Oliver had to force himself to answer, but answer he did. "Because it's too real to me, Tommy. You don't know what it's like to be starving so badly you'd eat almost anything. You don't know how hard it is to catch a bird, a rabbit, or any type of land animal with nothing more than sticks. You don't know what it's like to beat rocks together until your hands bleed in order to start a fire so you don't freeze to death."
Oliver pressed his lips together. It sounded melodramatic to his own ears, but it was all the truth. Derek and maybe John were probably the only one who understood, with differing circumstances.
"At some point while I was there, Russians came to make a smuggling base on the island. I got involved with them for a while, hoping it'd be my ticket off the island. It was like being here, like we are right now, half between having things and not having things. I even became friends with some of them.
"Then one day, they captured someone important to me and killed him before I could do anything. I slaughtered all but a few of them who'd been guarding the boat, who'd escaped. After that, I was alone for a long time."