6 hours since coming ashore
Although unnerved, Natalia and her friends remained undeterred. According to the drone footage, they were only minutes away from the lake. Pressing on they continued, noticing several oddities in their travels.
Susan was the first to notice. More clothing littered the jungle floor. Shirts, shoes, socks pants, evn undergarments lay strewn haphazardly throughout the jungle. The women paused, finding the sight odd. For Natalia she felt as if someone's laundry had exploded all over the jungle.
"Looks like we weren't the first ones here," Dorothy said softly.
"Looks like it," Natalia added. "But where is everyone? All these clothes you would think we would have seen a naked person running around."
Natalia shuddered, she wasn't sure which frightened her more. The deafening silence or the idea of some random naked person leaping from the bushes. Trying to shake the thought from her head, she now turned to Dorothy. "Hows the knee?"
"Amazingly good," she commented, flexing the offending limb. "Nat I don't know what's going on exactly but, I feel fantastic."
Natalia paused, looking over Dorothy carefully. The raven haired woman had worked up a sweat but she certainly did look amazing. It struck Natalia as odd though, Dorothy's hair didn't seem to have as much grey in it as she thought. "Well you look fantastic," she smiled. "Think you have enough energy to make this final push?"
A mischievous grin now crossed Dorothy's face. The woman now sprinted past her friends, casting the two an impish grin. "Pretty sure I'll beat you there."
That was all it took, Susan now watched as Natalia took off, the womans brunette hair flying behind her like a streamer as she charged through the jungle with reckless abandon. Susan could only shake her head, listening as her friends giggled like school girls. "The more things change," she mumbled as she now chased after them.
As Susan took chase, she was surprised how she felt. Never the fastest, she was the one with the most stamina. Now running at speeds she hadn't touched in years, she was surprised. No aches, no tiring, zero loss of energy. She felt she could run like this forever. Giggling inspite of herself, she quickened her pace only stopping as she joined her friends at the edge of the lake.
To say it was beautiful would be doing it a disservice. Lush green vegetation hung overhead with a white sand shore leading to crystal clear waters. Looking over the lake the three of them could see to the bottom as a waterfall now gently fed the pristine body of water.
"Its beautiful," Natalia whispered in awe. Slowly she now strolled along the shore, her eyes wide in astonishment as she gazed at the scene. It was only Susan and Dorothy now shouting that drew her attention. "Natalia look!"
Natalia now walked towards her friends, Dorothy and Susan talking excitedly as they stood around what seemed to be a long abandoned camp. Once more it seemed like some else had viewed this stunningly beautiful scene before her. "What is it?"
Dorothy now held up what appeared to be an old aviators shirt. Natalia was puzzled, the fashion of the shirt looked almost a hundred years old, yet the material itself looked untouched by the ravages of time. "Look at the name," Dorothy whispered. Natalia now leaned in, noticing the name before gasping.
"Erhardt!"
"As in Amelia Erhardt," Dorothy finished, shocked by her discovery. Natalia simply shook her head. Amelia Erhard had disappeared in the 1930s. The aviator vanishing on the Pacific. The chances that these three had stumbled upon her remains on this uncharted island seemed remote at best. "Its impossible no way," Natalia stated.
"Its her," Susan stated solemnly. "Or at least her clothes. I found this close by. Looks like a diary with her name in it."
Natalia now grabbed the diary from Susan, quickly scanning the first few pages. The diary began simply enough, documenting Amelia's famous transcontinental trip. By the time she reached the twentieth page, she noted what historians had long suspected.
"She crashed," Natalia stated. "Mechanical error. She found the island and set up camp, waiting for a rescue." Skipping ahead a few pages, Natalia paused, turning the page back and forth as she tried to make sense of the entry.
"What is it Nat," Susan asked.
Natalia's didn't answer, her face puzzled as she continued to read the entries over and over again.
"Natalia?"
"This can't be right," she whispered. "Thats impossible! That can't happen!"
"What," Dorothy asked. "What can't happen?"
Natalia took a breath, gazing at her friends. She had no idea how to explain this, Amelia's entries sounded like madness. There was no way something like that was possible.
"It says," she started, unsure how to phrase it. "It says that...there is something unnatural about the island. It causes anyone on it to grow younger."
"Gimme that," Susan scoffed. "Theres no way thats what it says." Natalia now relented, watching as both Susan and Dorothy perused the diary entries.
It was there in black and white. Amelia Erhardt, world famous aviator had written that the longer she stayed on the island, the younger she became. It sounded preposterous, people couldn't age backwards.
"Hold on," Dorothy stated. "It says that she figured this out after 12 hours on the island. Her injuries healed, her body became more youthful."
"She says she estimates that every hour spent on the island reverse a person's age by one year," Susan exclaimed. "But thats impossible! She had weeks of entries. She was only 39 years old when she vanished. If thats the case than she should have been reduced to infancy in a day and a half!"
"The water," Natalia replied, pointing to the book. "Look, she figured out that the water of this lake negates the thr effects of the island."
The women now scanned over the proceeding entries, noting how Amelia began to write her age instead if the date after awhile. Starting at age 20, Amelia began to note that the effects of the water were temporary. After a certain amount of time the effects would begin again.
"She built up a tolerance," Dorothy whispered. "The water retarding the effects for a shorter and shorter period if time."
Turning the page one at a time Natalia and her friends could read the desperation in Amelia's writings as she slowly descended into a childhood. Each page listed Amelia's age, her writing becoming more frantic as the numbers dropped lower and lower.
By the time Amelia became 12, Natalia began to note some oddities in the journal entries. Amelia's writing was becoming more juvenile, misspellings more frequent. While at first Amelia was desperate to escape by the time the girl became 10, she seemed more interested in exploring the island, playing as a young child would.
"What happened to her," Susan asked, puzzled by Amelia's degrading hand writing. "Its like, she forgot about her adulthood, the younger she became."
"Maybe the younger someone becomes it begins to affect their mind as well," Natalia shrugged, still disbelieving that this could even be possible.
As the women now flipped to the last entry, their eyes went wide in horror. The writing of a now 3 year old Amelia appearing to be her last words.
'I'm sleepy. I think I was a big girl but not anymore.'
With that a primi8picutre of a little girl by a lake was drawn, the last apparent thing Amelia had done.
"So what happened to her," Susan asked.
Natalia now gazed at the discarded a intersection outfit before glancing out at the pristine waters. "She vanished," she whispered. "Just like your scar."