“Daddy! Help me!” traces around his head over and over again as the soulless old man lays on his bed made of leaves and sticks. Every time he is able to truly fall asleep, he is stricken awake by the recurring nightmare of watching him lose his daughter. His daughter, his little girl, daddy’s girl, tossed overboard one, what had seemed to be, sunny day. They took the boat out from the summer beach house, assuming to lay some crab traps and go fishing for that last night's bass dinner. She was used to being on the ocean , her father had taught her everything she needed to know about the safety of the boat and what to do if the water turns fowl, she just wasn’t aware she would actually have to use her boating knowledge. She always assumed her father would keep her safe. He always assumed he would keep his little girl safe. 

The morning of the incident,  the sun was shining bright and the waters were still. No one, not even the weather man, forecasted a storm in the middle of the ocean. So Ashlyn and her father went out on the waters. He had the perfect idea for dinner, crab and bass with fresh picked blackberries. Ashlyn didn’t care much for bass or blackberries but her absolute favorite thing to do was hang out with her father. She didn’t care where she was or what she was doing but she knew that she was with her dad so she was okay. 

As she was throwing out a crab trap for the first time by herself, Ashlyn fell overboard and got swept under the large two toned blue boat with the words written across the left side: “wicked tides”. Wicked were tides, a large undertow swept her right underneath never to be seen again. The man heard her screams and saw that she had gone over, but he didn't realize what had happened until it was too late and he was swept under too. The man washed up next to his lake house where his wife was waiting in a frantic state with EMTs all around him. When he finally came to, he immediately shot up and looked for his pride and joy. He quickly realized she was not drawn the same amount of luck he was. The first words he spoke were: “help me”. He immediately shot up to run from the EMT checking his body temperature just to be confronted with a couple of men’s arms forcing him back to the ground.  Not understanding, he began to have a full fledged panic influenced rage on the shore line of his vacation home on the coast of Oregon. 

That’s all the dreary old man can remember from the night it happened. For months after he regained his ability to think clearly and walk by himself, he would spend every hour of every day he possibly could at the lake house. Tenets would come to stay for the week until they saw the once loving man pull into the driveway angry and accusing. A young couple was staying at the house one summer, before the old man truly lost himself to his own mind. He drove up to the property, and with the seclusion, the boyfriend of the young couple walked outside and confronted him. The old man accused, not only this couple, but every couple seen at the house, of kidnapping his astrayed, drowned, lost, daughter. 

The old man had these outbursts for at least two years before he finally snapped. He became cruel and angry, eventually driving away his hurt wife. The distraught man’s wife swallowed 26 of the man's pain killers from the accident. He came home from the lake house and found her blue on the bathroom floor with the pill bottle labeled “take one every 6 hours” in her hand. Though the man had gone cold, he didn’t lose the love he had for his daughter’s mother, the spitting image of her. His wife was a fun, rosy cheeked, petite, woman with long brown hair that she had cut for the first time just after their little girl was born. Amanda ending the pain of her beaten husband and her drowned daughter was the man’s final straw. The last person he had, the last reminder other than Ashlyn’s small pink baby blanket, of his daughter, was gone. He was truly alone. The man fell into a depression that wound him back on the shore of the beach house in Oregon. 

He took the boat out for the first time since the incident. He had no desire to live anymore and had decided to go back to the spot where he should have died. His plan was simple, he was going to go out past the buoys and wait on the boat until he felt the waves grow larger. He took only enough water to get him to the spot, as he had no intent on coming back to shore but he didn’t want to die on his way out. He sailed for two days before he found his desired spot. He walked to the edge of the boat and put his arms out. He said nothing as he went to fall, he noticed an island with a small figure, he then caught himself and decided to investigate. He knew the area wasn’t commonly traveled and he couldn’t remember the island from the first time he saw the spot. He turned the boat on and rode over to the appearing island. From afar it looked a lot smaller but as he approached he realized that the island was huge and couldn’t be covered in a day. 

As he pulled onto shore he heard a recognizable giggle. He whipped his head around furiously in search of who he thought was Ashlyn. For a split second he saw a small figure again run past him. He immediately jumped out of the boat without tying it to the tree he was trying to before the ghostly image ran by. He ran through the sand and trees everywhere looking for Ashlyn. At one point he fell and slit his hand open. The gash was large but he didn’t stop running for a second. The wound began leaving a trail of blood as he ran in circles looking for his daughter. After circling three times with his hand still bleeding he realized he was going in circles. The trail of blood was following him and he finally realized where it was coming from. He hesitantly sat down after mentally debating the hope of seeing his little girl again. 

