One…two…three, three seconds. It took just three seconds, and a single bird flying high up in the clouds. I never thought that the sound of shattering glass and the force of a hurricane combined could be capable of such devastation, such raw power, and such evil. I called out to the crowd and told them to take their seat cushions and jump.

I had no time to think about my decision, and if I hadn’t done what was needed, everyone would have died. My decision to speak up about my plan saved the lives of forty people. The others said my idea was not going to work and blatantly disbanded it. Those naysayers did not make it and quite frankly, I did not feel pity for them. I did not grieve for them. I did not feel guilty about them dying. It was their choice and I respect their decisions, but it would have only taken them three seconds to jump.

We were then faced with a problem. How could we survive? We were able to float on the seat cushions, which was part of my plan, but I didn’t expect us to be floating for more than a day. Three days passed since my decision and the people began starving and dying. All hope had disappeared and then I laid my eyes on something gigantic. It was a big landmass in the middle of nowhere, full of trees and hopefully full of food.

It took three hours for us to land on the beach. In the time it took to make it to the land, thirty people died. In the three hours it took for us to float to the land, three more people passed away, but I didn’t really care about that the second I noticed a coconut. I shed a tear and the other six raced for the food. After I opened up the coconut, I felt as if I were in heaven when I finally tasted it.
I could easily see myself staying on the landmass forever, but the food was scarce and there were more mountains than I could count. We only had enough food for three days and it was time that we scaled the mountains and reached the other side in search for food. It took three hours to walk half way up the mountain and then I had noticed a cave.
We walked inside the cave and it led to some sort of door. There were symbols on it and the only part of it that I recognized was the number three. I touched the number and the door started to glow a bright yellow. We walked in and found two torches still burning. “Someone has been here recently,” I thought. We grabbed the torches and it created a chain reaction.
The torches started a fire, but luckily it wasn’t out of control and it was small. The fire made a trail and then started to split in four different directions, then each of those made four more. Pretty soon I realized we were in a humongous room with buildings, but not just any buildings, they were buildings made out of solid gold. There was a huge set of stairs that led down to the gold.
Gold; so much gold. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and I couldn’t believe it was real. It was a whole entire city made of gold, but the only real reason I was happy was because there was a possibility that people could be living and surviving in it. After about three hours of searching we found out that there was no one living in or near the city.
My stomach started to hurt and I needed food badly, but the city had only gold; gold, since when did it become so worthless? Since when does the most precious and expensive metal in the world seem to have the exact same value as dirt? Since when is food more valuable than money?
It wasn’t easy for us to leave the gold behind, but we took all the food the island had and now there was nothing left. Luckily, palm trees were abundant. We would have no trouble finding wood for a raft. The others collected materials to cut down the trees and I took the leaves to make a material sturdy enough to hold the raft together. Three hours later the raft was complete and we set sail.
The time slowed down drastically and seemed motionless. I didn’t even know how much longer it would take before we could find a ship. I had a strong guess that it would take three days, but I was too tired to watch the sun’s position to tell the time. We were all just about to die when we heard a loud horn. It was a huge freighter and I’d never been happier to see a boat in my whole entire life.
The men on the boat lifted us up and we were saved, but I passed out the second they brought me on board. Three weeks later I woke up and told the sailors all about my journey and they thought I was idiotic to leave behind all of the gold, but it was just too heavy to carry.
In the years since, the other six devoted all of their time back into finding the island again. I decided to spend the rest of my life searching for the reason behind the number three. To this day I don’t regret my decision to leave the island and I never will, but the next time I fly in a plane, I’m going to bring a parachute and a distress signal. My name is Tom Stockley and this has been a true account of my experiences on a deserted island.

Sincerely,
Tom Stockley