Dying Fire

ALTERNATE ENDING

|| Taking place on the rescue boat after Deep Water Horizon explosion. At role call of survivors ||

"Caleb Holloway." Jimmy called from his attendance list to make sure that he had made it out alive.

With a broken voice, Caleb rose his hand like the others had. "Here!"

Immediately, Mike had turned and looked in his direction. In a panic, he was scaling the deck as Mr. jimmy continued to attend to the rest of his crew.

"Caleb." Mike panted getting to his side. "Caleb are you okay?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Are you?" Looking at Mike, Caleb was confused at why he was caring so much. "What happened to you?"

Mike just shook his head. "That doesn't matter, where's Cat?"

Cat.

"Cat..." Caleb let the name fall off his lips.

Looking at the top of Caleb's head, mike touched the gash on the top and pulled away seeing the blood dripping from it. He was hit in the head, and it looked like he was hit pretty hard.

He didn't remember her.

Caleb didn't remember anything.

"Cat.." he breathed again looking around. "Oh my god, mike- Cat!" His eyes got wider. "She was with me at the top, we- we had to jump! We were in the water! I-"

"Cathleen Rhodes?" Jimmy's voice called out. For this name, he showed a little emotion with it.

Then, pushing through as much pain as he could, Mr. jimmy looked up for the first time calling names. Everyone was silent, listening, waiting for her to claim that she was here. However, the silence drug on forever. Mike and Caleb paced through everyone, searching the injured, but Cat was nowhere to be found.

She wasn't on the upper deck, she wasn't with the injured, cat wasn't on the rescue boats, and she sure as hell still wasn't on the rig.

Caleb remembered jumping with her, that much he knew.

"CAT?!" Mike screeched looking around for his childhood friend.

She didn't call back though. There was no response, no cry for help.

Cat was in the water somewhere- Caleb was the one that had left her behind.

Feeling his chest grow heavy, Caleb called out her name too.

Eventually however, the list had to carry on. Jimmy had to make sure of who else on his crew they lost.

That didn't sit right with mike. Her name was in the deceased column, a group of men and women that weren't going home.

His whole world came to a stop.

No cat. Could cat really be dead?

It was his fault. He pulled her out from underneath her beat up mustang, he convinced her to take the job for the weekend and to get on that helicopter, mike brought her down to the engine room and left her there alone, and he let the rescue team take him and Jimmy back to the ship safe and sound. 

He should have stayed.

Mike should have stayed with her.

Now everything was ruined. She wouldn't be able to finish her engine, or go back home to her dog, or help her neighbor cook out for the baseball team dinners, or change that tire on the old woman's retired farm truck down the street.

Mike never fully appreciated Cat until she was gone.

Now that she was, it didn't feel real 

The man leaned against the railing of the ship in a broken manner. Beside him, Caleb did the same. "I'm so sorry Mike." He whispered. "I was with her, I should have-"