Shipwrecked

Chapter 2

There's blood trickling down my lip, I'm biting it so hard. I start praying. And I'm not even religious, but I pray that I will make it. I will survive. I will survivr. I will...

I drift off into a half conscious state. Lulled almost to sleep by the gentle rhythm of the ship rocking back and forth. I see a faint island off in the distance.....

A huge jolt wakes me from my dreamy state. I open my eyes and see a wave crashing over the side of the boat. There are screams, and I feel Kaitlyn's fingernails digfing into my arm. Surprisingly, I don't scream. I am too shocked to move.

That's probably why I don't react in time and move out of the way of the wave.

It crashes over my head and I am enveloped by a deep blueness that surrounds and suffocates me. For a moment, I feel like I am floating through space until my head breaks the surface of the ocean. I see surprised faces and hands reaching out in front of me. But I can't reach any of them before I am sucked under again. The only thing that registers is my waterproof backpack still trapped between my arms and my chest.

I clutch my backpack and float to the surface. I find an upside down chair that is floating and climb on that. I see Kaitlyn staring at me as the lifeboat drifts further and further away. The Seaqueen is gone by now, nothing left by dozens of lifeboats drifting away from me and furniture floating on the surface.

I try to swim. Do anything besides passively letting the waves take me anywhere. The tide is too strong for me to reach the lifeboat, and I watch Kaitlyn fade away on the horizon.

I want to cry. But I am still too frozen to react to anything. But.... The island. The island!! The waves are pulling me toward it and I see it as a small, but growing, shimmer of hope. As I get closer, I make out trees and rocks. Trees and rocks. That's it.

As I near the shore, a riptide pulls me under and rips me off the chair. I scream but it is muffled by the water. I cling on to my backpack for dear life. I somehow escape and swim to the sandy shore.

I crawl onto the beach and can just make out a faint lifeboat on the horizon. The sound of Kaitlyn screaming my name echoes in my mind. I collapse on the warm sand, and fall asleep, still holding my backpack in my arms.