Day: 19

Still not rescued.

I don't allow myself to wake up, even as I feel my skin start to heat up and I know I should scoot into the big rock's shade to keep from burning. I don't possess the energy to do anything but be carried away by a dark, amorphous dream. In my dream, my skeleton calcifies into the ground. I'm alive, but I can't move. It's not terribly bothersome; the position is relaxing.

I spend an unquantifiable length of time in my dream floating like a piece of driftwood down a lazy river, being someone who isn't concerned that she'll wake up to find her sole friend and confidante dead.

A drop of liquid splashes onto my forehead. Another drop lands in my eyelashes – I twitch away, rubbing my face. For one completely illogical moment I think someone's crying over me. No – I chalk that notion up to my flare for the dramatic.

I sit up in a haze, groggily taking in my surroundings. The typical heated sunshine isn't baking my skin like usual. The sky is brimming with heavy clouds, gray and ungainly and hanging over us like an axe.

It's raining.

I allow my mouth to fall open, tilting my head back. A drop slips into my mouth, which is so parched that the water burns an acid trail down my esophagus.

Then another drop, and another. The sprinkling of moisture falling from the sky is light, but it's cold and refreshing. Every new drop is comparable to drinking an arcane elixir – electrifying, invigorating and forcing me to feel alive.

"Wake up, Miranda."

"I'm awake," Miranda responds in wonder. She pushes herself up from her sleeping position, stretching a hand out. A raindrop falls into it. More drops dot her hair, then a torrent falls into her lap. The rain is thickening, coming down heavy and fat until it's a downpour.

A smattering of crinkles erupts around us as weight-burdened rainclouds shrug off their loads and the drops patter into Miranda's labyrinth of plastic bags.

A pool of lukewarm water accumulates in my palms when I cup them. I pour the water between my cracked lips, gulping it down and following up with a moan. A hum of appreciation radiates from Miranda. Her head is tilted back, throat moving up and down as she drinks from a hunk of scrap metal currently doubling as a bowl.

The hourglass holding the last grains of sand of our lives turns over, resetting the clock. We can keep going longer – long enough for another plane to cross our paths and notice us down here, maybe. Miranda's eyes are wide and blood-shot, stuck in a permanent state of disbelief even as she sips. I take another drink and laugh. Miranda's gaze shoots to mine. Her lips are pursed, but slowly... very slowly... her lips slide into a smirk. We've cheated the island out of our deaths for now; it'll have to wait longer if it wants to claim our souls.

The Devil Wears Prada

Hours later, the rain is still pouring down on our heads and it doesn't look like it plans on stopping. The entire sky is a load of dark clouds brimming with storm; not a blue patch in sight. Thunder booms, too, though there is no lightning that we can determine.

Miranda and I help each other scrabble up the rock that juts over camp, dragging the big sheet of what used to be part of the plane's wing along with us. Miranda props one end up with the pointy stick that she'd failed to spear fish with, allowing us to fall prone to our bellies beneath a shelter. Raindrops plunk relentlessly onto the metal overhead. Miranda purses her lips down at our flooded camp; the island is ankle-deep in water.

"We should use the lighter to make a fire tonight," she says. "We shouldn't go to sleep wet."

"I'm not gonna argue against that."

The Devil Wears Prada

"Could I find it in the ocean?"

"Typically," Miranda confirms, face neutral. I suspect that she's annoyed that I narrowed it down so much with my first question. Well too bad for her, because I'm awesome at this game.

"Is it bigger than a car?"

Miranda's blue eyes narrow in contemplation. "It could be bigger or smaller, depending on how much is massed together."

"Is it... an island?"

"No." Miranda looks scandalized.

The rain is a slow drip, lighter and airy. The sky is still stormy, but the sun is shining determinedly through the cracks between the clouds. Miranda and I are still flat on our stomachs, lying on top of the rock and safely beneath the propped up shelter, waiting it out. Our camp is still more of a swamp then solid ground.

"Is it alive?"

Miranda shrugs. "Technically, I suppose. If you call that a life..."

"Is it something I can eat?" I ask carefully.

"You probably have at some point, albeit without realizing it."

"Plankton!"

"What? How did you guess so quickly?"

"The answers you give me are way too detailed, you gotta tone it down. Yes or no only."

"I give interesting answers. Your robot answers bore me."

"That's how you're supposed to play."

"Those rules bore me. They should bore anyone with an intelligent mind."

"Urgh."

"What type of word is that?" Miranda says, appalled.

"Urgh." I bury my head in my arms. It's the only appropriate vocabulary word I have to respond to that question.

The Devil Wears Prada

I hold up the wing section as Miranda removes the stick that is propping it up. I gently allow the hunk of metal to slide and scrape gracelessly down the rock, plunking one end into the flooded ground with the other end still leaning on the lower part of the rock.

The rain is no more. The lowest parts of the island, however, are under a foot of water. The beach is gone altogether, eaten up by the sea which is marching steadily inland.

All we have to do is wait.

The Devil Wears Prada

Hours drag on. The water level reaches two feet, even though it's not raining. Weird, but whatever. It'll go down eventually.

I beat Miranda twice at twenty questions, needing less than ten questions for each winning guess (Amelia Earhart and lasagna). We argue on how healthy lasagna is and once again debate Miranda's answering technique.

It's surprisingly agreeable, sitting here together on top of a boulder and talking. Maybe it's because there's nowhere for Miranda to slouch off to when she feels like she's reached her conversation quota for the day.

I think Miranda might have a quota for eye contact too. Urgh.

The Devil Wears Prada

It happens out of nowhere.

