Professor Jiro Deguchi arrived at the site just after sunrise. The sky was still a vibrant pink color to the east, mixed with oranges and yellows. The light had not yet touched the dark heliotrope of darkness to the west. Immediately, he set himself to work digging in the area marked with the little orange flags. Pushing dirt aside gently, waiting patiently to finally see something he had been looking for days before. Jiro had been digging in this spot for three days now looking for the bodies. He knew they were there beneath the soil somewhere. He was using the tools his father had given him, old but sturdy tools. Jiro’s father had been an archaeologist for many years and now was in retirement, living off the fame and fortune he had received after finding a whole village of a new race of people no one had ever found before, deep in the jungles of the Amazon.
Feverishly, Jiro pushed mound after mound of dirt to the side and then finally, Jiro could see something he had been searching for these past few days. He peered down into the dirt and he could see what he though was a small hand sticking out of the ground. He took the small brush and started gently twirling it in his fingers, moving away the soil from around it. Finally, what Jiro had been working so hard to find was right there in front of him. He let out a great whoop of joy, stood and danced around in a small circle, reveling in his discovery. Stopping half way through his little dance something occurred to Jiro, there had to be more there! Jiro knelt back down to his knees and with a little faster pace, but still with the steady hand of a surgeon, pushed more dirt to the side and sure enough after just a while appeared another small fossil. He looked over the small figures carefully. They were not very old and the garments they were wrapped in, though dirty, were still intact, as far as he could tell.
Jiro looked at his watch. It was now late in the day. He had worked hard all day digging up his discovery. It was early spring and the time had changed the previous night and he forgot to adjust his watch. Jiro thought to himself, “Spring ahead, Fall back” He remembered the mnemonic device his mother had taught him when he was younger to help him remember what to change his watch to when the time came. It was now even later then he originally had thought.
“Jiro, supper time!”, a short, stout Asian woman called from the backdoor under a dim porch light. “Awww mom, what are we having?” Jiro asked, unhappy that he was being forced to leave his little excavation. “Unagi” his mother replied. “Yuck!!!!” Jiro thought “I hate eel. It stinks”. Jiro grabbed his action figures and ran towards the house in disgust.

"Land!"

The call, coming from the crow's nest, was the first thing we had heard in weeks that had caused us to jump up and run across the ship. Sure enough, in the distance off the starboard side, a speck of green was slowly becoming visible.

Glued to the rails on the boat, we waited desperately for a clearer view of the island. I was so excited that I leaned forward, balancing on the rail, when the boat suddenly jolted and hit a rock. I caught a glimpse of a man running out of the helm, and felt him grab me. I looked up, and saw him staring at me intensely with a look that I will never forget.

Then he let go.
---
The strong scent of burning wood awoke me. As I opened my eyes, I could see a thick gray smoke blowing over me. Looking inland, I saw the source: a jungle of shrubs and bushes on the side of the island. By the appearance of the sun, it was about three o'clock. If I was right, then I only had a few hours to find shelter and food, or I surely wouldn't make it the night. I headed towards the smoke, hoping to find help.

As I explored, I soon found myself right outside a native village. There were just under a hundred small houses, with a building that seemed to be some sort of schoolhouse in front. Water surrounded it all on three sides. I walked up to a woman and said that I needed a place to sleep and some food. She didn't seem to understand me, so I pointed to a house and started to eat some invisible food. She nodded this time, and gestured for me. She led me into a building, where there was a small wooden table and a bed.

I sat at the table and waited for the woman to come back. Instead, an elegantly dressed waitress came in with a dish made of heliotrope. She uncovered what looked to me like a long piece of fish with rice. I had never seen anything prepared this way, and was unsure of whether to eat it. When she saw my confusion, the woman came next to me, smiled, and said simply, "Unagi." After dinner, I went off to bed, wondering what the next day would bring.
---
In the middle of the night, someone began shaking me. I sprang out of bed, ready to defend myself, but quickly found myself on the floor, writhing from a blow to the head. From my position on the ground, I could see a shadowy figure lighting a fire and setting it to the wall. Struggling to escape, I was barely able to crawl out the door to safety. I sprang up and followed in pursuit. I jumped into a small boat in the water north of the village and sailed away, leaving an inferno behind me.

Going north, I saw many cliffs forming the water into a river. I continued heading north, stopping only to observe my surroundings. When I did stop, there seemed to be more and more scrapes and gouges in the banks. Whoever it was knew I was after him, and was desperate to get away.

Finally, after several long hours of rowing, a huge city loomed ahead. It looked as if it had thousands of buildings in it, all of which had been destroyed. A black cloud of smoke lingered over the city. This was mnemonic for me, and I felt a sharp pain in my gut as I thought of the people in the village. As I was walking along, I saw many broken windows and ashes everywhere. All over the place, there were circular holes in the ground, much like those that were the village. It was obvious that these were not natural; all were the same size and had the same flaws. As I walked by one street, a glitter of metal caught my eye.

The glitter came from a house on the left, with the symbols "134" on it. A house perfect in every way. A house which had not been touched, although its neighbors had been destroyed. On the ground laid a jagged piece of metal. It fit into a metal circle on the side of the door, and opened it. I went inside, where I found things which were not familiar to me. A box that displayed pictures when you turned a dial. A hard cube that would heat whatever was inside of it if you pushed a button. A metal pole with a chain that would light the room when pulled.

Then, in the corner, there were some things that I had seen before, but I wasn't sure why they were there: fossils of every shape and size. They were housed in cylinders of rock, the same size as all the holes I had seen. Next to this pile, there was a tin device which looked like it was used for cutting rock. It had been bent into a circle, and looked as if it had been used before. I started to pick some of the fossils up to look at them, when a sudden BANG! came.

The door flew into the room, and two men in blue uniforms stormed in. One of them was carrying a pair of metal rings connected with a thin metal chain. I asked what they needed, but they just put a loop around each of my wrists.

As they marched me off, I looked over my shoulder at the house. I saw a shadowy figure emerge from an alleyway. He entered the doorway, and came out with the fossils that he had obviously left.

He had crashed the boat and dropped me here. He had set everything up so I would do what he waned me to. He framed me for stealing the island's fossils.

He had used me since the accident that put me here in the first place.

The man on the boat.