Lea -

    The stranger looked up as I stepped out of the tall grass, confusion, fear and warning flashed across his face. I knew he would have questions so I dived in like Eli had when he found me. ‘I’m Lea, are you ok?’ I kept it simple so he could reply without much thought.
He cleared his throat, ‘I think so…where am I?’ he added cautiously looking around us.
I stepped closer and his pale blue eyes shot back to me, ‘I don’t know, a rainforest, I haven’t found the edge yet so I don’t know where exactly’
He eyed the tall branch I was holding and I offered him my half filled water bottle, ‘yet? How long have you been here?’
Ah, I thought, time to play dumb, ‘about two weeks I think, it gets pretty dark under the canopy so I can’t always tell if it’s day or not’.
He nodded absently as he took a long swig of the water, ‘is there anyone else?  How did you get here?’
He wiped his mouth and handed the bottle back, ‘No, I haven’t seen anyone else and I woke up here. I don’t know how I got here…’ I trailed of to let him fill in the blanks.
    He stood up and moved closer to offer me his mud covered hand, ‘I’m Max’ he said and after a moment I shook it. He was taller than me, about a foot taller, his pale skin flecked was with dry mud but his eyes were bright and clear. ‘Where did you get the bottle?’ he asked, he was observant.
‘I found it’ I answered turning back to the tall grass, he followed so I kept walking, ‘in the grass, once I found a stream I was able to fill it’
He seemed to accept that answer and moved to walk beside me. Max helped me over a huge twisted root that climbed out of the ground like a zombie claw and we kept walking for a while before he asked anything else. ‘Where are we going?’
    This I hadn’t thought about and it caught me totally off guard, in hindsight I definitely should have let him lead. He must have caught the hesitation because he moved in front of me, ‘are we going somewhere in particular?’ His voice held a note of suspicion and I had to think quickly.
‘I was trying to head back to the river,’ think, think, think, ‘water means people right?’  He thought about it for a moment.
‘Hm, good point’ he said and I sighed quietly as he turned and kept walking.
    After another 20 or so minutes we reached a small river at the top of the valley, it was one we never used and I knew no one would be up here. Max ran to the water and washed his face and neck. ‘Only got half left, you should fill it up’ he called to me, I had forgotten about the bottle as I was so used to filling it up at camp and made a mental note to pay attention to everything until we were back at camp. I had to make sure I wasn’t bringing a crazy axe-murderer home with me.

    ‘What do you remember?’ I asked as we sat by the river, ‘before you woke up here?’. I noticed the light that was filtering through the canopy was beginning to fade and I had no desire to stay out at night.
‘Nothing really,’ Max mused as he picked at some red berries on a nearby bush, ’you think I can eat these?’ I knew you could but I didn’t want to sound to certain.
‘They look like some I had, you just have to try em?’ He sniffed one and popped it in his mouth before offering them to me.
I hesitated and he smiled, ‘waiting to see if I explode first?’ I laughed and took a few.
    ‘Where are you from?’ I asked, very aware of the fading light.
‘Maine’, he answered, ‘you?’ So he was American, hopefully Eli would appreciate that. I told him I was from England and he asked how old I was.
‘21, you?’ I answered and he told me he was 23. We sat in silence for a moment as I tried to think of something else to ask. He sat watching the water before he glanced back at me and in a split second dove straight at me. I yelled and fell back but he was already on his feet, something squirming in his hands. ‘What is it?’ I called, brushing mud and leaves off me as I stood.
    Moving over to where he was now kneeling at the waters edge, I could see a tiny baby crocodile leaving his grip and diving into the cloudy water, ‘close one’ I breathed.
He smiled at me again, ‘could have taken your leg off that one’, I laughed and thanked him for saving my life from the tiny monster. Something behind him flashed in the darkening Jungle and in my growing desire to head home I took his last act as a sign that he was safe to take back to camp.

    ‘Max?’ I said and he looked back from the water, ‘I lied to you’ I wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to react so I went on before he could speak, ‘there are others, at a camp down in the valley’. He seemed to take this in and just stared at me, ‘we’re told not to tell people straight away, to keep camp safe, but after saving my life,’ I gestured to the water, ‘I reckon you’re safe’. I hoped he wouldn’t shout at me and would take my attempt at humour to heart, but I knew how different American humour was to my own. He thought about it for a moment then began to nod to himself, ‘Okay…that makes sense’.
‘Yeah’ I sighed and grabbed my branch and the bottle from where I was sitting, ‘so do you want to go?’
‘Yeah’ he answered with an exhausted smile.