Chapter 1
No one was coming for them.
It had been a month since the crash, and everyone knew that the rescue operation had probably been abandoned two weeks ago. The plane had been extremely off course when it crashed- it was unlikely that the search team had ever come within two hundred miles of the island.
Which left the survivors in a situation virtually unknown to the modern world. It was time to rebuild society.
Jack surveyed his surroundings with a critical eye. If he had to crash-land on a bizarre tropical island populated largely by mysterious and murderous creatures, he supposed he had gotten lucky in his fellow survivors.
He still didn't know everyone very well. Forty people were on the island, and since the majority of responsibility for their well-being had fallen on his shoulders he had less time then others to devote to long, get-to-know-each-other fireside chats. Most of the survivors seemed to understand this, and attempted to minimize their demands on his attention, remaining calm and generally helpful.
Jack liked most of the survivors with whom he was better acquainted- not Sawyer, of course, but the others. And they thankfully had among them quite a lot of useful skills- hunting and tracking, fishing and construction, technical skills, herbal medicine and a decent command of the French language. They would need every advantage in the days to come.
This was not where Jack wanted to spend the rest of his life, and he still planned to get off the island if at all possible. But he had come to accept that for the time being they were all stuck. So it was time to start building something of a life there instead of merely scratching out a bare existence.
Surviving was still first priority, of course, and Jack knew they had to do a better job of it- several had already died. They needed to improve the structure of their defenses, develop a more advanced and reliable way of obtaining food, and perhaps organize a clear chain of command.
Most of all, they had to unite. Everyone responds to severe trauma in a different way, Jack knew. The stress of the crash and the consequent death and destruction, paired with constant fear for their lives, had affected individual personalities in diverse ways. Some, like Charlie, felt an instant bond to the others by virtue of shared tragedy. Others, like Michael, so desperately wanted their situation to be temporary that they rejected doing anything that suggested they might be forced into accepting the island as a more permanent residence. The survivors were under constant attack- from the elements, from monsters, from the terrifying, inscrutable, and apparently largely invisible residents of the deep and mysterious forest. Without joining forces they didn't stand a chance.
Jack was a M.D., but he had taken his physiology classes. He knew the severe mental damage this sort of trauma could cause. Thankfully, emotional barriers seemed to be slowly breaking down between the survivors, and people were beginning to form the relationships they so desperately needed as support at this time in their lives. Jack hoped that the others were beginning to realize that they had to let go of parts of their old lives. Change had come upon them all, and whether or not they wished otherwise none would ever be the same.
A.N. This is really more of a prologue. Although this chapter is Jack's reflections it would be unsurprising if it soon this story came to focus more upon my favorite characters- read as Sayid and Shannon, mostly. Still, it is meant to be about all the characters. If you think it has potential, please review! The more reviews I receive the more inspired I'll be to write the next chapter.