Confined With a Goddess

Jake didn't sleep well. Whether it was the mattress being wet, the entire bedframe being tilted, the stuffing coming out of the hole in the pillow, or the fact that he knew that he was dead if that psychopath found him, he was tossing and turning all night.

The good news was, when the tide rose, he was able to feel that his whole abode was moving, and was able to guide his fractured hull further in and tie it off to a tree, like his sail was. He was also able to pull the mast in, from their rocky outcropping to the shore.

He did consider, as he was tying everything off, that this could be a terrible, awful idea. With the tide so high, he could push his vessel further out and rely on the waves to take him away from a known danger, but he decided that having a known danger was better than an unknown danger. Plus, there was drinkable water, here. It might not be easy to live here, but he could do it.

So, first and foremost, he had another ration. He had to learn as much as he could today from watching her, because if he didn't have any food by the end of the day, he was screwed. He only had one more day's worth of rations, and he wanted to make sure he had that on the day he had to collect food for himself, rather than using it to learn more and be hungry when trying to gather and cook his food. It wasn't good, but at least eating the ration would hopefully quiet his growling stomach.

Once he'd eaten, he looked in toward the center of the island. Now that he knew that the tall rock in the middle held a water source, even if it served as a bath for the creature, he could mark it as an important horizon marker and use it to guide him around the island. It was taller than most of the trees, so he could see it from almost anywhere. Using it to determine his location now, he could easily use it to find his setup and work his way back here, as back here was the safest place he had.

After breakfast, the most important meal of the day because it would be his only meal, he set out for the beach. On his original walk around the island, he'd noted a single clay-rich bank, and last night, when running away, he'd noted it again. That bank was close to her hut. If he could find it again, he could find her hut, or so he hoped.

He spotted her before he spotted the deposit. As he rounded a bend, he could see her carrying some sort of slab off to one side of her. When she reached the water, she put it down and turned around. She hesitated for a moment, as if thinking about something, then walked back to the tree line and picked up her spear, a coil of rope, and some kind of wooden spade.

He didn't have to wait long for her to show what she was doing. The spade was actually an oar, the slab was a raft, and her spear was going to be tied to the rope to act as a harpoon. She was going spearfishing.

Jake paused for a minute. In order for him to do this, he would need a spear, a rope, a raft and an oar. He certainly could learn from watching her, but he would need to do a lot more work to replicate it. If he couldn't do it, he wouldn't benefit from knowing how.

Granted, he could potentially learn how to make all of those things. He could break her stuff, and then watch as she made new ones.

Suddenly, he clutched his chest. With little warning, it had suddenly gone tight. While he knew that he was thinking logically, and it was his survival instinct telling him that he could do that, deep in the back of his mind, he knew that he shouldn't. He was a good person at heart, or at least he tried to be. He needed to know how to make those things. It was imperative for his survival. But breaking hers so he could watch her do it was wrong, and he knew it. He didn't know why the thought had run through his head so suddenly, he just knew that he didn't like it, to such a degree that he'd had a visceral reaction to it.

When he calmed down, she was still rowing out. He could sneak into her house while she was away and look around. That thought hurt less. He was still doing something he knew was wrong, but rather than doing something that he knew would hurt her chances of survival, he was just going to hurt her feelings. He didn't like it, but that was something he could stomach.

The handle for her door, which actually was a handle, sat up above his shoulder. The door was fairly heavy, and a counterweight on a rope pulled it closed again after he walked in. It was just a rock, but it had a fair amount of heft to it.

The inside of her house was pretty simple, actually. There was a table, a fireplace, a bed, and next to the door, a pair of boxes. He remembered her saying last night that she was going to store her fish in the larder. He didn't know what a larder was, but she'd said "next to the door." That's where these boxes were.

He opened the lid and looked in. The fish smelled terrible, but there it was, sitting at the top, wrapped in a cloth around its skin. She was out fishing right now. She'd be coming back with a decent haul, and this already smelled like it was going bad. He'd just... dispose of it for her. It was just to ensure his survival, after all. If he ever had more than enough, he'd pay her back. Somehow.

He snatched the fish and turned to leave. He was going to head back to the pool and eat, as well as check to see if the water was drinkable, and then he'd start scavenging. But before he could leave, something caught his gaze. Sitting on the corner of her bed, just lying there, out in the open, was the pair of panties she'd been wearing yesterday.