He has to be okay. He always is.

I head for the jungle behind our shack. My bare feet sink into the sand, as if the island itself is trying to slow me down. I’m dressed only in dark athletic shorts, and branches and shrubs around me scratch at my bare chest and stomach as I enter the cover of the trees. I’ve done this sort of thing before, once, in Canada. Then, coats and a few bags weighed me down. But we’d had a little more warning. Now, in the sticky-hot night of the Caribbean, I’m weighed down only by my lack of stamina.

As I hurl myself through the dense vegetation, I think of all the mornings I was supposed to spend jogging along the beach or hiking through the forest that I actually spent playing solitaire or simply lazing around. Doing what I really wanted to do, like drawing little cartoons in the sand. Coming up with short stories told by stick figures. Rey always said I shouldn’t actually write anything down—that any journal or notes I wrote could be found and used as proof of who I am. But writing and drawing in the sand was temporary. When the tide came in, my stories were gone. Even just doing that caused me to work up a sweat in this damned climate, and I’d return to Rey, pretending to be exhausted. He’d comment on the timing of my imaginary run and then treat me to a rich lunch as a reward. Rey is a taskmaster when it comes to doling out things to do, but his lungs are bad and he always trusted that I was doing the training he told me to do. He had no reason not to—no reason to think I wouldn’t take our situation seriously.

It wasn’t just the avoidance of having to work my ass off in the heat that kept me from training. It was the monotony of it all that I hated. Run, lift, stretch, aim, repeat—day in and day out. Plus, we’re living out in the middle of nowhere. Our island isn’t even on any maps. I never thought the Mogs would ever find us.

Now, I’m afraid that’s coming back to haunt me. I wheeze as I run. I’m totally unprepared for this attack. Those mornings lazing around the beach are going to get me killed.

It doesn’t take long before there’s a stitch in my side so sore that I think it’s possible I’ve burst some kind of internal organ. I’m out of breath, and the humid air feels like it’s trying to smother me. My hands grasp onto low-hanging branches as I half-pull my way through thick green foliage, the bottoms of my feet scraping against fallen limbs and razor-sharp shells. Within a few minutes the canopy above me is so dense that only pinpricks of the moonlight shine through. The jungle has given way to a full-blown rain forest.

I’m alone in the dark in a rain forest with alien monsters chasing after me.