The Island

It had seemed beautiful the first time they saw it, a crop of shimmering green forest sprouting up from a silvery smooth dome of beach in the centre of the sparkling lake. They had been restless with excitement at the prospect of a holiday throughout the whole journey, and once they reached land they could only stand, overwhelmed, with their feet sinking into the hot sand, gawping up at the gently rustling and ever-changing canopy of leaves above them and the colourful birds perched in it like jewels. They were mesmerised by the island: its vibrancy, colour, and just its difference. It was so unlike Risembool.

But they forgot about all of that once their newly-found teacher had left, abandoning them on the beach with nothing but a knife, each other and the vague promise of rescue in a month’s time. After that, the island seemed slightly different, a frustrating prison, still beautiful, but a place where they had to stay, rather than wanted to. The beauty of a place becomes diminished when leaving it is not an option. Rather, as they lay down to sleep that night, they considered the island wonderful and different, but tainted with the time they would be forced to spend there. There was also a ban on alchemy for as long as they were there, which they couldn’t help but blame on the island, even though they knew that the rules would have been the same wherever the test took place. But they were grateful to the island for its spirit and vitality, and for the makeshift bed of large leaves it provided. So, angry, frustrated and exhausted, yet thankful all the same, they lay down to sleep.

And then the man in the mask appeared with his cudgel, and things took a distinct turn for the worse.

The next morning they saw brandished clubs and bare rippling muscles and eyes shining from out of the depths of a carved wooden face wherever they looked. The forest had gone from a shelter and a possible supply of food and fuel, to the home of a monster. And so they fled from out of it as soon as it was light enough to merit movement. They sat shell-shocked on the beach together, rocking backwards and forwards, submerged in pure blind terror at the prospect of a whole month in this hideous place, and examining their wounds. Upon finding only large bruises and lumps, painful but by no means serious, they hauled themselves and each other upright and headed determinedly back into the depths of the wood with their knife drawn, unwilling to give in to some guy who had nothing better to do than lurk on an otherwise uninhabited island, wearing a mask and terrorising small children. But it only got worse after that, the frequent fights for their lives gradually draining their strength and determination.

The food they found was deceptive: large, brightly coloured mushrooms that looked nutritious and appetising, but which caused them to spasm and vomit weakly in the undergrowth, stomachs seized with pain; juicy-looking grasses and fruits that defied harvest right up until the last moment- when they were straining on them, tugging with all their weight- and then came away from the bush or up from the ground suddenly, dumping them unceremoniously on their behinds; fish that sparkled temptingly in the crystal water and enticed them to plunge into the lake with sharpened sticks, in excited pursuit, only to shimmer and slip out of sight beneath the surface, leaving them wet and disgruntled, and hungry.

Even building a fire was far less easy than it seemed. A flame was so difficult to provoke using only a pair of small, tired and aching arms and two wet sticks; and even if they did succeed in coaxing a spark into life, they would almost always fall at the next hurdle: keeping it there. Most nights they were forced to lie, damp, shivering and fire-less, on their makeshift bed, exhausted to their very centres but unable to sleep, lying stiffly expectant, waiting for the masked man to come.

“I hate this!” came the cry one rainy night from the boy lying face-down in the mud. “I hate this! I hate this! I want to go home!”

His wails were met with silence.

Over time their muscles seized up, tightening and winding close together from the constant tension. The comfortable childhood roundness receded from their bodies as their eyes grew shadowed and dark, their faces grey and pinched. They grew stronger and tougher, true, but at the expense of the natural, healthy and childlike shape of their limbs, which became skinny and sinewy. The fat crept away from their bodies, to be replaced by thin, stretched muscles, cramped with fatigue, which creaked with protest whenever pushed to work. They got used to it, as they got used to the constant pain from their numerous injuries and the empty, twisting feeling in the pits of their stomachs, which resurfaced at every movement. Their new bodies helped them grow accustomed to this life.

But the surprises this island gave out were limitless, and it hadn’t finished with them yet.

It was during yet another attack from the masked man that they found the answer to their problem hidden within the decaying corpse of a cicada. It was disgusting to look at, disembowelled, hollow, and broken apart by numerous swarming, scurrying insects, but it prompted a sudden, blinding flash of understanding that ultimately could have been what saved their lives. It was that, after all, which forced the young injured boy to drag himself to his aching, bruised, shredded feet, pick up the knife and point it at the masked man, with shaking hands but an expression filled with desperation and anger.

The man in the mask dropped the boy’s battered, broken brother to the ground and walked away.

They didn’t dare to think that the man had been so scared by the boy with the knife that he had fled. They couldn’t imagine the man becoming tired of tormenting them. The only other explanation was that the masked man was nothing but another surprise cooked up to test them.

The island was cunning. It could hide a dangerous, aggressive brute among the lush green trees, poison inside the most tempting of foods, inspiration beneath the body of a dead cicada, and a laughing, jovial man named Mason behind the gruesome form of a painted mask.