The man fell asleep under a large Oregon white oak. When he awoke the figure was sitting next to him with her head settled in his lap sound asleep. He sat in total silence due to the shock of finally finding his baby. He raised his injured hand and noticed that the large cut across his palm had clotted and stopped bleeding. He took his other hand and moved the hair out of his daughter’s face. He noticed that she was much paler then she used to be but she was dirty and had a few scars and scratches on her cheeks and forehead. He sat longer silently staring at his long lost daughter. 

“You have your mothers loving eyes.” he finally spoke, shedding a single tear and beginning to lose his breath once again. She woke up and looked at him. She didn’t speak, she just threw her arms over her long astrayed dad’s shoulders. She started to cry, which rippled into him crying as well. After a few minutes of seeing each other for the first time in a total of 2 years, 3 months, and 14 days, the man had seen his little girl. 

“Daddy you found me. What took you so long?” Ashlyn asked softly through her choked out tears.

“I’m so sorry baby, I looked for you everyday since I washed up on shore and you didn’t.” the man began to cry more, “I couldn’t find you, and your mother-” he stopped himself. He didn’t want to ruin this perfect moment of finally finding his little girl with the news of her mother ending her own life. The last thing he wanted her to know was that the only reason he found her was because he was planning on doing the same thing. “Why did you run from me?” he asked her. 

“I had to know it was actually you,” she said slowly, looking at her father. “Please don’t leave me again daddy” she mentioned rubbing the stubble on his chin. 

He had the idea he was going to take her home with him. He knew he didn’t have the supplies needed to take care of her on the boat but he assumed that if she could survive the jungle island alone for 2 years, 3 months, and 14 days, she could survive the boat ride home. After assuring her he would never let her out of his sight again they agreed to walk back to the empty boat. Succeedingly walking back to the place he left his small fishing boat, he noticed that the boat could not be found. He didn’t know how long he was asleep or how many days had passed but he realized his boat was missing. He convinced his daughter, who was holding tightly onto his hand as if she was going to be ripped away at any point in time, that the boat was nearby he just had to remember where he left it. 

“Daddy you don’t remember? You didn’t tie the boat like you were supposed to. That’s like the first rule of sailing.” She giggled and gripped onto his hand harder. “Are we gonna be able to go home to mommy?” her tone changed back to a more saddened state. 

For the first time in the man's trip he felt a surge of guilt and confusion. He knew what he came here to do but his plans had been disrupted, and again his plans were disrupted. He needed to tell his daughter about her mother, but he couldn’t bring himself to yet again, to break the little girl’s hope and happiness of being found. After a few moments of thinking of his next steps, he started to wonder how the girl had known he didn’t tie up the boat and why she giggled when she said it. He looked down at his sweet girl and thought to himself that he had to break all of the news to her. He walked her over to a log and asked her to sit down, she looked at him puzzled but did as she was told. 

“Sweetie, I have to tell you something, it’s really hard for me to stay outloud but…” he was interrupted by the girl standing up. 

“A bird!” she pointed into the sky jumping up and down. 

He grabbed the girl's arm and pulled her back to the log. It would have been noticeable to anyone but him that she was trying to change the subject due to the fact that there were no birds. He looked at her sincerely, but was almost dead with emotion. 

“Your mother passed away.” He turned his face and bit his lip so his little girl didn’t think of him as weak after all these years.  

“I know daddy!” she grabbed his face with her small fingers and looked puzzled. He then moved back from her as if he was scared. “Daddy, are you scared of me?” she looked at him with regret. He took a deep breath and began to speak before she interrupted again, “you um…” she hesitated persistently as if she was looking for an excuse, “you told me in your sleep.” She shrugged her shoulders and nodded her head assertively as if she had discovered the perfect lie. He believed it, and she knew he did. 

“I’m not scared of you darling, I’m just glad to have you back in my life. I missed you so much.” He moved back closer to her. She threw herself into his arms and looked up at him. He hugged her back and then started thinking. He was stranded on an island with no way home, no food, no way of clean water, and no way of contacting anyone who could help. He needed to make a plan and design the plan fast before it started to get dark again. He decided that he and his daughter would need shelter and some clean water at the least, if he could score anything to eat he would. He thought of asking her how she had been surviving and if she had a shelter but he stopped himself before the words came out. He didn’t want to risk making her relive the 2 years, 3 months, and 14 days without him the same way he felt it. 

