Choose your own adventure: 16

The story so far:
You awoke on an island after a night of binge drinking with friends because of a shitty day. You don't know how you got there, so you go off to find how to get home. After a few adventures you find a village where the natives, a bunch of otters, have all been slain. You follow the trail of whoever killed them and find a secret lair in a cave in the cliff wall. There you sneak around until you find a secret passage, and overhear some leader and his underlings discussing the deaths of the otters, and that there is some spy (aka you) in the cave. You find a passage to a prison where there are three captives, a huddled furry thing, a penguin with a cool hat and a scary sounding thing in a corner. You talk to the penguin, who encourages you to escape with him down a secret escape passage that another prisoner made in the cell next to his. You free a young otter who is too afraid to speak, and a scary jaguar, who guards the exit while you escape. After escaping, the penguin, Pierre, volunteers to bring you and the otter child to Ellestria if you go with him to his ship, last seen due west in Edgeton. While walking west through the forest of fortune, you stumble into some lizardmen on patrol and get into a fight. You manage to disarm one of them, but reinforcements arrive and chase you all to a marsh, which the lizards are afraid to approach.

Now begins Time is a Loop: Episode 16

Surely there is a reason the lizards won't approach the lake, you think, but the devil you don't in this case may be the better option. You tell Pierre and the child to hop in the canoe, and you make for the island in the middle of the lake. You figure that if you wait there, maybe the lizards will get tired and hungry and leave, giving you a chance to escape.
"I don't like the idea either, but I guess it is our best option." Pierre says.

You push the canoe out, and help the otter child into the middle of the canoe. Pierre hops up front and you push it out into the water, hopping in the back. As you begin to paddle out you look behind you. The lizards, still about 50 feet away from the shore, look horrified. They start yelling unintelligibly at you all, pointing and waving frantically. You look forwards again, but the lake is empty and still. You look down at the water, it is completely black, and you can't see past your oar. You think that the lizards' panic is just superstition, when, while still looking down at the water, you watch as the black in the water zoom by from underneath you.

And then you realize the black is not the water, but the... thing... in the water! You yell to Pierre to row as fast as he can, and to book it to the island! With all your might, you lunge the oar into the water, and push forward with all your might. The black has now moved behind your canoe. You frantically row, pray, and try your best to not look back as you hear the sound of something large emerging from the water.
The otter child screams.
Pierre yells: "Don't stop!"

50 yards from the island.

With every stroke of the oar you feel the black monster approaching.

35 yards from the island.

As you are paddling, you feel a cold shiver, and you notice that a giant shadow has cast itself over your end of the canoe. Whatever is chasing you, a head, an arm, a... something, is right above you. You paddle harder.

15 yards.

You feel something large fly by your head, close. Only inches from you now. You jab your paddle into the water and push back as hard as your possibly can, into the water, push the water back, lift, repeat. Something goes flying down into the water just behind you, launching the boat forward on a giant wave. The canoe goes flying, as do the people inside of it. You cling to the side of the canoe and reach for the otter child, but it all happens too fast. You land near the shore of the island, the canoe crashes on a rock and breaks. After spinning underwater, looking for the surface, you emerge and gasp for breath, then, seeing the shore, you swim to it. Pierre reaches the shore at the same time as you, looking frantic. You look out at the lake and watch a large hump submerge itself into the water, disappearing from sight, leaving only bubbles and wake.

"What the hell?" Pierre says.
You agree, after catching your breath.
"Where is the child?" Pierre realizes. You look around but you see no one else. Just the wreckage of the canoe by the shore, an oar which floated to the sand, and just under a tree by the shore you see the rapier and spear, which must have been thrown from the canoe.
"No! It couldn't have!" Pierre runs over to the wreckage and looks around, you follow, but neither can find a body.
Did that black monster get the child?
"I hope not. I pray not. It must have swum away, right?" Pierre says. You then realize you were talking out loud.
You continue to look around the beach, but don't see any body. You do see that the island goes on south for about half a mile, and there seems to be smoke coming from somewhere in the middle of the island. Pierre also says he spies what looks like a small cave mouth on the east side of the island, with water flowing out of it, and it seems too small for that black monster.

You think about what to do next. You could:
A: Head towards the smoke you see in the middle of the island.
B: Check out the small cave.
C: Stay by the shore where you crashed, hoping the otter child comes there, if it is still alive and can.
D: Try to put your canoe back together and get off the island, braving the black monster again.
E: Other ideas?

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