Anaconda Island

Pieces of wood bound together by a strong, durable rope with sunken pores, an adhesive substance made by nature, black. Some call it black tar, but it differs from that made by humans. It was found inside a small lake in the heart of a deserted, uninhabited island. These pieces of wood have pillars attached to them.

In a large triangle shape, it carries a group of clothes that were well mixed until they became a large sail so that the air would push him away from the shore of Hell Island, as it was called, that of the unidentified young man who was found sleeping on top of the wood, showing signs of exhaustion and hunger, as his body was so thin that his bones protruded.

Under the skin of his body, and the length of the hair on his chin, which was scattered like the hair on his head, was disheveled. If his appearance indicated anything, it only indicated that he had been floating in those woods for months, not days.

On a calm day and a clear sky, on the deck of a cruise ship moving between the continents and cruising between the seas and oceans, a strong alarm sounded, issued by the captain of the ship, when he noticed that the sail was fixed to those driftwood on the surface of the ocean waters, then the ship captain stopped the ship at an appropriate distance from those timbers until...

The waves coming from the ocean water hitting the ship's hull did not push it away, then a small boat with some sailors on it descended from one side of the ship. That boat headed to that driftwood, and then they tied the timber to one side of the boat and pulled it near the ship.

One of the sailors tried to wake up the young man sleeping on the timbers, but to no avail, as he was unconscious. Another sailor climbed onto those wooden planks carefully, then carried the body of that young man and placed him inside the small boat of the ship. For a few minutes, the boat was lifted into the ship as it was. That person was transferred to the ship's doctor's room, who immediately began examining the young man and diagnosing his condition, then injecting him with some medical nutrients and some therapeutic medications.

Four days passed and the young man was still unconscious. At the end of the fourth day, he began to fidget in bed with rapid, distracted movements accompanied by his breathing, which showed on his features to anyone looking at him, that he was trying to escape from something that was frightening him. The doctor approached him and tried to attract the person's attention by calling for him.

"Calm down, you are on the deck of a ship, we are next to you, do not panic."

Unconsciously, the young man opened his eyes wide and jumped with his body, holding the doctor as he looked around and tried to utter some incomprehensible words, but after a few seconds his words became clear and were

"Be careful, he's coming. Be careful, you must enter the circle of fire."

The doctor injected the young man with a few sedatives so that he could control the state of panic that was possessing him. After a few moments, the young man calmed down and began to leave the doctor's body. Then he began to laugh hysterically but with calm movements due to the sedative controlling his body. Then he said, repeating more than once.

"I have survived. I am no longer on that island. I am even far from the shore. Hunger or thirst does not matter. They are better than the looks of those eyes that swallowed my friends."

The doctor said to him, "Yes, you survived. You are now on the Mariana cruise ship. Can you tell me your name?"

The man looked at the doctor and said, "Yes, my name is Mark Feldman, and I am about the same age."

He was silent for a while while looking at his hands and body, then he said

"I don't know. I don't know how much time has passed since I was on that island."

The doctor said, "Today we are in June 2025."

The young man opened his mouth in astonishment, then said, "What? Only, we set off on that trip in January 2024. Only a year and a half had passed. We thought it had been years since we were on that island."

The doctor smiled and said, "Okay, enough talking now. You have to take treatment and then eat some liquid food until you get better, then tell us what happened. Where are your friends?"

The doctor put some medication tablets into the man's mouth and then helped him swallow with some water. Then he contacted the ship's restaurant to send them some warm soup. Half an hour passed and the young man fell into a deep sleep again. The next day, when the young man woke up from his sleep, he found that the doctor had put He had clean clothes on one of the chairs next to the bed. The young man got up and picked up the clothes and then headed to the toilet attached to the room. After several minutes, the young man came out after shaving his beard and styling his head, wearing clothes that were a little larger than him due to his weak, thin body.

The doctor returned to the room after passing by some sick sailors on deck. When he looked at the young man, he smiled at him and said

"We thank God that you are now in good health. How about we go up to the deck of the ship to have breakfast and sit with the ship's captain and his assistants, and then you can tell us everything about what happened to you?"

The young man nodded in agreement, then moved to follow the doctor who left the room, and from there he climbed the internal staircase between the rooms, then the public staircase heading to a part of the ship's deck designated for sailors and those working on it. The young man looked around him and saw water surrounding the ship from all sides. He breathed deeply and smiled, then approached the wall. ship and shouted loudly

"Where are you, you vile person? Where are your eyes that were snatching everything that moved? Here I am, away from you, you will not enjoy the taste of my meat."