The day is nearing sunset. I'm thirsty again, but all of Miranda's plastic bags are still strung up on tree branches. Miranda buttons her coat as a powerful wind rips through her white hair. My hair flares out like a fan is facing it and set on high.

One moment the water is holding at two feet, the next a dozen waves crash into our habitat, and our safety rock is surrounded by water on all sides.

The seawater is at least five feet and rising. Green seaweed floats in chunks at the surface. The lightest scraps of wreckage that Miranda had collected are floating, banging against each other.

"Why is this happening?" Miranda demands.

"It's going to go back down, right?" I ask, already knowing that Miranda can't possibly have that answer.

She shakes her head, uncertain. "The rain stopped. I don't understand this."

"Maybe this doesn't have any connection to the rain," I say with dawning comprehension.

This isn't rain, I realize. It's the tide. The tide has swallowed up this island little by little, day by day. We always took notice of it, after all. We just never paid any mind to it.

I thought of the lack of bugs, the sparse vegetation, the way all the leaves were plentiful at the tops of trees but scarce at the bottom branches... the smooth bark that roughened as it got higher up the trunk.

The pieces fit together so perfectly, I can't believe we didn't realize before. We asked the right questions, but never pondered too hard when we couldn't figure out the answers. Miranda and I were too busy surviving.

Miranda meets my gaze with a hard look. Her face no longer possesses the pale, smooth skin of her past. Her cheeks are sunken in, tanned from the sun and rough from sleeping on the ground. She's
survived by adapting the best she could. I don't know how she's going to make it through this one, though, or if I can make it either.

This is the type of island that's sometimes there and sometimes isn't. The kind that cartographers don't concern themselves with marking down on their maps.

The tide is rising, coming to swallow this island whole.

I feel a squeeze on my bicep. It's Miranda's hand gripping my arm like a vice. She has that demeanor swirling around her that I hate with all my soul: grim acceptance. Like this is our rightful fate to be washed away after surviving for so long. She has refused to accept any notion of us being rescued, and today she is proven correct.

This can't be the end. There has to be something we can do.

A scraping noise pulls my attention behind us. The wing section is still leaning against our rock; the bottom end is starting to bob with the buoyancy of the sea level, grinding the top end against the rock.

"Miranda, look! We can use this as a raft."

"Why?" Miranda's voice cracks.

"Why?" My jaw drops. "Are you shitting me?"

"There's no point, Andrea." She gestures to the writhing waves. The ocean is still rising, no longer a calm flood but a thrashing temper tantrum. Her voice is tremulous. "There's nowhere to raft to. Nothing is out there. We're done."

"We can still make it!"

Miranda shakes her head sadly. "I can't believe that, Andrea. And I don't think you believe it, either. Not truly."

"After everything you've done to survive? Now you're quitting?"

"Look around you–"

Miranda stutters to a halt as I grab her by the coat collar and slide off the jutting rock, dragging her struggling form with me. The pair of us crash into the water's surface with an enormous splash.

For a second I am underwater – I suck air into my lungs before realizing it's not air at all. Miranda's legs and arms are thrashing next to me, bubbles erupting everywhere from her flailing limbs. An open-mouthed fish darts away. My feet plant on solid ground.

I surface, gasping to clear the burning liquid from my lungs. Miranda's face is one of shock and terror. She's shorter than me and up to her neck in water.

"Hey, it's okay, c'mon." I flip the wing piece over so that the hollow interior is face-up. "Get in. Miranda, now."

I hold out my hand. She takes it.

I help Miranda clamber bodily onto the wing, splashing and dripping all the way. I scramble in after her.

I grab at a long flat strip of steel that's floating nearby. Miranda snags her sharp stick. Our makeshift raft undulates up and down.

"We need to get your water bags."

Miranda only hesitates a moment before giving me a sharp nod, knuckles whitening as she tightens her grip on her stick. The resistance that she had given me before is evaporated for now, for which I am grateful.

I dip the steel into the water, paddling forcefully. Miranda uses her hands on the other side, the stick much too thin to be of any use paddling. We make it to the first plastic bag before a wave crashes into us.

I sputter saltwater out of my nose and glance to my right. Miranda is clutching the bag triumphantly. Score.

We're nearly to the next bag when a wave rams into our back end, twisting us completely around.

"Dang it!"

"Just get us closer." Miranda leans over the water, stick in hand, stretching toward the bag. I know it's going to fail the second I look over and see a monstrous swell bear down on us.

Miranda
tips over – I grab her by the wrist, jerking her away from the edge as the pointy end of her stick pierces the plastic bag. The collected rainwater splashes uselessly into the ocean. Miranda chokes back a cry.

The waves that are slamming into the island are arriving larger and faster for every second we spend paddling toward the next bag.

The island is disappearing altogether. Our safety boulder is completely submerged.

Wham! A head of foam catches the raft, pushing us at least fifty feet. The plastic bag we were aiming for is also caught in the wave, ripping off of the tree branch from the force of it.

A softer crest catches us and Miranda and I drift helplessly away as we paddle fruitlessly against the current.

The few trees of the island poke from the water, like the ocean has sprouted a sparse garden of green shrubbery. Limp plastic bags float around them, abandoned.

The undulating waters fling us away from the watery grave the island used to occupy; with every wave that Miranda and I struggle to hold on for, the island shrinks away. The rocky mass itself is completely submerged along with the dozens of bodies we left behind, unless they were taken by the waves too.

It lies dormant, I imagine, but ominously so, like a spider waiting in a hole. The island lurks beneath the surface, jealous of the two lives it should have taken for itself.

Our lives belong to the churning ocean now.