The Raft

When the third morning of Robie's time on the island comes, she has become accustomed to her new surroundings. She is commenting on the monotony when something extraordinary happens: "The color scheme had become such an unchanging constant that when I noticed the bright yellow spot in the water, my breath caught in my throat" (167-168).

The yellow object turns out to be a survival suit, floating in the water, thanks to the dead body that still fills it up. Robie goes into the water and gets knocked around in the waves with the corpse (which has a half-eaten face) while she tries to recover the suit, hoping it might contain a rescue beacon. Startled by her close encounter with the grisly human remains, Robie scrambles back to shore, leaving the suit in the water. She watches as the current pulls it away from shore.

She describes the next moments: "Max spoke to me then. He hadn't spoken in a long time. For days it seemed. He said, 'You need that suit. You need that beacon'" (169).

Robie resists his advice. Max keeps insisting that she go get it. The chapter ends as she returns to the helpless mindset she first exhibited when the plane crashed: "I didn't have to do anything.