The End of Everything

Row

Thia's POV

It was pouring rain. Not the kind where you get soaked and can deal with it, but the kind where it's a torrent of water slamming into you on all sides. Thankfully we'd made progress. A good amount in fact. By Leah's calculation we were somewhere in Florida. Once we reached the coast line we'd have to figure out a way to cross the Atlantic to Algeria and from there to Italy. It was still a very long trip.

"How close are we to the coastline?" Andy yelled over the rattling thunder. His hair was plastered to his face in all sorts of directions.

"A mile or two!" Leah responded, having gotten ahold of a map from a local not long ago but the ink was beginning to run.

"What are we doing when we get their?" I asked, nearly slipping in the mud. Lashing out I gripped the closest thing for support which only reopened the deep wounds on my hands. "Agh! Crap."

"Easy." Leah worriedly examined the blood soaked bandages that were beginning to fall off of my hands. "We can't cross the ocean with weather like this."

"We're going to have to. We don't have a lot of time, look." Andy pointed back the way we had come. In the very far distance it looked like a gigantic cloud of smog had built up. "The darkness is spreading."

"Right." Nodding I pushed aside the growing pain in my palms and began a slow jog towards the coast. Leah followed close behind, mud encasing her boots and halfway up her legs. Andy staggered in front nearly slipping on more than one occasion.

Lightning cracked overhead and struck a tree off to the right. I could taste the iron in the air. Leah yelped bolting in the other direction.

"Kid, your grandpa better not be trying to kill us." Andy glowered, glancing at the smoldering remnants of the tree.

"I don't know what he does. It wouldn't be the first time he's tried to get rid of his family." This didn't seem to comfort them but determination set in and I pushed on. At last we stumbled upon the sandy coastline where the waves roared in anger.

"Are you fucking kidding me? What are we supposed to do with this?" Leah asked, gesturing angrily at the ocean. As if in response a large swell of water crashed onto the nearby rocks.

Andy picked up a stick and hurled it angrily into the water. "This is a bunch of bullshit. How are we supposed to fix this? Can't the Gods at least help us out a little?"

"Both of you shut up!" It wasn't in my nature to snap but they were grating on my nerves. "Complaining isn't going to fix this. You see that over there? Someone's abandoned their boat. They didn't even tie it down. It's just out in the water, we can swim to it."

"This is borderline hurricane weather, Thia." Leah shook her head in disbelief spotting the small sailboat out on the water. "I'm not going out there."

"It's not a choice." Tossing off my back pack I slipped out of my tattered shirt and tore it into strips sitting in the sand and setting to work. In less than a minute I had a long strip of fabric. "We'll use this to stay together and fight the current."

Grabbing Andy by the arm I tied it tightly around his wrist, then Leah's, and attached it to the back of my back pack. Slipping the backpack on I dragged the two of them into the water.

The waves were as unforgiving as they looked. Diving in I was nearly knocked back onto the shore but gritting my teeth I dug my feet into the sand beneath the water.

At every turn or movement water slammed into us. It was almost impossible to breath without inhaling some of the salty liquid. It made your eyes and lungs burn like they were set ablaze.