Last Moments on the Titanic

Chapter 23-Am going back to first person from now on.

Me Jack and Rose clamber over the A-Deck aft rail. Jack using all of his manly strength, he lowers Rose toward the deck below, holding on with one hand. She dangles, then falls with a grunt. Jack helps me down then jumps down behind us.

We all join a crush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narrow stairs to the well deck... the only way aft. Jack climbs over the B-Deck railing and helps Rose and me over. He lowers her again, and she falls in a heap, I land next to her pulling my hair out of my face. Jack jumps down again, He hauls Rose to her feet, and grasps my hand. We crowd across the well deck. Near us, at the rail, people are jumping into the water. I gasped with fright, the ship groans and shudders under us. The man ahead of Jack is walking like a zombie. Really? At a time like this, he should be running for his life.

"Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death-"the man chants out loud.

"You wanna walk a little faster through that valley, fella?" Jack snapped, while pulling us behind him.

Me Rose and Jack struggle to climb the well deck stairs as the ship tilts. Drunk Baker Joughin puts a hand squarely on Rose's butt and shoves her up onto the deck.

"Sorry, miss!"

Hundreds of people are already on the poop deck, and more are pouring up every second. Me Jack and Rose cling together as we struggle across the tilting deck.

People are jumping from the well deck, the poop deck, the gangway doors. Some hit debris in the water and are hurt or killed. My heart was racing the whole time and even though I had Rose and Jack with me. I still felt alone.

Harry.

My heart ached at the memory of leaving him on the ship while I was in a lifeboat. I only hoped that he survived even If I don't. I only hope that he isn't too mad at me. and that he has a good life.

My baby. My daughter.

I only hope that she have a good life and whoever is with her now tells her about me when she grows up to be a beautiful young woman. I would never see her face her smile and most of all I would never see her again.

Me Jack and Rose struggle aft as the angle increases. Hundreds of passengers, clinging to every fixed object on deck, huddle on their knees around Father Byles, who has his voice raised in prayer. They are praying, sobbing, or just staring at nothing, their minds blank with dread.

Pulling himself from handhold to handhold, Jack tugs Rose and me aft along the deck.

"Come on. We can't expect God to do all the work for us."

We struggle on, pushing through the praying people. A man loses his footing ahead and slides toward them. Jack helps him.

I could see that the propellers are twenty feet above the water and rising faster. We tilted up higher in the air

We make it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. We gripped the rail, jammed in between other people.

It is the spot where Jack pulled her back onto the ship, just two nights... and when I found her on the floor with him hovering over her. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Above the wailing and sobbing, Father Byles' voice carries, cracking with emotion. "...and I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no longer."

The lights flicker, threatening to go out. Rose grips Jack as the stern rises into a night sky ablaze with stars. I closed my eyes tears threatening to spill.

Me and Rose stare about at the faces of the doomed. Near them are the Dahl Family, clinging together stoically. Helga looks at us briefly, and her eyes are infinitely sad.

She and Fabrizo had something going on. He's probably dead now. I felt so sad and scared. I wanted Harry with me.

Rose sees a young mother next to her, clutching her five year old son, who is crying in terror.

"Shhh. Don't cry. It'll be over soon, darling. It'll all be over soon."

"He shall wipe every tear from their eyes. And there shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away." Father Byles said staring in to the sky.

XXXX

As the sounds of the dying ship and the screaming people come across the water. The Titanic, her lights blazing, reflecting in the still water. Its stern is high in the air, angles up over forty five degrees. The propellers are 150 feet out of the water. Over a thousand passengers cling to the decks, looking from a distance like a swarm of bees. shocking, unbelieveable, unthinkable. Molly and Ruth stare at the spectacle, unable to frame it or put it into any proportion.

"God Almighty." Her breath comes out in gasps with cold air coming out of her mouth. The great liner's lights flicker.

XXXX

The stern goes up and up, past 45 degrees, then past sixty. People start to fall, sliding and tumbling. They skid down the deck, screaming and flailing to grab onto something. They wrench other people loose and pull them down as well. There is a pile-up of bodies at the forward rail. The Dahl Family falls one by one. We just manage to keep ourselves up, "Jack this is were we first met." Rose gasps in his arms. He looks at her for a brief moment with love and fear in his eyes, he kissed her head and pulled her close to him. I kept an arm around his and my other hand on the rail.

"We gotta stay on the ship as long as possible." He climbs over the stern rail and reaches back for Rose. She is terrified to move. He grabs her hand. "I Can't!" she shouted. "Come on! I've got you!"

Jack pulls her over the rail. It is the same place he pulled her over the rail two nights earlier, going the other direction. She gets over just as the railing is going horizontal, and the deck vertical. Jack grips my upper arms fiercely, and I go on to his right side while Rose is on his left.

The stern is now straight up in the air... a rumbling black monolith standing against the stars. It hangs there like that for a long grace note, its buoyancy stable. Rose lies on the railing, looking down fifteen stories to the boiling sea at the base of the stern section. People near us, who didn't climb over, hang from the railing, their legs dangling over the long drop. They fall one by one, plummeting down the vertical face of the poop deck. Some of them bounce horribly off deck benches and ventilators.

My hair is falling freely toward the water which is fifteen stories away from us. Rose asked Jack what was happening, I couldn't even look at them all I could see was that we were getting closer to the water. Then all of a sudden we stopped in the midair. Why have we stopped?

Then a creaking groan underneath us, as the black night and the people screaming all around me. Just beneath our feet are the gold letters Titanic emblazoned across the stern. We all stared down terrified at the black ocean waiting below to claim us. Then a cracking noise came between the ship and all of a sudden we were flying down back into the sea. We all screamed as we tumbled down. Jack had a tight grip on me and Rose. We were rising into the water again going up and up.

Jack grasped my hand and Rose's in his other. "Take a deep breath and hold it right before we go into the water. The ship will suck us down. Kick for the surface and keep kicking. Don't let go of my hand. We're gonna make it girls. Trust me."

We stare at the water coming up at them, and I gripped his hand harder.

"I trust you."

"I trust you Jack," I shouted, as the incoming water was getting closer and people were disappearing under us.

Below us the poop deck is disappearing. The plunge gathers speed... the boiling surface engulfs the docking bridge and then rushes up the last thirty feet. I took a quick luck at Rose and she turned to see me and we nodded at each other.

I love you Harry. What my last thought before we were sucked under into the deep black ocean.

Where the ship stood, now there is nothing. Only the black ocean.

Another chapter done, I was quick on this one. I really want to get this story finished. Enjoy!

Sarahmichellegellarfan1