engines, the plane was going down. We were in the middle of the ocean and the plane was going down!
“What am I going to do!” I say to myself. “This will wreck mom and dad!”
The intercom came back again, same lady. “Mayday mayday the plane is going down!” That's when everyone started yelling and crying. They would never see their families again. That’s all I could process before the plane crashed right down into the rapid waters.

I woke up. I thought that was the end, but I woke up. My head was spinning everywhere and the first thing I did was puke up a mixture of peanuts and seawater. I was alive.

I couldn't believe it. I was alive! But, where was I? I looked around to check out the surroundings, my vision was fuzzy and my head was hurting but I could make out that I was on a beach and that there was tropical trees behind me. The water was splashing my feet, ice cold. I look to my  right, nothing but ocean. I look to my left, nothing but ocean… wait! There’s fresh water and fish next to me!
“Either there is other people living here or someone else from the plane crash survived!” I thought to myself.
I whipped the water off of the ground and fiercely started drinking.
“Wait! Don’t drink all of it!” I heard from behind me in the trees.
I panicked. I put the water down and without thinking, I sprinted back behind a rock. Well actually my vision and my head weren’t ready for a sprint quite yet so I ran straight into the rock and fell behind it. Same thing. I peaked over the rock to see who had talked and I didn’t see anyone. Maybe they had gotten as scared as me and ran away. I started to creep out from behind the rock, still didn't see anyone. I decided to just go back over and sit where I was before. I started moving back over there when I heard the voice again.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m a survivor from the crash just like you.”

I walked out into the open, unarmed. So did the “other survivor”.
“ See. I don't want to hurt you in any sort of way. I just want us to get through this, together.” he said.
I replied, “I don’t believe you! Stay back!”
Again the man said, “Please believe me… I don't want to hurt you I just want to make it out of this together.”
At this point in time I hadn't realized that the man was super clean.
“If you aren’t lying then why are you so clean?! Where did you come from or who sent you?!” I said.
“Nobody sent me! I found a pond not that far from here… It’s very clean and it has some fish that could hold us down for awhile.”
This guy didn’t look like the type of person that would hurt someone but yet again you never know. I walked closer to him, and closer, and closer until I was right by him. “Show me the way.” I said.
We started walking down this narrow path into the trees. I looked around. Beautiful flowers blooming, violet and hot pink. Very tall trees with a mixture of dark and light leaves everywhere around us. Insects and birds singing their songs other small animals scurrying around. I look up ahead and there is an opening. That must be the pond. We walked through and it was the most beautiful sight. Crystal clear water where you can see every fish swimming. Bright and beautiful flowers everywhere around the pond. Tall trees surrounding this place as if it was a safe haven. The guy actually wasn’t lying!
“Hey look I’m sorry for how I acted back there man.” I said to the man. “You had every right to be suspicious of me… if I was in your position I would flipped out too.”
Let’s clean up, catch some food and get back to the beach… we need to find a way off of this island.

Me and the man I had just met made our way back with 3 fish ready to cook and eat and some giant leaves to act as a water holder. We were also fairly clean… the water really helped.
We sat down and started to try and make a small fire to cook our food and boil the water.

“Hey dude I never caught your name.” I said to him.
He replied, “Brady. You?”
“Ray. Nice to meet you Brady.” I said back.
“Nice to meet you as well Ray.” he kindly replied.

We went on to build the fire. Luckily Brady had some experience with starting fires, I had no clue how to so he saved our butts.The fire started and we fastened some sticks together to hang over the fire so we could stick the fish on and cook it. While the fish was cooking Brady had made a water container so we could boil the water. It worked like a charm and within a hour we had big ,cooked, meaty fish and boiled water to drink.
It tasted like heaven, I barely had anything to eat or drink before but now I was chowing down on a whole fish and drinking a whole container of water.

When I woke up Brady was making us little beds because apparently we had passed out last night on the bare ground. I ran over to Brady and told him my plan to get off the island… I’ve been thinking about it all through the day yesterday. Once I told him what we could do he agreed right away and we set off to find giant stones.

Later on that day we enough stones set up for my plan… we were going to build an SOS. We found a big patch of open beach and we decided to start the SOS there. We started with the S. Brady went from the top and me from the bottom so we would meet at the curve of the S, done. We went on to the second letter O. We both started at the top and curved around to the bottom of the O and met each other there. On to the last letter we went, in the blistering heat of the sun. Brady started at the top of the S again with me on the bottom and we met in the curve.
“Annnnnnnd finished!” Brady yelled. “Up top! I said and we high fived in the air.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of a helicopter. “Brady!!” I yelled. “What...what?” he groaned back. "I hear a helicopter!” I yelled. Brady said, “A what?” “ A helicopter!”

Sure enough there was a helicopter flying in the bright blue sky.

“HELP US!” we screamed at the helicopter trying to get its attention. We both knew the helicopter was too far away to hear us screaming but we yelled at the top of our lungs as loud as we can hoping it would.
The helicopter was too far away and was just getting farther and farther away. Our only hope was our S.O.S. but it didn't work… help wasn’t coming. Brady and I slumped to the ground, tears trickling down our faces. We didn’t talk for the longest time before I finally said what was on my mind.
“ Help isn’t coming. I don’t know if I want to live and deal with this anymore. We are going to die here all alone. Food is running out and so is water.” I said while wiping my tears. “Don't think like that! We will make it out of this and we will live!” Brady said.
“Ok then what do we do now?!” I yelled.
Follow the famous quote Brady said, “ If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
‘Well do you have a plan or are we just going to sit around like a potato?!” I yelled.
“That’s the spirit!” Brady said.

