Lost - Every Man For... Instant

As his own skin began to fade into a dull, misty grey, Elias looked back toward the jungle. He listened for Miller's voice, or the boy's cry, desperate for anyone to share the burden of the silence. But he had played the game perfectly. He was the only one left. He was finally, truly, for himself.

Elias clawed his way onto the black sand, his fingers dragging through silt that felt like crushed bone. Behind him, the screams were being swallowed by the surf. He didn't look back. He knew the captain was pinned under the rigging, and he knew the boy, Leo, couldn't swim. But Elias had the only watertight tin of matches and a dry bag of hardtack. Lost - Every Man for...

Elias dropped his tin of matches. He realized then that the island didn't kill with hunger or predators. It waited for you to arrive alone. It waited for the moment you decided your life was worth more than the hand held out in the ravine. As his own skin began to fade into

By the third day, the jungle had stripped away the rest of his civility. He found Miller, the ship’s cook, shivering in a ravine with a broken ankle. Miller begged for water. Elias looked at his canteen—half full—and then at the jagged, unforgiving climb ahead. If he helped Miller, they’d both die in the shade of the ferns. Elias simply stepped over the man's outstretched hand. "Sorry, Cookie," he whispered. "The math doesn't work out." He was the only one left

"Every man for himself," he wheezed, the mantra acting as a rhythmic pulse to keep his legs moving toward the treeline.