A deep green bottle, caressed by the sea for a century, found its way to the door of the lighthouse.
Eli had awoken and come down to greet the man delivering this month's food, and as he opened the door, he had heard a slight clunk sound as it fell over and started to roll away.
He watched for a second or so as it tried desperately to return, as everything else did, to the sea, before he hurried over and picked it up with curiosity.
The delivery man wasn't scheduled to arrive for another half an hour or so and there wasn't a person in sight.
The island, if it could even be called that as it was just a mere cluster of rocks, was 7 miles from the coast line and surrounded by treacherous water that had pulled ships under for as long as anyone could remember.
No one was crazy enough to sail out here- all his provisions came by helicopter.
Eli looked back down at the bottle cradled in his hand, his eyebrows knitting together as he saw a note carefully bound inside.
A message in a bottle?