Brady knew exactly what to do. He told me that we needed a shiny Piece of metal and some giant leaves from in the forest.
He decided to make me walk along the beach and try to find a shiny piece of metal while he went into the forest and picked as many big leaves as he could. So I set off along the beach in search of a piece of metal. After my long walk I came across something very bright in the sand. Sure enough it was a metal of some sort lying there waiting for me to use it. I made my way back to our site and layed the piece of metal down. Just as it scraped against the sand Brady came out of the forest.
“Oh my gosh how many leaves did you get?!” I asked him
“A bunch!” he yelled back.
His hands were full with mountains of big leaves. I didn’t even understand how he had gotten all of them here but he did.
“I got the piece of metal.” I said.  I pulled out the metal to show him.
“Jeez that's a big piece of metal.” Brady said. “All i could find.” I said back.

We walked over and set our supplies down in front of us. We counted all of the leaves, which turns out there was 25 in all and then my piece of metal. Brady pulled out some wood blocks he had also grabbed and started stacking them up. Once he stacked them up he starting laying the leaves on top of the wood… I knew what he was going to do. Build a signal fire. He finished up with the leaves and had me sit the metal near the pile but not with it. He told me that we were going to use it to reflect light at an airplane if one comes by. It was getting dark outside so we set off to bed in hope that a helicopter was on its way.

We woke up the next morning and the next morning and the next and next and so on. So many days had passed and day by day we lost a little bit of hope until it was almost withered away. But we didn't give up all hope. Everyday we would get up and wait, and wait, and wait until dusk came. We began to give up, lay there and die. We had lost all hope but just then and there we heard something. Chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff chuff. Brady and I looked right up into the blazing sun and we saw in the distance… a helicopter. I can’t tell if it’s a hallucination or reality.
Brady yells, “ Hurry, we have to start the fire before it’s too late!”
We ran over to our supplies and Brady started to make the fire. He finally got a little flame and it was just enough to get the fire started. We watched as our wood and leaves went up in a blaze, a blaze so hot it could burn your nose hairs. We waited until the helicopter was closing in and screamed, “HELP!” as loud as we could. I don't know if the helicopter saw us or the fire. Brady yelled, “Ray the metal!”
I had completely forgotten about the metal! I ran over, grabbed the metal and started to try to find a glare.
“Got it!” I yelled as I finally found a glare from the blazing sun.
I had one shot at this.  If it failed we were going to die here, but no pressure. I pointed the glare towards the helicopter and I saw the light hit the back tail.
“Almost there!” I yelled to Brady waiting anxiously. I moved the metal to the right and it started to move up the helicopter.
I gave ne final yank and it sent the reflection right into the front window of the copter. Again and again I sent the reflection into the front window until finally we got a sign.
The helicopter was turning and coming towards us! I can’t believe it! We were going to be saved! Brady started crying, I started crying. We were going home, after everything we went through… we were going home.

The rest was all a blur. I saw the helicopter moving in and then a huge step ladder come down. Then Brady was pulling me into the helicopter and we laid on the floor. We got into our seats a minute later and the helicopter pulled away. We were going home. We made it and we were going home… we survived. The last thing I remember happening was telling the pilot to take me to my family in Hawaii before passing out. I woke up here and there in dazes seeing Brady sleeping soundly and the pilot doing his job and then I passed out again.  The pilot woke me and Brady up here and there to see if we wanted food or water. We would always take some and chug it down so we could go back to sleep.
I awoke to the sound of the helicopter dying down. Brady as already awake anxious to get of the helicopter. His family was also in Hawaii and he wanted to see them. It only took a few minutes for the helicopter to touch down but it felt like an eternity. As soon as the plane quit running Brady and I jumped out and started kissing the ground happy to be back on land. We laid there for a few minutes waiting for our heads to stop spinning from the ride.

We walked into the airport and were bombarded by crowds of people wanting to know our story. I guess there were missing reports for both of us and it was all over the new that we had been rescued. When Brady and I finally got out of the crowd he immediately covered his mouth and tears starting running down his cheeks. I look over and saw three people, a man and a woman and a younger boy, that Brady looked just like. He ran to them and they ran to him. They crashed into to each other and fell to the floor… bawling. They were his mom, dad and brother. Seeing them all together brought some tears to my eyes. I wanted to have my parents here more than anything. I looked around, left and right… no one but strangers all around. I looked at Brady still on the floor crying.
“Hey, I’m happy for you bud,” I said.
Brady replied, “Thanks man.”
Just then I heard someone screaming, “Move! Move!” I saw people being pushed aside in the crowd making a path for someone to come through. A figure bursts out of the crowd, scampering, trying to reach me. I see another figure tight behind the first one… also in a hurry to reach me. Finally I could comprehend what was going on and who was pushing through the crowd. I cover my mouth and burst out in tears.
“M-m-Mom? D-d-d-Dad?” I manage to get out through my shaky voice.