The ship's captain, Captain Nicholas, approached him and said

"Yes, you are far from Anaconda Island. It is an island considered one of the legends that we have all heard about but no one has seen. You are the first person. Sit down and have breakfast and then you will tell us everything."

The young man turned and looked at the table that had prepared the most beautiful and delicious dishes of cheese, pastries, French bread, and different types of jams. He quickly sat down in front of the table and began to eat everything quickly. The doctor said to him:

"Slow down, calm down, we won't run out of food, don't be afraid."

The young man said between his tears that fell and he did not know when

"Well, I forgot. He's far away and won't come to attack me anytime."

He started trying to eat slowly after dinner, and after a few minutes he felt full, so he sat back in the seat, smiling content with the pleasure of eating. Captain Nicola looked at him and said:

"I think now is the time for you to tell us about that island hidden in the heart of the ocean and no one has encountered it yet."

The young man sighed and then began to tell everything

Oh, none of my friends believed that one of us would be able to escape from that hell island. It started when I was in my last year of high school before university, with the return of my grandfather, Vladimir, who had been absent for more than ten years. When he returned, signs of panic were clear. His facial features and actions were filled with panic. He did not sleep at night and kept watching the streets from the window. He would often set fire to a lot of wood in a circle around the house.

He even dug a trench under the palace and made its walls of steel. That trench became a huge library for him. It contains hundreds of books that talk about snakes, their types and sizes, and also about how to kill them. There were also thousands of maps scattered all over the earth, and huge statues of large sizes were placed in the corners. These statues were always made of red glass stones.

One day they were gathered with... My friends were in my boat and I told them some of the stories that my grandfather used to tell me, about those treasures of pure gold, rubies, and coral scattered everywhere on Anaconda Island, and this is how my grandfather described and drew it, on the papers: Anaconda Island, swimming between chains of islands and forming a heart. These islands, although their land is filled with abundant bounties of fruits, various foods, gold, pearls, and coral, are deserted by humans.

No one can stay there or take a single jewel from that island. Only those who have bad luck will fall captive to that curse.

Over the years, all the residents of the neighboring islands have been offering human sacrifices, on the shores of that island, on the same day every year. The neighboring islands receive a young man no more than twenty years old. Every year, on the same day, the island's monster comes out to the shore to catch those sacrifices, devouring them entirely inside his mouth. The giant has the victim inside it for days, alive, but it is numb and unable to resist the influence of the poison that it inflicted on it through its strong and quick bite. It keeps the victim inside it to suck out all the traces of life from it, from blood, then skin, then flesh, by dissolving it with a burning acidic substance until... What remains are the bones, and he finally spits them out of his mouth in the heart of the island, at the top of the treetops, so the bones become the only trace that humans have come to that island.

My friends and I used to laugh at these stories and consider them pure fantasy, and there is no existence of that legendary creature whose name the grandfather keeps repeating or even drawing shapes on paper. I do not deny that my friend Alice did a search on the Internet about that creature and found some pictures of this type. One of the huge snakes that reach a length of several meters, but it does not represent the horror that appears in my grandfather's eyes when his name is only mentioned.

Anyway, three years passed, and my grandfather's illness became severe, but he refused to come out of that trench, and my father was forced to bring doctors to the palace and design a complete medical room. In one of the rooms of that trench.

I used to go down and sit with my grandfather a lot of the time and draw the maps he asked of me along with his instructions. The maps were not of the ocean or even the external appearance of that island, but rather the maps of the island itself from the inside. Of course, I did not understand at the time, but I loved my grandfather very much and wanted him to be reassured. If I happened to be a prisoner of that island, I would use the maps so that I would not spend a single day on it and leave. I did not understand at the time that he meant that I would use those maps so that I could remain alive for as long as possible and search for the ingredients to make a wooden boat from within those maps. The first thing I can do is make the escape boat.

At the end of the fourth year, my friends and I had finished our university years, and my grandfather had died, so my father did not want to celebrate my success. Only weeks had passed since my grandfather's death, so he bought a huge boat as a gift for me on the condition that when I used it, I would not leave the water borders of our country. I was very happy about that. The boat and many times my friends and I would gather and sail a little on it, but we would not go too far or go too deep into the ocean. The rest of my time I would spend inside the trench, among those books, maps, and memoirs that my grandfather had written. The memoirs were, to me, nothing but stories from legends.

For example, at the beginning of the diary, the grandfather wrote:

(Among the folds of complete darkness and the stillness of the night, beware of whispering, stand still and do not move, be like the statues scattered throughout the island, refrain from breathing if you can, and if you cannot, know that you are just an appetizer inside a large plate of food, made especially for him, that you are on his island, his kingdom. Enjoy the day as you wish, among its picturesque charm, but we advise you not to delve deep into it, lest you be devoured.)

You can imagine what he wrote in the middle of the first page of the diary. How could anyone resist what was written inside the diary, an accurate description of the day's events and attempts to escape from something that you cannot even see in its entirety? All you can see is his head and part of his neck with his body while he is high in it and preparing to attack. On its prey, or you see the traces of its crawling body on the ground, inside which a two-meter-tall human being can sleep as wide as the hole left by the crawling effect, or a description of the snowy surface of skeletons hanging on some trees and covered with the creature's saliva as if they were its Christmas decorations.

One day, while I was examining one of the maps, trying to understand what my grandfather had drawn and what was written on it, I was frightened by the entry of my friends into the trench, so I jumped from my place while closing the map with my hand and trying to hide it. Then his friend Antoine shouted next to my ear, and the laughter of my friends rose around me. I sighed and wiped my face. I was trying to control my nerves, Antoine said playfully, trying to grab what was in my hand

"What's wrong? Have you been reading a women's magazine?"

Mark said sarcastically, "Those magazines belong only to you, Antoine."

Alice was able to withdraw the paper in my hand, then moved away a little, examining it, and the rest of the eight friends gathered around her, and she said enthusiastically:

"Wow, that's scary."

Elizabeth tried to repeat some of the words written at the top of the map in an acting manner as if she were on stage

"Stay firm...be a statue...don't dig deep...you are an appetizer."

Tina interrupted, laughing, "What is that? Is it the map of Vampire Island?"

Mark said, "I don't know what that map is, but I found it among my grandfather's belongings. You know, Antoine, the story of my grandfather, Arthur Vladimir."

Antoine replied, "Yes, the man who disappeared for several years in the heart of the ocean and was found one day on a wooden boat floating on the surface of the water. He could not speak and signs of terror were evident on his face, and this thing was in his hands."

Raymond said, "It is an internal map describing roads within an island."

Mark said, "I also found this in my grandfather's library, inside a book that talks about the types and shapes of snakes. Also, I was helping my grandfather in his last days by drawing some maps that I did not understand."

Mark took out another map from one of his desk drawers, but it was a map drawn with gold water. Raymond looked at it and shouted excitedly.

"Man, it is an archaeological map that should be inside the museum. Did you know that there are only two copies of it, one is already in the Egyptian Museum and the second is here with you?"

Antoine said, "Well, great historian, have you told us what is the difference between that map in your hand and the one in Alice's hand, except that this one is drawn with gold water?"

Raymond spread the map on the table, placed some small statues on the edges, and began to point inside the map and explain

"Look here is the Asian continent that we are on, and here is the African continent, and that is a group of islands in a semi-circular shape around the island with the head of a golden snake drawn on it. Did you understand that this map indicates the location of the island and the difference between it and the one in the Egyptian Museum is that this one has the head of the snake? The one in the Egyptian Museum is just the shape of a flag for the islands, while the map in Alice's hand is a manual map indicating some of the roads inside the island itself."

"We look at these maps and Raymond arranges them," Tina said

"How did you know all that, Raymond?"

Raymond answered her with a proud smile, saying, "Have you forgotten that my father is an archaeologist and that he used to take me with him on trips to discover antiquities? Among the team that worked with my father was a person who was said to be a scientist in decoding maps, and I loved to sit with him so that he could explain to me the secret." "Every map and how he reads it. Since that time, I have been searching libraries for information related to maps and where to find them. That man also taught me how to differentiate between an original map and a fake map."

Antoine laughed and said, "So, we have here a cartographer, Raymond, an archaeologist, Mark, and a group of people who love discoveries, which is us. Antoine, Tina, and Alice, and we have a large boat that can burn the ocean. Why don't we go and search for those treasures and bring them back? What?" "We are missing"

Mark said, "I forgot that scary creature whose words someone wrote on the map."

Raymond said, "If we can take Clark with us, he is strong and quick-witted for protection, and we take Maria, she is an expert in zoology and a study of the types of poisons and can make an antidote to them."

Mark said, "Do you all agree to set sail on this adventure?"

Everyone raised their hands and Alice said, "We must first obtain the approval of Clark and Mariah, and of course, we must not forget the approval of our parents."

Mark shouted, "No, of course, I will not tell them that I will go looking for the island where grandfather returned from, scared to death."

Tina said, "No, smart one, we tell them that, as usual, we will sail within the borders of our country and will not depart from it."

Everyone raised their hands and shouted together, "To the adventure!"

Mark's father's voice came from the top of the trench stairs

"Where is this adventure going, my children?"

"We've all finished our studies and want to go swimming in the ocean before we start university," Mark said.

