I hated him ... Ben. Our fearless leader. The one who'd brought me to the Island under false pretenses and kept me there against my will. All the kind accomodations he'd made for me upon arrival were only to make me feel secure: to create an illusion which I have now discovered couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm nothing more than a prisonor, granted a 'favored' one. I think he's obsessed with me, and I have no idea why. We couldn't be more different. He looks around and sees miracles; all I see is death. He brought me here to find a way to save the pregnant women that were mysteriously dying on the Island ( or so he said ), but I can't fix the problem. So I told him I wanted to go home. I wanted to be with my sister whom Ben had neglected to tell me was sick again. Yet he assured me that Jacob would cure her. He looked me straight in the eye and promised me that Rachel would be saved if I stayed, so I said yes. I foolishly believed him when he gave me his word ... and then I found a tumor on his spine and knew that he'd been lying all along. There never was anything he could do. My sister never had a chance and was in all probability dead.
And then the sky started falling. A plane had crashed on the Island. Everything was very chaotic. Still, Ben took time out of his busy schedule to pull me aside. He said there was something he needed to show me - something I needed to see. Truthfully, I was reluctant to go with him. There was nothing he could say or do to erase how angry I was at him for his intentional deception. I couldn't trust him anymore; therefore I couldn't respect him either. And frankly, I had no desire to associate with him at all, but he insisted. We ended up at this building in the middle of nowhere. In it was a wall covered with television screens. He told me he was hurt by the fact that I'd called him a liar; however it was true ... or so I thought. That's before I saw her: Rachel, alive and well, playing with her son Julian in the park. Somehow she had miraculously survived.
I didn't dare tear my eyes away from the screen as I reached out to touch it, tears of joy streaming down my face. It was almost as if I was there with them. As I soaked in every little detail, I couldn't recall having ever been so happy, so relieved. To know that my sister was okay and had given birth to a healthy baby boy who was absolutely beautiful and already growing up so fast ... it meant everything to me. They meant everything to me, and I couldn't stand to be apart from them any longer. I wanted to meet my nephew - to be the aunt that gives him everything he wants out of life, and I missed Rachel so much.
The sight of them together took my breath away. They were laughing and smiling ... they were having a great time. I wanted to join them so much that my heart ached, and I stood frozen in that same spot until the picture vanished. And when it did, I think a piece of my heart went with it.
Soon my tears were no longer of joy, but of sorrow as I begged and pleaded for Ben to let me go home. Once again he refused. I honestly don't know how he expected me to react, but I knew in that moment now more than ever that I had to find a way to get off the Island; I had to find a way home.