Day 14: Creative Writing Challenge
This is a 30-day writing challenge for the month of March where I will write a new post about a picture/video/idea each day.
At First Glance
Large bottle with a scroll inside laying in the beach in a hole. Honestly, you can tell the scroll was photoshopped in this picture, but we are going to use it in the story anyway.
Open sea with no boats present in the picture.
Sand is dug up where the bottle is and then level everywhere else in the image.
The Story Behind the Picture
On March 23rd, 2016, a team college students from the University of Berkeley boarded a flight to the National Science Foundation event that was happening in Washington D.C. The college students were all STEM Majors and were working together on a team project to build the first hyper loop prototype.
Hyper loop is a concept theorized by Elon Musk in a white paper that outlines a faster way to travel. The students at Berkeley, and many schools across the world, participated in creating a fast speed ground transportation device that could be used by people and cargo in the future.
The whole plane was rented out to the college students of Berkeley along with several TA’s and staff members that were helping the team. As one of the 10 finalists, they were invited to showcase their creations to a panel that would ultimately decide which school would be given a grant to bring their prototype to life to be used by people.
Unfortunately, half way through the flight a bolt flew off the left wing of the plane. The plane needed to make a crash landing and steered off towards the ocean to avoid any injuries. The plane crash landed 5 miles off the coast of a remote island. Many of the students and teachers died on landing — including both pilots. Everyone on the plane, dead or alive, floated to the nearby island.
There were 7 surviving members of the crash who were, after regaining consciousness, in shock from coming to realization on what had happened. They picked up the classmates who were no longer breathing and the seven of them decided to dig graves in the sand for their fallen team members. No one was thinking about the competition anymore, they were thinking about surviving.
All of the members participated in digging graves in the sand. While in the process of digging, one of the members noticed that there was a hard surface that was preventing them to dig further. They continued to dig around the surface area only to uncover a large bottle with a paper inside.
Not all members were interested in the bottle that was found right away. Several classmates were still distraught about what had happened and were too in shock to use their brain to strategize their survival. After all the bodies were buried, the classmates tried to gather supplies from the wreckage.
Out of the 7 people who survived, 3 people were in charge of searching East, and 3 people were in charge of searching West. One of the individuals stayed behind to attempt to open the bottle.
There were some sharp pieces of metal from the wreckage and this was used as a tool to break the bottle. After the bottle shattered, the large piece of paper inside was revealed.
If you are reading this, it is likely you ended up on this island by accident. After all, this island does not technically exist. You cannot find it on any map. This island was used as a prison and individuals were sent here for crimes they allegedly committed. I did not commit any crimes but was sent to the island anyway during the starter program. It is not right! But, I wanted to share some notes if you ever ended up here to tell you exactly what to do. Every 3 weeks, a boat will arrive with new prisoners 2 miles East from where you found this letter. Every prisoner has a large X followed by a number on their arm to distinguish between civilian and prisoner. If you are a prisoner — unfortunately you need to just live your best life because you will die on this island. If you ended up on this island on accident, wait 2 miles East of here and when the new prisoners arrive, you can let someone know your situation. Good Luck )
After reading the letter, the boy was shocked. He decided not to go find anyone because he wanted to mark this location so he could figure out where the boat was going to arrive. While trying to find scraps of pieces, he heard some noises coming from the forest ahead. And after reading the letter in the bottle, it was clear that the people on this island were not all good people.
As he gathered supplies, the other classmates made their way back with supplies and ideas on what they could do. The boy who read the letter let everyone read it too and people started to panic. They were in prison unknowingly. They all decided as a group to stick together and then relocate to where the boat would come.
They all gathered the necessary supplies from the wreckage and started walking 2 miles East. Once they arrived, they figured out how to create shelter and found supplies to start a fire. Three of the classmates set out for the forest to find food and clean water. They returned 2 hours later with the location for fresh water, and some fruit picked from trees.
That evening, they all sat around the fire and fell asleep in the shelter they had created. It was a pretty sturdy shelter — one that you would expect to be created by a group of Hyper loop finalists! When they woke up the next morning, they decided to go through the same process again. No one knew when the last boat came to know how long it would be for the next one to come.
On day 7 on the island, everyone got up to start their day. Three people went to the rainforest to get supplies, and the rest stayed behind. They had assigned out tasks at that point and there was a system in place on everyone’s duties and when they would be performing them. Once the sun came down, it became dark and the three individuals who set out to get supplies for the day did not come back.
The 4 classmates who stayed behind were worried for their classmates who had not returned yet. A couple more hours passed and they just sat there hoping for them to come back. They started hearing loud screams and started panicking now. The screams went on for a while, stop, and then start again. This happened until sunrise.
When the classmates woke up the next morning, they did not see the 3 classmates that went into the forest the night before. They had not returned. They needed food for the day so they elected 2 people to go out again and pick some fruit and refill the water supply. Because no one wanted to go, they decided to break sticks and use it to decide who had to go.
While the two chosen to go were not happy, they went anyway because they needed to work together to survive. While in the rainforest, they started hearing screams like they did the night before. The screams seemed more distant and appeared to be coming from where the shelter was. They discussed amongst themselves and thought it was best to continue finding food and water before the sun came down for the day.
When the two returned, they found the three members from the night before along with the two who had stayed behind. They were all panicking or crying and sad. The 5 classmates debriefed their peers on what had happened. They said they had found three people on the island and they had them tied up while they used a metal shard to engrave their arm.
They all had a large X followed by random numbers on their arm. They were upset because the letter they had found indicated that this labeled them as prisoners. The two boys who went out looking for fruit suggested that because they didn’t have it, they could talk to the person on the boat and let them know the flight details to confirm that they crash landed.
All 7 proceeded to a similar agenda as before. It had been 12 days of hunting, gathering, and surviving for the hyper loop finalists. On day 13, one of the classmates noticed the boat from a distance, they all ran East towards the boat. It was super early in the morning so everyone was still half asleep when they started towards the boat. Once they got there, they noticed several new prisoners in chains walking in a single line towards the forest.
The hyper loop team started yelling so that someone on the boat could hear them. Three men came down from the boat towards the team. One of the team members realized that not all the members were present. In fact, the two who did not have a tattoo was nowhere to be found. The classmates tried to explain their situation and what had happened to the men in uniform who came down from the boat.
As soon as they noticed the marks on their hand, they knew that these individuals were lying and that they were prisoners. They did not realize in the morning that the two boys went missing. After being told that they could not get off the island, the classmates started getting angry and pleaded for help.
They tried to get on the boat and couldn’t. They were not getting off the island today. They all headed back in despair. Once they arrived, they noticed the two boys on the ground with blood on their arms. They had been kidnapped and marked last night too. They were all unofficially official prisoners on the island.
They came in last place in the Hyper loop competition.
