The Survivor - Thirty-five (702 hits)
Category: GeneralLabels: The_Survivor
Rating: 2 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <brdn_nkd.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2004-11-22 09:17:43 EST
Part 1 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/47397
Part 2 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/47534
Part 3 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/47688
Part 4 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/47784
Part 5 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/47955
Part 6 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48120
Part 7/8 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48263
Part 9 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48399
Part 10/11 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48513
Part 12/13 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48700
Part 14/15 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48779
Part 16-18 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/48915
Part 19 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/49334
Part 20 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/49638
Part 21 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/49717
Part 22/23 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/49818
Part 24/25 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/49950
Part 26 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/50030
Part 27 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/50356
Part 28 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/50498
Part 29/30 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/50697
Part 31 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/50942
Part 32 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/51053
Part 33- http://www.ubersite.com/m/51139
Part 34 - http://www.ubersite.com/m/51333
"Eleven days still remain
You're tired, worn out, and feeling some pain
Finish this challenge and you'll have cause to celebrate
Your new island home won't be quite so desolate."
More mystery, great, just what we need. Rachel's still unable to walk at much more than a slow hobble, and all of us are physically and emotionally drained. Hard to believe less than two weeks remain, harder still to imagine making it through them. Gina's death still weighs heavily on my heart and the thought that I could lose more of these people, that I've come to think of as my island family, is unbearable. Last night we discussed the possibility that more of us may yet die and all we could agree on was that each of us would do our best to prevent it from happening.
We sit around our fire this morning waiting for Jeff to come retrieve us for the day's challenge. Soon it's lunchtime and still no Jeff. Denny jokingly hoped out loud that they'd forgotten they'd notified us of the challenge. As much as I'd like to believe it I think this is just a sign that this challenge will be just as uniquely awful as the rest. We continue waiting, the day wearing on to evening and as the sun begins to set Jeff walks into camp.
"Good evening! Today's challenge begins at nightfall and will surely be a tough one. You will have a brief opportunity to prepare before we take you to the starting point. I strongly suggest you use that time as best you can to ensure your team completes the challenge. If you go completely awry tonight we will rescue two of you and those two will try to complete the remaining eleven days. Please select which two of you will be rescued in the event of a mishap."
How the hell can they ask us to choose two to live from our group? I guess that's a question for a later date because they're pushing us now to decide. None of us is willing to save ourselves if it means that we have to choose four to die. We tell Jeff this and he raises his gun insisting we give him two names. Chris shouts out: "Rachel and Ben!" and before any of us can say anything else, Jeff responds: "ok, that's done then". We try to argue that it's not fair to do it that way and Jeff simply tells us the matted is closed and will not be discussed any more.
"You will now have until sunset, about thirty minutes, to prepare, after which we will be taking you out to sea five miles where you will be dropped. Your challenge is to make it back to the island. If you go astray we'll rescue Ben and Rachel and the rest of you will be left to your fate. If you complete the challenge you will be given new beds and a professional chef who will cook anything you can provide ingredients for. Better get to work!"
I immediately begin grabbing anything I can that I think will float yelling to the others to do the same. When we all come back together we have just a few minutes before the sun finishes its day's descent. I grab all of the ropes I can find, those we got with our equipment and those we made ourselves, and begin tying everything together. When Jeff tells us it's time to go we have a very crude looking raft. Untested, definitely unimpressive we're not even really sure it will do anything to help us. We walk to the beach with Jeff who points out the boat that will take us out to the five-mile mark. We get into the boat and before they start the engine Jeff says: "one more thing, all of you but one will be blindfolded until we reach our destination." Chris pipes up requesting to be the one to not be blindfolded. We concede and each of us go to Jeff who wraps a black cloth around our heads tying it in the back. The boat pulls out and we begin our trip.
"Chris, make sure to watch for anything we can use to see where we're going!"
"I know Ben, I'm watching."
We drove around for what seemed a very long time before the boat comes to a stop. Jeff instructs us to remove our blindfolds and get into the water. I pull our raft into the water with me and looking out, realize that I can't see anything that would help me navigate. I look around for Chris and call out to him; "do you know the way back?"
Chris swims over to me and quietly tells me that they had been turning in great sweeping arcs occasionally going in a great circle. Basically he's not sure if he knows or not. As we're talking I see Rachel struggling to catch up to us, her injury came to mind and I began pushing the raft over to her. I asked how she was doing and she told me that it didn't seem too bad in the water but I don't really believe her. Finally all of us have come together round the raft; we rehash what Chris saw and try to decide on a course of action. Hanging on to the raft is okay but when we try to get on, one by one, we find that one, it's not big enough for all of us, and two, that it won't hold the weight of more than two people anyway. We talk about ditching the raft but not all of us are confident we could swim five miles, besides most of the stuff it's made out of is stuff we'll miss if we get back so we decide to take turns pulling while two people rest on top so that we can take shifts. Now the problem is which way to go, while Chris is not entirely sure which way to go he's the only one who has any idea of where the island would be so he sets our course. I find the north star and note it's position, if I'd had more time I probably would have thought to grab one of the compasses, I hope I've marked the right star, I don't want to be lost out here.
We start swimming. Our makeshift raft doesn't pull easily; it sits too low in the water so we struggle to get it moving. That was a long night, we took turns pulling and two of us tried to sleep on the raft when it was our turn to rest. We hadn't planned on not sleeping tonight so we were all dog-tired after the first hour. By the time the second hour had passed Rachel was in so much pain that we decided to give her longer rests which put a bigger toll on the rest of us, but was unavoidable. We swam and pulled for the next five hours, there were several times when all of us just hung on to the side of the raft, feeling too tired to do any more. There were other times when a stop was necessary to decide if we were still on course or if an adjustment needed to be made. The scariest part of that was that we didn't know for sure if we were even headed in the right direction. By the time we finally lugged our aching, cold, wet bodies onto the familiar beach, the sun had begun to come up.
Jeff congratulated us on having completed the challenge but I don't think many of us were listening, we all slept on the beach that morning only moving ourselves far enough from shore to stay dry. When we woke that afternoon and returned to camp we found six single beds in the clearing and a guy in cook's whites sitting by the fire. We were all excited to take advantage of our new possessions. Ten more days remaining and then we can leave this hellhole.
User Reviews
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-04-19 06:57:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2005-12-28 07:27:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I couldn't swim for five fucking minutes.
-Dave
Submitted by RyuFu (user info) at 2005-11-04 13:18:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I could not swim for 5 hours. I get tired after about 5 laps.
Submitted by Wrightcopy (user info) at 2005-09-12 11:28:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
How do you come up with these things?
Submitted by mikethescottish (user info) at 2005-03-01 17:54:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ed_0150 (user info) at 2005-01-21 00:49:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2004-11-26 12:45:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2004-11-23 08:51:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2004-11-22 16:56:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
crap.... i have some catching up to do
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2004-11-22 14:35:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Thanks guys, I'd be willing to try but will have to do some digging on how to start. thanks for reading!
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2004-11-22 12:53:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Publish this as a book. I'll buy it even though i've read it all here.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2004-11-22 11:48:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
DUDE
You rock.
Publish this as a book. I'll buy it even though i've read it all here.
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2004-11-22 10:25:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment