Marcello wakes up, shaking from the dream he saw. Him ripping the boar for its blood was absurd and stupid because he knew he would never do such a thing even in his insane mind. Thanking Almighty for it being a dream, he rubs his eyes, getting down from bed onto the cold hard floor. Yawning, he stretches as he hears something beside his feet land with a thump.

             As he opens his sleepy eyes, he sees a half full plastic bottle; inside which is a thick red liquid.Blood maybe? He shakes his head, it couldn't actually be possible, he couldn't actually have done it, it couldn't possibly be something more than a dream. How could he do such a thing? He wasn't this person.

"Oh lord! Oh dear God, what have I done?!" shaking back and forth he mutters, "Please please please let this be a dream.. Let all of this be a bloody nightmare!" he stumbles back, falling on his bed, his skin itching, like he was disgusted to be himself. 

"What have I done?" he shivered.

              He splashed some cold water on his face, trying to forget what he did, trying to erase his sin, trying hard to purify his soul. But the weariness and disgust doesn't wash away because it wasn't in his skin or flesh, it was in his soul, pumping through his blood.

           He ate his breakfast but everything tasted of sawdust and sand; tasteless and a utter torture.

        He checked his list and shook his head as he tried to stop himself from writing blood on the vacant space beside the Red section. He headed to the forest, his body uneasy as he passed the corpse on his way. He picked some red grapes, smashing them, only to have a dark purple stain his fingers and palm. He went back to the place where he had found blueberries the day before and stocked his pockets of them. From the nearby bushes, he collected some blackberries as well and due to the lack of space his clothing and hands provided, he returned to the hut, smashing each fruit with sensitive delicacy, retrieving the color from its  juice. While smashing the black berries, he compared the juices and realized that it provided a darker shade of blue than blueberries.

           He added these to the list, filling the spaces left empty before: BLUE-Blueberries........DARK BLUE-Blackberries.........PURPLE-Red grapes.......

            He sat down, massaging his throbbing temple, craving for a cup of coffee to take away the guilt and tiresomeness and wipe his memory of the nightmare. A steaming cup of coffee was all he wanted, dreaming of the days in Lorient and the smell wafting through his house.

            The pleasant brown color of the steaming coffee in his so familiar mug drifted in front of his eyes. With a sudden start. he looked down at the list of colors he yet had to find.

           Cursing himself for being so so dumb, he hurried out of the hut, the sun low on the horizon, in search of the color brown and a long craved mug of coffee.

     ***********   ************   ***********  **********  ***********   ************  ************ 

              He returned grinning, holding many coffee beans in his cupped hands. As soon as he returned to the hut, he set to grind the beans. He finishes up and keeps a little bit for a beverage for after his dinner.

             That night, he lights up a huge bonfire B-B-Queing  a few shrimps and still surviving on the bread that he had brought from home. He warmed the bread above the dancing fire. He eats dinner, his eyes following a single ship on the horizon being guided by the light from the lighthouse. The stars shone down at him, the sand he sat on was glimmering. He warms a cup of water and drops the grounded coffee beans in it, stirring the water slowly with his finger. The heat that once would have burnt him, now did no affect to his rough fingers. And Marcello knew that this was not the only change that the island did to him.

             As he sat there, sipping the hot coffee he had long been craving for, he looked up at the starry sky above him and above Evelyn. No matter how far they were, this was  the same sky both of them were looking at right at that moment. Marcello wondered whether his mom still looked at the stars and thought about him because he still did. Not one day has passed in all these years that he did not think about her.

         He smiled, "Coast Abella," No matter how many miles did them apart, she would never ever dispel from his heart and mind. The constellations glistened above him and he traced them with his finger, whispering their names to the darkness and howling wind.

         He closed his eyes, his guilt returning, nut he suppressed it with anger and desperation to be alive. This island was like a monster engulfing him whole; a poison, seeping into his soul. A beast, numbing his feelings; A blanket, blinding him in darkness. And he was the fighter, aiming to survive; He was the legend, waiting to be born.

          He he shut his eyes harder and for some reason, he heard the same hoarse whisper from his dream, replaying in his mind, over and over again: "You must get your hands bloody at one point; we all did." He gasps, opening his eyes, wide with a foreign emotion:FEAR

         He got up and went inside the hut, leaving the fire roaring behind him. Marcello could swear he had felt a shiver down his spine back on the coast, like a breathe on his neck.

         Or maybe it was only the wind?

(PS. Long time no see peeps. This Chapter was long overdue thus I made it a really long one. Shoutout to simply_writes11 my new reader ❤ and vshln4 for waiting for this chapter for so long 😀....If you liked it then go on and vote and be sure to update me on your thoughts in the comment section below. In addition, I would request you all to check out my art book "Bending the Frame" )