The beach there was littered with the same black sand, but it was crowded. Dozens of men—hundreds, maybe—were sitting in the surf, staring at the sea. They were translucent, grey as the fog, their eyes hollow pits of regret.

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.

Elias reached the summit by dusk on the fifth day, expecting to see a horizon clear enough to signal a passing ship. Instead, he saw the other side of the island.

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

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."