The father smiled and said, "OK, but you know the rules."

They all said at the same time, "There is no departure from the borders of our state in the ocean waters, and we will not remain in the depths for more than fourteen days."

The father laughed hard at what the young men had done, then he got up and moved away from the entrance to the trench, and Antoine whispered in Mark's ear.

"There is no longer any objection, my friend so that we can begin the adventure."

Everyone left and headed to their homes, Antoine and Mark went together to Clark's house, and Alice went to Mary's house. At dawn on the third day, everyone headed to the beach, where the wooden dock near which the private ship of their friend Mark was standing, after an hour of setting up and preparing the ship with all the necessary food and tools to suffice them. For four months, the team dispersed inside the ship until each one of them chose his room. As for the ship, which was carrying sailors experienced in sailing, this was the first time for Mark to hire a crew of sailors. It had already set off to enter the open ocean, and when the news reached Mark's father that his son He hired a sailor captain and his entire crew, worrying in his heart, but after it was too late, they had already sailed, and he did not even succeed in contacting the ship to stop it.

Tanya and Alice settled with Mary in three adjacent rooms at the bottom of the ship, where they could see the fish and natural features beneath the seawater. As for Mark, he settled in the suite allocated to him above the deck of the ship, which shows from the windows the appearance of the vast ocean waters that meet the sky along the length of the ship. Looking away, Antoine, Clark, and Raymond settled on the first floor of the ship. It was a floor high above the water, but it had two windows, one of which was upper, from which they could see the surface of the water, and the other was lower, through which part of the lower water was exposed.

The first day passed between the friends in fun and mutual banter between the corridors of the ship. During the day they were enjoying the deck, the view of the water, and catching fish, and at night they were enjoying themselves in the cinema hall, which contained old-made films, or in the billiards hall, or even the music and dancing hall.

When the ship's captain began to sail outside the borders, he sent a message to Mark to ask him about the direction in which they were going to sail. Mark took his friend Raymond and the map and they went up to the captain's room. Then Mark unfolded the map and pointed to Anaconda Island, and this is how its name was written. The captain laughed and said.

"Here we are again, as I told your grandfather dozens of years ago, that island does not exist, it is just legends, but he insisted and took a ship with sailors and sailed alone without me, and you came asking for the same sailing route, but you know something, we will go looking for it, as I heard over the years." The last one is that your grandfather came back and said that he found it and warned anyone not to go there, but curiosity kills me to know the reason."

Mark smiled and said, "We, too, want to explore the island and take some of the jewelry that my grandfather wrote about."

The captain said, "Really, did your grandfather write about that island?"

Mark said, "Yes, I have the diary here in my room."

The captain shouted enthusiastically, "Then why don't you bring it so we can read it together? The trip will take two weeks to find those neighboring islands. Anaconda Island."

Mark said, "Okay, I'll go get the diary and wait for you on the deck by the pool (pool)."

Raymond moved to collect the map, so the captain told him to leave it as it was so that it would be easier for him to search when he reached those nearby islands. Mark returned and told everyone that they would read grandfather's diaries and that they should gather on the deck of the ship. Half an hour passed and the young men had already gathered and sat in a circle around the captain, who grabbed Grandpa's diary and opened it to read aloud.

Today I decided to take the advice of my friend Captain Miran and record my diaries audio so that I can write them after my return so that my children and grandchildren can read them in the future and that it will be a beautiful memory for me about my adventure to find the hidden island in the heart of the ocean, as the legends of the Shawn Islands mention. In any case, today is eight-thirty in the morning. The sky. The sea was clear and the atmosphere was calm, of course, with the sounds of whales passing by and mingling with the sound of music coming from the captain's cabin speaker. I was almost certain that a day had never passed as sunny, calm, and beautiful as today. Here comes the human, and the man of the mast, that man who sits on top, shouted. The ship's sail is in a place called the tower

"The earth, here the earth has appeared, oh my God, what is this?"

The captain next to me shouted into the megaphone

"What do you see, man?"

Mast Man: "Look at all sides. Several islands have appeared as if they were a hand embracing something. What is between them is not visible. I think we have reached the Al-Shun Islands, but I cannot be certain that what is in the middle of those islands is a huge snake or a rather small island."

"Let us approach," shouted the captain, "and you will certainly appear."

The mast man shouted in panic as he tried to land, "Get away. He's moving towards us. Shut up. Turn the ship around to get away."

Before the mast man reached the deck, and without prior warning, the sky darkened and filled with black clouds. The sea raged like a wounded, angry lion, and the water rose, hitting the sides of the ship forcefully. The captain shouted to everyone.

"Take cover with the poles and tie the ropes, lower all the sails."