Chapter 1: The Beginning

Waves crashed against the side of the liferaft, I, Oliver Queen, clung to the side, tears running down my face. my father's corpse lying on the bottom of the raft. In the distance there was an outline of an island, he tried to steer the raft, but my strength failed him. I collapsed, the past few days flashing through my head, tears coming faster and faster. Sara sliding out the window, waves crashing over my head almost drowning him, my father shooting himself in order to let me live, the past three days that I have been sitting on this raft, trying to conserve my energy and the few rations I have. I drifted off into a fitful state of sleep.

A few hour later the liferaft crashed against the rocks and I jolted awake, to see seagulls attacking the corpse. "Hey," I yelled, shooing the birds away.

"Get away from him," I shouted and then collapsed coughing. I could feel a sickness starting in my stomach. I held onto the side of the raft trying to keep calm.

"I'm guessing I'm somewhere off the coast of China, but I have no idea how to get home," I muttered to myself, coughing harder. Suddenly I felt pain blossoming on the right side of my chest, looking down there was an arrowhead, just stuck there. Surrounding the arrowhead my shirt was stained with blood, the blood was spreading, seeping over more of my shirt. I felt myself waver and passed out.

I opened my eyes, vision blurred. I blinked a few times and my eyes focused. He was in a cave, in front of him stood a tall Asian man, holding a cage containing a small bird. The man held out the cage and said something in another language, then set down the cage. "Who are you?" I asked. The man said nothing but held out a bowl, of what looked like herbs, and motioned for me to eat some of them. I did so and accepted the water I was offered. The pain in my chest began to dull, and the man started to pull the arrow out. I clenched my jaw so that I wouldn't scream.

"What am I supposed to do with the bird?" he asked. The man said the same thing he had before, but this time made a twisting motion with his hands. I understood this time.

"You want me to kill it?" I asked incredulously. The man said nothing, but made the same motion. "I can't do that," I said shaking my head.

A few minutes later, I realized that this man expected me to kill the bird in order to survive. Tears pricked at my eyes as he opened the cage, he wrapped my hands around the birds neck and twisted. There was a small crack and the bird went limp. "Good," the man said in heavily accented english.

"You speak english," I exclaimed.

"What were you saying earlier?"

"It means survive, here on Lian-Yu, you have to be willing to do what you normally wouldn't." the man explained.

It's been about a week since I landed on the island, at least that's what my best guess is. Yao-Fei, the man's name I had found out, spends more of his time out hunting, and doesn't let me leave the cave.

Suddenly the rock in front of the entrance moved and Yao-Fei dragged in another, seemingly younger, boy, who seems to have almost drowned. "Who is that?"

My name is Barry, Barry Allen. My mother was killed by the impossible five years ago. No one believed me, the shrinks, the cops, even my supposed best friend, they all thought that I had been making it up to defend my father. I've been dealing with the bullying since I was little, since I'm smarter than the rest of my class, without even trying. I know I sound a bit full of myself, but trust me some of the kids in my class probably still don't know how to find x or y. Anyway, I got tired of it, and decided to enter a study abroad program to Australia.

Problem is when I was on the boat it kind of capsized and I was the only one, that I know of, that survived, purely because I was sitting in a liferaft, reading. A few days later another problem arouse and the raft sprung a leak. Soon it was sinking, taking on too much water, I went under pretty quickly. The last thing I remember is someone dragging me through the water, then I passed out, really heroic I know.

As I started to come to, I heard an unfamiliar voice, that didn't sound like a doctor. "Who is that?"

"I don't know, ask him when he comes around," another responds. I blinked a few times rubbing my eyes as one of them left the cave that I am now sitting in.

"Have I seen you on TV before? You look really familiar," was the first thing I could think to say, the guy rolled his eyes.

"Oliver Queen," he said, and I furrowed my brow.

"I feel like I've heard that name before. I'm Barry Allen," I said, trying to think of where I had heard that name.

"Nice to meet you Barry, the other guy is Yao-Fei, I don't really know much about him, but he's been keeping me alive. Also be happy he didn't shoot you with an arrow," Oliver said calmly, but seemed a bit freaked out.

"He shot you," I exclaimed, eyes widening in shock.

"Yet you still trust him?"

"He's keeping me alive. Just a heads up he's probably going to try to teach you a lesson on survival," Oliver replied.

"No talking," came a voice from the doorway.

This kid seems smart at least, it's nice to have some company, but it's kind of weird at the same time because it makes me miss Tommy. Yao Fei snapped at us to shut up, and then shoved a small cage at Barry, repeating the same word as he had to me about a week ago. "Survive," Barry translated. Yao Fei looked surprised, but still forced the poor kid to kill the bird in the cage. Barry is obviously softer than I am, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but he's younger than me. He took longer to convince and he was crying by the point, but realized that there was no way around it.

About a week has passed since I landed on the island. By me, I mean Barry. Yao-Fei is still not letting Oliver and me leave the cave, but we have gotten to know each other a lot better, how we both got here, our backgrounds, etc. Oliver and I were sitting by the small fire talking quietly, when the rock rolled away from the front of the cave. "There is someone blundering around the island and I want you two to come with me, in case there are more people, though in a fight you aren't going to be very useful," Yao-Fei said bluntly, as he tends to do.

About twenty minutes later, we found a girl, with tattered clothes and extremely wet and dirty blonde hair. "Sara," Oliver said eyes wide, as he helped the girl up.

"Ollie," she exclaimed clinging to him.

"Ollie?" I asked trying not to laugh and Oliver glared at me.

"You aren't allowed to call me that, Sara how did you get here?" Oliver asked Sara, who he mentioned to be the girl he had been cheating on his girlfriend with, Sara is Laurel's (his girlfriend) sister.

"I swam over from the next island over, because I thought that this one may be easier to stay alive on," Sara explained. Suddenly there were footsteps, people crashing through the underbrush. Yao Fei drew an arrow and notched it onto the drawstring pointing in the direction that the crashing had come from, but then changed his mind and ran leaving the rest of us behind without a way of getting back to the cave.