"Swim swim swim! We got to get out of here." Precious oxygen escapes Samuel's mouth as he screams for me to swim faster against the crushing waves of the merciless ocean. Half the arm size means half the force I am able to exert to propel myself in the tide. I stop anyways turning to look at the S.S Montgomery floating away. I gasp in horror as a wave gains speed past us, cracking the exterior of the boat. Under the mass weight of water, my ship I grew up with, began to sink.
Trying to hold in my sadness I twirl around to catch the sodden blue clumps of Sams hair vanishes under the remainder of the wave. Bracing myself I relax, allowing the water to carry my sodden carcass instead of dragging me into its depths. Peering through the torrents of pelting rain I struggle to swim back to where I last saw him.
"Sammy?" The wind rips my words to shreds as the howling picks up. I Shout louder in the intensifying storm as panic swells in my gut.
"Sammy?" I cry again into the approaching night. My motivation for swimming so long in this hail storm was beginning to dissipate. We should never have gone out on the boat tonight. Papa had warned me that bad things happen when Sam was around, but how could I resist when my long lost brother I haven't seen in forever sneaks in through my window and bribed me out of the house while my family was working the graveyard shift.
"Marcy? Marcy?" Sam's voice drifts through the wind. Closing my eyes against the last second of sunlight I choose the direction I believed his voice was coming from.
A large cold feeling crasp my shoulder, guiding me softly to my right. Glancing around I wipe the salt water from my eyes. The rain let up enough to allow me see about two feet in front of me in the dark. Twirling around in the water I expected to see Samuel's bright blue eyes. Instead I am alone.
No one in the vast area of the ocean. Risking my balance in the water I reach back to touch one shoulder blade. An ice cold burning sensation tinged my fingers as I rip my hand away from my body to catch myself in the wave.
"Sammy!" I holler again, the wind halting long enough for the sound wave to travel. Close enough to him, I spot Sammy struggling to stay upright. Spitting out the salty water I use my precious reserve energy to paddle over, one hand in front of the other. "Sam, turn around." Kicking him in the water he whips around taking me in, wide eyed in relief.
"Oh thank the Gods I thought you were gone." Choking out the words he glances back into the black nothingness. Our reunion is short lived, we are still lost at sea in the dark, still fighting through the remaining storm.
"what do we do now?" I whisper trying to block out the sound of lapping waves. Without the sun the water temperature began to drop. Even with the sweltering summer heat we risk hypothermia if we don't get out of the frigid water soon. "Sam answer me. I did not fight threw twenty foot waves for you to not respond." Frustrated by his lack of response I kick him in the leg again.
"I'm thinking! I don't know!" Anger singes his voice under his panic. Samuel never was good under pressure but I did not think anything of it till I was neck deep in salt water with no land insight.
"Which way did we come in from? Aren't you supposed to have fisherman instincts or something?" I grapple for familiarities for him to snap something into place in his mind.
"If I had Sailors instinct we wouldn't be in this mess now now would we." The rippling water is my only indication that Samuel took off swimming away from me.
"Where are you going?" I spit out a mouth full of water trying to keep up with him. My aching arms were beginning to lose feeling as I splash around blind following the sound of Samuel's flesh hitting water.
Sunlight gone, full moon, a sky littered with stars, and the end of a storm. If I gave up now and floated on my back until I freeze to death, this would be the way to go. Samuel obviously did not care whether I followed him or not. As his sister, I feel a little offended that he did not care enough about my well being to stay close to me in the dark vast Pacific Ocean. The one time I see him in two years and he leaves me to drown.
"Samuel! Gosh Dammit. Answer me!"
No sound but the waves respond to my cry.
"Sammy?"
Nothing. Panic blossoms in my chest at the thought of losing him again even if he did not care about me. I still worry about him. The moonlight isn't strong enough to make out his electric blue hair.
Without the reassurance of Sam, I really do give up. Relaxing I lay on my back to float, allowing the cold water to carry me.
"Sam? Sam? Sam?" I yell in that annoying voice children do when they holler for their mothers. "Sam! You bastard! How dare you abandon me again!" I shout louder into the void hoping he'd hear me, hoping he'll regret swimming away.
The longer I shout into the night the colder I got. The colder I got the more the idea of sleep appeals to my conscious. I close my eyes to the stars floating aimlessly on my back. I was wrong when I though the water couldn't get any colder. A wave about, five feet high, surges towards me like the one that separated me and Sam during the storm sweeping my sodden body away. Every numb nerve ending alights with ice fire. A shock fills me with adrenaline as I stay wide awake.
Unlike any other wave I've encountered it keep up its momentum. As relaxed as possible I balanced on the water not moving so I'd keep afloat. The freezing water dissolves leaving the ocean temperature a little bit warmer. Flipping over, I spin in a slow circle. A flicker of light catches my attention in the dark. Light means people.
Running on adrenaline I swim towards the light source as fast as my frozen limbs will carry me. Peering through the darkness as I approach I spot the stranger, alone on an island bank, armed with a torch.
Die on water or die on dry land, crosses my mind at the real possibility that this loner could be a psychopath ready to chop me up. Self-preservation overwhelm my fight or flight instinct as I decide to chance it. Exhausted I swim closer, my strength ebbing on the final stretch.
Relief floods through me as I step onto the soft sandy beach in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere along the way I had lost my sandals. Without the support of the water my exhausted body collapses under my weight.
The world fades as I stare up at the source of the light. A boy my age with pure white shaggy hair frowns down at me, extinguishing his torch with a gloved hand.
YOU ARE READING
Fire
Dla nastolatkówMarcy has been sheltered all her life, or that's what David called it. When a mysterious storm destroys her and her brothers fishing boat Marcy is thrown into a world that existed right under her nose. Little did she know trouble was stirring in the...
