The Island

It was roughly a 2 mile swimming distance. If they had to swim all the way without a floatie, they might not make it. At the 0.5 mile mark, people began slowing down as her family continued to push forward.

A few people came close to ask for assistance and wanted to share the floatie, but Jiana immediately turned them down and instead pushed everyone to swim faster. Her mother gave her another disapproving look but was quickly silenced as she saw a scene not too far from them.

There had been a couple with a floatie, also slowly making their way to the island. The other people who saw the floatie quickly swam towards them to grab the floatie, causing the original couple to fall into the water. They never came back up after that, or at least Jiana's family never saw the couple again.

To increase their speed, she and her sister were swimming on either side of the floatie to balance it and block the rougher waves while her parents were kicking from the back. Nobody spoke as they continued to swim out.

As they finally arrived at the island, only a few people were around. There were red markings on the sand here as well.

Tio's voice sounded again, "I see the creme of the crop has made it. Congratulations and welcome to the Island! You've found the right place. Personally I'm rooting for each of you since you've shown such great potential."

One of the bulkier men called out angrily, "What do you want with us?! We don't want to play you stupid game. Give us the antidote now!"

"Tut tut, someone has bad manners here." Tio remarked, "Nevertheless, you will still have to play my game whether you like it or not."

She continued, "You have to make it up this mountain. You'll find that there are a lot of fun games laid out all the way to the top. My child always loved games. Have fun~"

With that, the speakers went silent. Jiana quietly got up and removed her wetsuit, gesturing to her family to do the same. If they stayed in the same wet clothes, they were sure to get sick before they made it to the top.

After removing the clothes, Jiana found some larger leaves to wrap around them for the time being as they began making their way up the mountain. Luck wasn't in their favor as the rain relentlessly came down.

The others on the beach also began to move. No one tried to follow anyone else as they knew they were all competitors at this point in time. Fortunately, no one had been pressured to the point of fighting yet either.

As they walked up the dirt path, Jiana took the lead, cutting through all the vines and bushes. The sun had already gone down and it didn't make sense to continue walking in the dark. She was walking around to look for a good shelter instead.

After another half hour of walking, she finally found a small crevice underneath some rocks that seemed mostly dry. Pulling her parents and sister along, she had them sit under the crevice. "We need to find some dry sticks and start a fire."

Everyone else stared at her with confusion, "Why would we need dry sticks? There are so many sticks in this mountain. Just pick some random ones up."

Jiana explained patiently, "If we light wet sticks on fire, it will create smoke. The smoke will burn our lungs. None of us want that right?"

They were fortunate in that one of the life packs that they collected had a pack of matches. While Jiana knew a little about survival in the woods, she was far from an expert and starting a fire was certainly beyond her expertise.

After painstakingly creating the fire, they all huddled around it, seemingly entranced by the glow. Jiana was the only one who continued to move around, consolidating the life packs.

Jiana was yet again the one to break the silence, asking, "Can you tell us more about the lost child of Tio? We need more information about her and Mr. San if we have any hopes of surviving."

Her father turned to glare at her and said, "There's nothing to discuss here and it's not of value anyway."

"But…" Jiana was taken aback by her father's aggression.

Her mother cut in and said, "Let it go Jiana, we're all tired. Let's sleep for the night."

With that, she curled up into a ball and went to sleep. Jiana sat there alone staring at the fire as the rest of her family quickly fell into a deep slumber. She was exhausted as well, but they couldn't all sleep and leave themselves unguarded. There were too many unknowns in this forest.

She forced herself to stay away and spent the time recounting everything that occurred since they entered the wedding, trying to identify any clues that could be useful to her. As the night passed on, she slowly drifted into sleep too.

The next morning, she was awakened by a blaring siren followed by Tio's sing-songy voice, "Good morning folks~ rise and shine! We have a day packed full of activities."

Jiana rubbed her eyes as she woke up from her daze, shivering. Around her, her sister and parents also gradually woke up. The fire that they made last night had long been blown away by the wind. Thankfully, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, giving everyone a chance to warm up slightly.

Tio continued, "First, I would like to reward you all with a little surprise before we get started. Make sure you find nice seats for this surprise."

Jiana heard this and immediately ran towards an opening, trying to get a good view out of the island.

5 minutes later, Tio's voice sounded again, "Ok! Time's up, let me show you your reward."

BOOOMM!! Jiana who was looking out saw that the wedding venue they had previously been at went entirely up in flames.

"See? Isn't this a lovely surprise? My child always loved fireworks. Aren't you all glad you made it on this island? Oops, my bad, I meant most of you. Unfortunately, there were a few souls who didn't make it here… oh well!"

"Now, are you ready for the first game?"