A few hours later, the man had built them a small shelter with a place for a fire. He figured he could find a few sticks or some flint to make a fire and hopefully purify some water or fry the lizards he had found in the process of gathering leafs, the last thing he wanted was to swallow a raw lizard or risk being poisoned. After a while, he did find what he needed to make a fire and after many failed attempts at lighting something more then sparks, he finally was able to make a fire large enough to purify the water he had collected in an old piece of bark large enough to hold a small amount of water long enough to boil. 

Day in and day out, the man aged as he attempted to leave the island. He eventually grew an out of control beard without the means of shaving, he made his own clothes and shoes out of things he had found around his island, and he survived, alone with his daughter he built shelters, attempts at rafts, attempts at signals, everything. After what he didn’t know was 10 years that had passed, he came to acceptance and stopped trying to escape. Him and his never aging daughter were happy and safe, as safe as a man can be on a stranded island. He was able to maintain food and fire along with carving bowls and cups out of large stones he had found. 

Every once in a while, a boat of fishermen would float by and notice smoke or see a hairy old man pass by. A couple had ventured out to the island assuming to find something, but the only thing found was an old pile of rocks and burnt sticks. For years this happened. The stranded man sometimes thought about what might happen if he came off of his island, or didn’t hide when fishermen came by. 

His daughter could always tell what he was thinking and one sunny afternoon around the anniversary of when his daughter supposedly drowned, a father and his young child went past the island in the same  manner as the original story the man had known. He tried to flag them down but his daughter stopped him. 

“Daddy, if you leave me I won’t go with you.” She whispered softly as if she didn’t want him to hear her. But he did. She looked up at him as he took a step back from the shore dismissively. That was the only time he tried to leave. He stayed content on his island after this incident. He decided that his daughter and her not wanting to return to civilization was more important than having to learn to be civil again. 

As the years passed by, he would do the same thing: venture into his island, catch food, collect anything worthy, gather more flint, exchange the leaves on his bed. Occasionally he would get cut but he never had any injury too bad that he couldn’t fix it himself. He had built up immunities to illnesses he may have caught normally, and was fairly healthy. He had everything he ever wanted right on his island. He hid from scarce visitors and played with his daughter every minute of every day, fearful he may lose her again. The worst part of his life was when he slept, so he tried not to. The man would have nightmares every night relieving the worst day of his life. He would wake up in the middle of the night, leaving himself with only a couple of hours of sleep, sometimes seeing his daughter beside him, sometimes she was missing. When she was missing, he would go back to the emotional panic induced rage as he did the night she disappeared the first time. Then, his daughter would reappear and everything would be okay again. 

After 22 years, the man finally was found. One of the EMT’s from the night the man’s life was ruined the first time was sailing with his now 13 year old daughter in the same area as Ashlyn and her dad was. The EMT had named his daughter in tribute to Ashlyn with Ashtyn. He never saw the man who he rescued that night again but he still felt a big piece of him died with the man's daughter. Every year, he would go out into the ocean and look for her body. On the twenty-second year anniversary, the EMT noticed the island. He hadn’t seen the island before but he thought that it would be a place a body could wash up on. He nodded towards his daughter and turned the boat towards the island. 

He had almost given up hope, but when the EMT pulled to the shore, he saw a pile of bones in remains of a small pink shirt and blue jeans. His search was over, until he heard something rustling in the trees. He wasn’t planning on leaving the boat but his curiosity got the better of him. He pulled onto shore, tied his boat to a tree, and asked his daughter to stay on the boat. He saw multiple failed attempts at signially along the coast, but he could tell they were old. He didn’t think that the little girl could have moved the large logs by herself. He saw a hairy figure running past him deeper in the trees. The EMT knew there was protocol for something like this in the real world, but he wasn’t on the clock. He ran after the figure for what seemed like 6 miles. He eventually caught up and immediately recognized the man running from him. He was older now. Looked as if he was at least 62 years old. He wasn’t sure exactly the age but he could tell it was the man who lost his daughter 22 years ago. 

“Let me go” the old man boomed, “I need to get back to my daughter, she's calling for me. How did you find us?” At first he seemed angry, but then hopeful by the end of his statement. The EMT looked at him puzzled before it finally set in. The old man had gone crazy in grief.