The sky was dark and gloomy overhead, lightning occasionally flashing, shedding brief amounts of white light in my cabin. I could see the lightning illuminate the body of my friend that was messing with her footage on the bunk below mine. The small metal room creaked as the entire boat shifted in the gloomy storm. For some reason, I had an uneasy feeling and I had a notion that it was coming from the storm and our approach towards an uncharted island. I glanced down at my best friend and smiled as I saw her messing with her expensive handheld camera.
"Sam," I said, pulling an earbud out. She didn't hear me, or at least was pretending not to hear me. I smirked. Typical Sam. I leaned over the edge of my bunk, feeling my ponytail fall down and swing with the sway of the ship. "Saaaam," I repeated, this time exaggerating a portion of her name.
Sam perked her head up this time. The light from the screen of her camera illuminated her features, highlighting her soft features, producing a shine on her ebony black hair. "Hey, Lara," Sam said, smiling back at me. Her American accent was very prominent next to my British one. Opposites attract, they say.
The smiles disappeared off of our faces in an instant. The entire room shifted to a completely different angle. I shrieked as I toppled onto the cold, metal floor. I was confused by the entire chain of events, but suddenly, I could feel the rush of adrenaline pushing me into react-mode. I realized that I was lying in three inches of rapidly rising water. I looked at Sam, seeing my own terror reflecting in her expression.
"Sam! We have to go!" I said, my voice shaking as I stood up, crouching slightly to avoid the salty spray of water shooting from a rip in the sheet of metal that was forming the wall of our cabin. I lunged out at Sam and grabbed her hand. It was shaking uncontrollably, but I gripped it tightly in my own, determined not to let go. I felt the shaking of her hand subside a little.
My sense of terror and dread grew, because by the time we reached the door of the cabin, the water was up to our ribs. The noise the boat and water made together was so loud that I barely heard Sam say, "We're going to die here."
I just looked at her, my attitude suddenly becoming resolute and determined not to let us die in this stupid box. I started beating my hands on the glass window in the door, trying to shatter the glass, but to no avail. "Help!" I shouted, Sam joining in with me.
The space for air was running scarily thing. We were treading in the water, trying to glean the remaining air from the small pocket of air. The rising water took away that small bit of relief. I took one last deep breath. We were trapped, rapidly running out of air.
My lungs ached, begging for air. I could feel myself, fading from consciousness. I was about to die. I looked at Sam in the salty water, not caring that it burned my eyes. We'd come so far and we were about to keel over, lost at sea. My vision went black. I was drowning.
Suddenly the glass shattered,muffled by the sound of the water around my ears. I fought to stay awake and I saw a hand reach down, gripping Sam's small arm and lifted her out of the water-logged room. I felt a hand come down on the clothes of my back, grabbing a handful and lifting me out. As soon as I came out of the water on the other side of the door, I took a gaping breath of air, the sudden burst of oxygen burning my deprived lungs.
I stood wearily to my feet, Sam joining me. "We're okay." She said, relieved. But, I had the feeling that we were not in the clear, not by a long shot. I found my hand gripped tightly in hers again. I starting running to where the exit was, not even looking back to see who had pulled us out of the room.
I came to a sudden halt, realizing the boat had managed to be torn in two. The other side of the boat was sinking into the dark, murky water, the edge of the almost fifteen feet away.
"Shit!" Sam cursed, looking at their predicament with growing frustration.
Suddenly, a familiar figure appeared on the ledge of the other boat. It was Roth.
"Roth!" I shouted, waving my free hand frantically. It was pointless, though. The boat gave a vibrating creak and then a sudden jerk. The shift sent Sam slipping off the precipice of the jagged edge of the boat. Sam screamed as she fell, her hand still firmly latched to mine, pulled me over along with her. My hand grabbed the edge of the metal just in time. I screamed out in pain as the weight of both myself and Sam pulled on the sockets of my arm. It felt like they were being ripped off of my body.
The water made my hands slick. I could feel Sam's iron grip slipping from my hand and I could feel my hand slipping from the only that was keeping us attached to the sinking boat. I tried to pull us up, but I just didn't have the strength to pull up with only my hand, especially my left hand.
"Lara! Hold on!" I heard someone shout. It was Roth. But it was too late. My hand slipped from the metal and we plummeted into the dark, turbulent waters. The waves pulled me down, but refused to let go of Sam's hand this time.
The lightning illuminated the destructive waves. I felt my body sinking lower into the water under the influence of the current, but the willpower to survive was greater than the oppressive flow of water. I kicked against the water, propelling myself towards the surface, pulling Sam with me. When we surfaced, I coughed up a mouthful of nasty sea water and I could see Sam having a similar problem.
As we treaded water, Sam drew closer to me as we looked around as the lightning briefly displayed our surroundings. "It looks like the Titanic… all ripped in half," Sam said, her tone was depressing. I could tell by her tone of voice that she was distressed about the fact that our boat had just been torn in two and we were now stranded on an island. I could see the afraid, scared, lost expression on my best friend's face and it killed me on the inside. It had been my idea to come here and it was my fault that we were now shipwrecked.
I tugged on Sam's hand, "C'mon. I think there's a beach over there." I said, letting go of Sam's hand to be able to swim in the ocean properly. Sam followed me, but she was definitely a better swimmer than I and made it to the beach before I did.
We dragged our soaked, exhausted bodies onto the sandy shore. Debris littered the small shore, apparently from many wreckages over the years. It was actually the first time that I had taken a chance to examine my surrounding area well, with the sporadic flashes of lightning only giving us small glances as an insight. From what I could gather, we weren't the first ship to crash here. I could see an all galleon, turned over it side, worn by the weather of the island. I couldn't tell too much about anything else, it was too dark.
I noticed Sam moved and I followed her line of sight. I could see movement on a sort of cliff and I realized it was the rest of our crew. "Jonah! Reyes! Help us!" I shouted, but it was useless. The rain and pounding of the ocean were overpowering my voice.
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain on the back of my skull. I found myself falling into the damp sand, looking at Sam. She was falling too. My vision blurred and I hit the ground with a solid thud. Everything faded to black.