Black Sea

This is a work in progress and any constructive criticism is appreciated. I really have no idea where I am going with this project but I will add to it on a weekly basis. Let me know what your thoughts are. I have decided after writing the previous comments that this is what I am calling free form writing; whatever comes to mind is what I write. I have absolutely no clue where this is going but I'm riding shotgun and it is going somewhere.

Chapter 1

Well that's it isn't it, the end of the world; doomsday.

I was supposed to be disembarking in sunny Falmouth, Jamaica today but instead I'm watching as my cruise liner sinks beneath the waves of an angry and boiling ocean. I'm under the assumption that I am the only survivor as all I see are empty life rafts dotting the surface of the sea and I see no signs of life above the waves.

Hell, I barely was able to clamber aboard the raft I am on now and my hold on life is tenuous at best.

This was supposed to be the best vacation I was to ever have, a trip I would remember for a lifetime my friends said and now this. I'm for the time being it seems the only survivor of a terrible disaster and I say for now because I'm most likely going to be the next victim when this raft overturns and sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Maybe that would be just as well though considering the guilt I will most likely feel later on after the shock wears off. "The only survivor of one of the worst maritime disasters in history," the papers would say; who needs that guilt? Certainly not me I must say.

The waves are immense and from sea surface level are quite frightening. I am at once lifted to what seems to be thirty feet or so in the air and then just as suddenly dropped and during those times all that is visible to me is a rising wall of water. Once I reach to crest of the wave I can see nothing but a writhing and churning sea that seems to have no end.

At the horizon sky and sea become one, melding into one malevolent beast with a gaping maw threating to swallow me and this tiny craft. My hold on life right now is tenuous and I keep thinking I should do something but what I have no idea.

I don't see anyone floating in the water, not even any bodies and the other life rafts seem to be empty. I don't know how that could be because there were at least twenty five hundred passengers aboard; there must be others who survived.

The captain had routed the ship around the storm but at the last minute it changed course and overtook us. The boat was capable of handling rough seas but all it took was one rogue wave and the boat capsized. I just remember being under water, it was pitch black and I could tell which way was up and which was down

Something had wrapped around my foot and I was unable to break free. The darkness surrounding me was the blackest of black and I struggled to free myself in the churning water. Finally I discovered my bedsheets had wrapped around my ankle and I was able to free myself.

I then remember feeling as if I was being pulled away by a very powerful rush of water and before I was aware of what was happening my head popped above the surface and I found myself surrounded by a roiling sea.

Several life rafts bobbed in the water around me so I swam to the nearest on and managed to climb aboard and so here I am. I feel as if I may have gone from the frying pan and straight into the fire but at least I am alive; I think.

After the divorce friends were quick to step in and offer me advice, mostly unwanted but I tried to be nice and smile and try to look like all was well and good with old Roger Littleton.

But all was not good with Roger Littleton. Outside I was all smiles but inside I was a bundle of shot nerves with my mind spinning into a deep, dark hole. I could barely eat what with the butterflies fluttering about inside my stomach.