Enna pushed her hair back from her face with a small sigh, rolling over and attempting to fall asleep once more. She hadn't known what had woken her from the peaceful dream she had been having, but she supposed it was the gentle rocking of the boat.
She closed her eyes once more, the gentle rushing of the waves against the metal a strange, yet somehow soothing lullaby. It was gradually getting closer, louder, and it was then she realised that had been what had woken her.
Standing up and throwing the blankets back, she rushed over to the window and pulled open the port hole. A wave of salty water met her cold, sleep-worn face and she gasped, stumbling back into the room and slamming the port hole shut once more.
Then it hit her. The boat was sinking! The unsinkable boat, the indestructible boat, she had read about in the newspaper was actually sinking. And she would die if she didn't do something.
Enna grabbed her coat and rushed into the corridor, loosely tying her long hair into a haphazard ponytail as she did so. Many passengers were pushing past her, desperately trying to escape the sinking hull, women screaming, children crying, men shouting. It was the sound of it that made her snap into action.
She ushered a woman and her child up the flight of stairs and onto the deck, tugging two men behind her and pushing them in front of herself. The life boats were almost full, but, being a first class passenger, she knew she would have a seat.
Picking up a small child – whose mother had already boarded the boat – and handing the small boy to his mother, she made to climb in after herself, but the sound of a baby's yells broke through the screaming and the crying and the shouting.
Looking around frantically for the source of the noise, she quickly found the baby, on top of the deck above and just in her reach. Yet the boat was being lowered and she had to leap into the air to grab the child, holding it tightly to her chest and weeping openly.
The boat was only inches away, and if she was able to hand the baby off to one of the passengers, it would live. She almost cried with relief when the passenger below her offered her arms for the small child, smiling up at her and watching her intently.
"Look after him!" she shouted, passing the baby off and whirling around to look for more people that she could maybe save. It seemed almost everybody who could get aboard was aboard, yet when she turned and made to get back in the boat, it was gone and in the water, the baby's cries for his mother ringing out.
It was silent now, as the boat sank deeper and deeper. Enna clung to the railing, not daring to make a noise, yet tears still ran down her cheeks.
She knew she would not live. She knew this was her end. But she couldn't help but search the deck for her father, knowing full well that he would be on one of the boats, and he was going to be rescued. Relief flooded through her when she spotted three of the lifeboats grouping together, and one of them was running about all three boats shouting, in a very familiar voice, "Enna! Enna! Where are you? Enna!"
Her mother darted through the boats, screaming for her, the only sound breaking through the silence. Tears spilled relentlessly still down her cheeks, sobs wracking her small, fifteen-year-old frame. "Enna!"
"Mum!" she shouted, without thinking, leaning over the rail as more tears slinked down her face. Her mother whirled around to face the ship, sobbing and screaming. "I love you!"
"No – no – my baby! Enna!" shrieked her mother, almost leaping forward into the water. And then her father appeared behind her mother, grabbing her around the waist and meeting Enna's eyes with a resigned face. "ENNA!"
The boat began to tip, the starboard side raising high in the air. Enna clung to the rail, sobbing as she watched her father. Her cyan eyes met her father's dazzling green one last time in the night, and she couldn't pry her eyes away from her sobbing mother. "I love you!" she shouted one more time, letting the water drag over her face and into her lungs.
"ENNA!"
Alfie bolted up in bed, sweating. He hadn't been having many dreams lately, but this one had been there, always on repeat. He wouldn't have been alive if it weren't for that young girl on that boat, who had died a hero's death in a watery graveyard.
He had been on the Titanic when he was a toddler, and he vaguely remembered a loud voice screaming near his head, "ENNA!" the voice had shrieked, over and over, and this was how he knew his saviour's name.
Enna had risked her own life to save him, he thought as he pushed the blankets back, the sweat dousing his body sticking the sheets to him. "Mum?" he shouted down the stairs.
After the ship had sunk, he couldn't remember being reunited with his mother. He hadn't. But a woman named Annalisa had adopted him. He had been calling her 'Mum' since he was three, and he wouldn't stop now, because that was what she was to him.
His saviour had been the bravest person he ever knew, he decided as he perched himself on the windowsill, feeling slightly sick as he remembered the way she had met her end, so young. But, with her age, it was mind-blowing that she was so brave.
"How is it up there?" he murmured to the sky, searching the clouds for her face, even when he knew it wouldn't be up there. "Thank you, Enna, thank you so much."
So... this was kind of depressing. But I watched Titanic the other day, and I was watching this girl in the background who COULDN'T have been older than sixteen helping people into the boats and then I cane up with the names and plot and BAM! we have a story.
Just to be clear, this is just a one-shot. Nothing more. I'm a 'little' bit nervous about this, because I've never really written a tradgedy before, apart from Not Quite, and I don't really count that as depressing. It's just sad. Oh, and I wanted you to all know that I WILL definitely be updating 'Second Chances', but it is on temporary hiatus, because I have a writer's block for that story.
Love,
Marlene