Thea clings to her father's jacket, almost falling over as The Queen's Gambit rocks and shudders beneath their feet.
"Get the raft!", her father shouts at a nearby crew member. She's almost surprised when the man hears him. Through the sounds of rain on the deck and waves against the hull, Thea can hardly hear herself think.
Her father drags her to the back of the boat, following the man. At the stern, they scramble to unpack the raft and unroll it, then push it into the water. The crewman gets in first, and Thea's father passes her to him, before jumping in himself.
The waves toss the raft far from The Queen's Gambit, as it creaks and groans and shudders apart behind them. Thea starts to cry.
~~oO0Oo~~
It doesn't really register to Thea how little food they have until she notices the grimace on the crewman's face when she gets hungry enough to take a portion for herself. She looks back at the box. It looks full enough, but she knows how division works, and she realizes there's only about three portions left for each of them. At home that would've been a day; even now, it's less than a week. She stares at the man and puts back the one she's holding. He looks away.
"She needs it more than you do," her father says. His voice croaks and catches in his throat. It sounds painful.
He hands the biscuit back to her, and strokes her hair. "Go ahead," he murmurs. But she can't bring herself to eat it.
'It's gross anyway,' she thinks, and pockets it so her father doesn't see.
The next day, he tries to give Thea another portion. She refuses, thinking of the one in her pocket. The lines in his face seem to deepen, and he turns to the crewman. There is murder in his eyes, in his hands, in the gun in his jacket which he pulls on the man.
Thea shrieks. The man has a hole in his forehead; he slumps over the edge of the raft and falls into the ocean. 'Why would Dad do that?' She pushes herself as far as she can from her father, afraid.
"You can survive this," he croaks, "You'll survive this, I'll make sure of it."
She decides her father must have gone insane. It's the only explanation. She blocks out her father's voice and makes her biscuit last as long as possible, nibbling carefully on the edges. She doesn't want to have to go over to the box of food, near her father. He might try to kill her too.
~~oO0Oo~~
Thea wakes up to her father's face. He's holding something.
"Dad..." she mutters. His presence is comforting, but wrong somehow. Suddenly she remembers, the crewman, the murder in the gun, the hole in his head. She tries to scramble away, but she can barely lift her head, and her vision is spinning, and her face aches. He says something, but she can't seem to hear it over the pounding in her head. There's something pressed against her lips, with water. She opens her mouth and lets it pour in, but there's only a little before it goes away.
She grabs after it, and it comes back. She gets a little more water before it goes again. A few sips later, the pounding has receded a bit, and she passes out.
~~oO0Oo~~
To her relief, the next time Thea wakes, her father is back across the raft. The box of food and the bottles of water, though, have moved over to her side. She grabs one of the bottles and chugs it, emptying half before puking into the ocean. She tries again, more slowly this time, only taking a few careful sips.
She examines the box, counting out the remaining food. Eight portions. Taking into account the biscuit Thea's been nibbling on, that means her father hasn't eaten at least since before he shot the crewman. She looks up. He seems to be sleeping. She could pass him some food now, but... he'd moved it over to her side, given it all to her. And it's not like the raft is very big. If he needed it he could get some.
'He said he wanted me to survive,' she reasons to herself.
~~oO0Oo~~
Thea swallows the last bite of the last portion. A single near-empty water bottle sits at her side, the rest, drained for every last drop, lie in a pile beside the food box. She hasn't seen her father come over since the box was moved, but one of the portions disappeared several days ago, so he must've eaten at least. He's been asleep for a while.
'Maybe,' Thea thinks, 'I can get the gun away from him while he's sleeping.' She crawls around the box and the bottles, and across the raft. She crawls right next to her father, and reaches into his jacket and finds the gun. She looks at her father's face, to make sure he's still asleep. His skin looks so dry, it's even blistered in spots, and his eyes are sunken in, but closed, still closed. He's not breathing, she notices abruptly.
She flinches back, hugging the gun to her chest, eyes wide. 'He's dead.' She starts to cry. Her face turns red, and tears are shed, and Thea can't think of anything except how no one's come to hug her and tell her "It's gonna be alright." She's alone now, all alone.
'I'm gonna die here,' she can't help but think.
~~oO0Oo~~
Thea finishes off the last of the water.
She's alone, and drifting, and there's nothing left to do except stare at the horizon. Really, she just wants to curl up into a ball, but she positions her head to see over the edge of the raft, just in case.
Eventually, Something green and far away appears. It's small, but it grows as the raft floats closer, until she can see that it's land.
'Land,' she thinks. But she can't even bring herself to smile.