Unfortunately, for Melanie and I, the next day there were no signs of anyone coming to our rescue either.

              Or the next…

              Or the next…

              Before we knew it, a whole week had passed with Melanie and I pretty much going through the same routine every day. Not wanting her to faint every time, I did the majority of the physical work during the day while Melanie strategized various tactics. This included hunting the various sea creatures such as turtles and crabs that were scattered throughout the beach. Somehow even with those creatures, Melanie had expert knowledge on them and knew exactly how to hunt them. At times I would have to give her a piggyback ride and she would point to exactly where to push down my hand to catch something.

              "Okay, now aim your right hand exactly 2 feet to the right of that crab."

              "What isn't that…"

              "Hurry before it gets away!"

              She kicked me on the abdominal.

              "Oww… Okay okay." I said following the order

              "NICE! We got it!"

              To this day, it still surprises me how precise and competent Melanie was at these things. Nearly every movement she made me do correlated perfectly to an animal's movement. It was like she had some sort of future vision for animals.

              "Just trust the Survival Extraooooooorddinaire." 

              For the most part Melanie and I stayed only on the parts of the island close to the beach not wanting to venture too far into the center of the island. Many trees covered our path and we didn't want to miss any signs of people coming to rescue us or stray too far from our main food sources by or in the sea.

              "Have… have you been wearing that this whole time?" Melanie said pointing to my makeshift seaweed skirt one day.

              "Yeah, it's not like I have many options here you know."

              "No wonder you smell so bad!"

              "…"

              "…"

              "You've been wearing the same swim suit too you know? You smell just as bad!"

              Suddenly as we were talking, rain started to fall upon us for the first time on the island.

              "Shit… what do we do now survival extraordinaire!?!?!"

              "Uhh…" Melanie said as she covered herself with her backpack, "let's run towards the middle of the island. Maybe we'll be able to find a cave!"

              "What… there's no way we'll be able to find a cave."

              Of course, being the survival extraordinaire that she was, I was wrong again and we somehow conveniently stumbled upon a small cave as we walked further towards the center of the island. There we sat inside to dodge the rain for a bit. 

              "Urghh… my pants are all wet," I said, "Soo… scratchy. How long do you think this rain will last Melan… Melanie?"

              As I turned to face her, Melanie had seemingly vanished from my sight.

              "Melanie?"

              "Over here!!!!!!"

              "What? Where are you?"

              I looked in every direction but couldn't see the survival extraordinaire. The cave itself was only about 10 feet in depth inward and made of mostly beige limestone. Pretty much every part of the cave should have been visible to me from my vantage point.

              "Did you go outside Melanie?"

              "No silly, I'm right here!"

              Suddenly, the inside wall of the cave which was supposed to be the inner most part, began to break in two as a path between opened up with a smiling Melanie standing on the other side of the walls.

              "Haha! Secretttttttt Tunnel."

              "What the… how is that… you know what I'm not even going to ask."

              "Come this way, I think this leads to somewhere interesting," Melanie said motioning me to follow her.

              As I walked to her spot in between the walls, a secret tunnel path did indeed present itself in front of us. Along the walls of the tunnel, various fire torches hung that brought light to the path. I grabbed two of the torches and handed one to Melanie.

              "This is pretty amazing, where do you think it leads to?" 

              "Heh heh!" Melanie giggled with joy, "we could find anything in here. But if my survival extraordinaire instincts are to be trusted, than this should lead to some sort of treasure left behind by pirates!"

              "Huh…" I said doubtingly, "even for one of your predictions that seems like a bit of a stretch... ehhhhhhhhhh."

              I jumped a bit in terror as before us lay several still clothed skeletons sitting up against the walls of the cave tunnel. It seemed several of them had wooden legs, eye patches, and bandanas that confirmed Melanie's theory of pirates. Being unfazed by the sight, Melanie simply squatted down next to one of the skeletons.

              "Melanie what are you… Melanie!?!??!"

