Queen of the Ashes

Study on the seas

The group worried pretty quickly to get a rickety shelter up, it would definitely do for tonight but we would have to improve it for a long term. We all sandwiched together huddled for warmth. The final count was nineteen survivors a mere ⅖ of those who set out with study on the seas.

Study on the seas had promised to be the semester of a lifetime, six weeks of learning everything about the ocean. Geography, biology, classical literature such as 20,000 leagues, if it had to do with the big blue sea you would learn it. It also promised to be a culturally immersive experience porting at six different places along the way, one for each weekend. We left home just over two weeks ago. The crash was Monday night, no would notice we were gone until Saturday morning when we should have made port. That is unless the radio S.O.S. had made it through the storm. I looked up at the star filled sky, not one cloud since I woke up on that beach.

My eyes drifted from the sky down to the cold red bars my hands rested on, I was back on deck. I tightly gripped the bars with one hand whipped around to take in my surroundings. Rylee and Amelia we're walking back inside the dining room, Amelia said something to Rylee as they passed through the doors that made her throw her head back laughing. I turned from them, looking across deck at Megan and Lucy sitting under a blanket on a bench, giggling to themselves. I let go of the rail and ran over to them.

"Oh my god, Megan, your..." I stuttered but Lucy cut me off by shushing me.

"Megan's played a prank." She whispered mischievously.

"You have?" I turned my eyes to Megan who grinned back at me.

"Sit with us." She patted next to her on the bench. "I'll tell you about it." Slowly I sat down beside them. "I've never liked sailing but I love beaches. I heard Mrs. Ellis arguing with the captain." She twirled her blonde locks in her fingers as she spoke. "Ellis was saying 'an interesting place, totally new island.' But the captain didn't want to go there said that it wasn't on the course and he didn't want to run into smugglers. Mrs Ellis kept circling on the map and say over and over, 'we need to go'; the captain said he had never heard of it. They kept arguing and walked out of the room and I may have helped out our dead teacher. This is a learning experience, right?"

"So we are off course right now?" I could hear the panic in my voice as it raised. Lucy shoves her hand over my mouth and shushed me again. "When did you do this!?" I whispered.

"At least ten hours ago." She shrugged. I stood up and walked toward the railing looking out over the dark waves. Lucy placed her hand on mine.

"Do you hear it?" She whispered. I closed my eyes and distant thunder roared in the distance. "How many miles away is it?" A flash in the distance lit up the horizon revealing a shadowy mass; the island. Several drops of water splashed onto my face. "Storms coming."

"He's coming." Megan corrected. I turned to look at her, she was standing on top of the railing, barely balancing as the boat entered rougher waters.

"Megan get down, what are you doing?" Lucy ran towards her twin sister. Dark green tendrils crept up the railing towards them. Megan lost he balance and grabbed Lucy's arm, her other arm extended off the boat.

"I'm fine silly Lucy." She laughed. Suddenly one of the green tentacles grabbed her outstretched arm and squeezed until she screamed. "Help me sissy!" Lucy pulled Megan towards her and wrapped her arms around her sisters neck.

"I got you Megs." She stared in horror as one of the tentacles ripped through the back of her sisters skull and protruded through her mouth. Lucy's blood curdling scream pierced through the night as her sisters blood splayed towards me. Rain began pouring, rinsing Megan's blood from the deck. I ran towards the dining room, before I closed the door behind me I watched as a green tentacle wrapped around Lucy's leg and pulled her off the deck.

I turned my head away from the door and looked into the nearly deserted dining room. Where were Rylee and Amelia? The boat lunged and groaned throwing dining tables across the room and sending me tumbling towards the floor. My ears rang so loud it drowned out the screams for help coming from the corridor beyond the dining room. I held my bloodied head and tried to steady my dizziness and blurred vision. Slowly the world came back into focus.

I limped over to the exit towards the sleeping cabins; I needed to find my friends. As soon as I opened the door a thick, coppery smell hit my lungs with a stomach turning slap. I couldn't help myself to look beyond. I knew what the smell was but morbid curious need drove me to look anyways. Bodies lined the hallway. Some whole but most in chunky pieces of the person they once were. Blood painted the floor and halls, dripping from exposed pipes above in clotted, viscous strands. Immediately I vomited.

I turned away from the grisly scene and staggered back to the deck. Rain and wind pounded against the deck making it almost impossible to see through the storm. Somewhere ahead I heard my name. "Blair! This way." A small beam of light waved around not far from me. I arrived at the railing to find Lucy standing on the other side. At barely six inches wide I had no idea how she was balancing there without falling into the black, tumultuous waters below.

"What are you doing Lucy?!" I screamed.

"It's time to go. You know you've done this before." She said turning her back to my to face the open, angry sea. "We are near the island now." She lifted her foot to step forward.

"NO!" I gripped her shoulder to pull her back towards the railing. "The crash already happened this can't be real!"

"Reality is relative to what you believe, remember that." She said looking back at me as she pulled my hand off her shoulder and fell out of my sight into the ocean below.

I shot up from sleep and looked around gasping. In the moonlight I could see the other girls sleeping soundly in our makeshift shelter. Not all of us were though, across the way at the shore of the bank I could see Lucy standing still, staring dead ahead at the waterfall.