Twelve-year-old Toby had been stranded on the rocky, deserted shores of Blackwood Island for exactly three weeks following the wreck of his uncle’s fishing boat. He was completely alone, surviving on collected rainwater and bitter wild berries. Every morning, he stood on the highest bluff, scanning the empty horizon for a passing ship, but the vast blue ocean remained stubbornly vacant.
Realizing his strength was failing, Toby decided to send a desperate plea into the world.
He found an empty glass soda bottle washed up in the tide pool. With trembling fingers, he tore a blank page from his damp journal and used a stubby pencil to write his coordinates, his name, and a frantic message: “SOS. Stranded on Blackwood Island. Food running out. Please find me.”
He rolled the paper tightly, slipped it inside the glass container, and sealed the top securely with a piece of dried tree sap.
Walking down to the edge of the crashing surf, Toby hurled the bottle with all his remaining might. He watched as the white foam caught the glass, pulling it out past the breaking waves until it was nothing more than a glinting speck on the deep water. He felt a sudden, tiny spark of hope.
The next morning, Toby walked back down to the beach to check his crab traps. As he approached the shoreline, his heart dropped.
Sitting right at the high-tide line, half-buried in the wet sand, was the exact same glass bottle.
Frustrated, thinking the ocean currents had simply rejected it, Toby plucked the bottle from the sand. But as he wiped the grime away, he froze. The dried sap seal was gone. Inside, the rolled paper looked different. He uncorked the bottle and pulled the note out. Written directly beneath his own frantic handwriting, in bold, jagged charcoal letters, was a single sentence:
WE KNOW. WE ARE ALREADY HERE.