              Melanie proceeded to simply grab the clothes off the skeleton next to her. After dusting it  a bit, she put on the linen shirt and wool pants the skeleton had been wearing on herself. She then proceeded to take the eyepatch and bandana the skeleton had and put those on too.

              "Arrrrrrr matey," she said putting her hands on her hips, "It be I, pirate Melanie."

              "Are you sure you should be doing this? I feel like it's pretty disrespectful of you."

              "Arrrrrrr the dead don't care either way matey. And as well, ye seaweed skirt be wet and falling apart."

              I looked down at my seaweed skirt and it did appear due to the rain that it was starting to fall apart. Reluctantly, I picked up the cloths of one of the other skeletons and put them on as well.

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              As we kept walking a bit further into the cave, more and more skeletons could be seen. Some had parts of their ribcages cracked. Others had small knives and various pieces of metal inside them indicating that perhaps some sort of combat had taken place. Finally, at the end of the tunnel, a massive pile of skeletons lay in front of a giant circular stone blocking further entrance.

              "Alright Xavier matey, this be where yee tests yee strength. Go ahead and push that circular stone out of the way."

              "What? I don't think I'm strong enough to do that."

              "Yee might surprised and yee's own strength I say. Yee should try anyway! I smell treasure on the other side!"

              Seeing as she was not likely to drop the matter and having already walked this far, I reluctantly went up to the circular stone and gave it a push. To my surprise, it rolled out of the way with great ease.

              "Wow! Guess I'm stronger than I thought," I said even flexing a little bit proudly.

              "Aye… and as well thee rock not be as sturdy as thee rock looks!" She said going up to the rock. She took her hand out and grabbed onto the rock pulling a piece apart from it.

              "What… what? How is that possible?"

              "It be soft limestone matey, I learn from textbooks."

              "Right.."

              As we walked past the rock, we entered a round room with torches surrounding the walls. Centered in the middle, true to Melanie's prediction, lay a single chest with a skeleton body kneeling and slumping its upper body on top of it.

              "You were right! There was treasure here after all," I said excitedly going up to the treasure chest.

              "Ayee…" Melanie said, "it seems many fell in search for the treasure. But here we find it at last."

              I brushed the skeleton off of the chest. As I began lifting the top off of the chest which appeared to be unlocked, my heart pounded in anticipation.

              "Oh boy… I hope it's gold bars! Or precious jewels? Or doubloons maybe?"

              As I finally peeked inside however, I was quite disappointed to find only a simple book inside the chest. I picked up the book and the cover read, Male Tales of The Seven Seas by the Greatest Pirate Ana Oswald.

              "What the hell is this…"

              "Aye, tis must be of something worthy given the body count." Melanie said sitting down next to me. While I was disappointed, I couldn't really argue with what Melanie was saying either. Holding back my judgement, I nodded and opened up the cover onto the first page.

              "Dear readers, I am writing this after being aboard the Queen Anne's revenge with Captain Blackbeard and Black Caeser," I read aloud, "Those that know me know I've told all the secrets of the pirates and where each one kept their treasure, or booty as they say. And I be doing this since my first journey with Captain Kidd. Read on if you would like to know all the pirate secrets."

              "Well this seems kind of interesting at least." I said, "Not sure why people were willing to die for a book like this put I can see the appeal. These are some legendary pirates! Maybe we'll even find a treasure map or something."

              "Aye, indeed they are," Melanie said. She then turned to the next page of the book.

              As she did and we both saw simultaneously what showed on the next page, Melanie's eyes began to widen with joy as mine once again began to sink into a whole new level of disgust. Depicted on the next page was a rather graphic drawing of the legendary pirates Blackbeard and Black Caeser… making out. Next to it a caption read:

              "The real treasure that Black Beard and Black Caeser found on their journey"

              On the next page, a text that read like a raunchy teenage fanfiction of the pirates was displayed. Having lost a good bit of humanity that day, I simply got up and started walking out of the room back to the tunnel. As I did, Melanie laughed and put the book away into her backpack.

              "I guess thee real treasure be the "friendship" they made along the way."