Michael helplessly treaded water as he watched the motorboat speed away, shouting and crying for Walt. "This can not be happening!" he thought. Just as things had been looking up, Michael's world had turned upside-down in an instant.
He was slapped out of his state of shock by a hand with a handcuff on its wrist. Jin was shouting something incomprehensible, but obviously had been dragging Sawyer back to the remains of the raft. Jin himself had a gut-wrenching decision to make just seconds before. Should he rescue Sawyer, who had just fallen overboard after having been shot, or stay to help Michael try to fight off the attackers? Jin decided that stopping the kidnappers immediately was hopeless since they were armed. No sense in getting himself and Michael shot as well, though it was agonizing to leave Michael and Walt in such a helpless position.
Regaining his senses, Michael clambered onto a large piece of the raft, and with Jin's help hauled Sawyer up. Michael had never trusted Sawyer. That man was an opportunist, a con man, someone who apparently looked out only after himself. Michael was uncomfortable having Sawyer around Walt, especially alone. Yet at the moment of great crisis, Sawyer did his best to save Walt from the – what were they? – pirates? – and as a result had taken a bullet for his son. Michael was determined to repay the favor. Furthermore, having an additional able-bodied man around would increase the odds that Walt could be rescued.
Unfortunately, it was apparent that Sawyer would not be able-bodied for some time. He had been shot just below left shoulder, and was bleeding profusely. With all the supplies on the raft being destroyed or blown into the water by the Molotov cocktail, the raft crew had nothing but the clothes on their backs to use as bandages. Michael and Jin each tore his own and Sawyer's shirts into strips. Fortunately neither of them had lost his pocketknife. Michael wrapped the first strip around Sawyer's wounded arm, and was greeted by a howl of agony. A shirt that had been soaked in salt water was not a pleasant thing to come in contact with an open wound.
"Sorry about that, man."
"Not a problem, Mike. Half the island has tried torturing me, no reason why you can't have a turn now."
Michael was flabbergasted at that reply, but after a moment realized that the fact that Sawyer still had his sarcastic wit was an encouraging sign. Poor Jin had to remain mystified about that conversation, but concentrated on applying pressure and more strips of cloth to the wound, as it had bled through the first strip annoyingly quickly.
While Jin was attending to Sawyer, Michael surveyed the damage done to his masterpiece. While the deck was largely intact, the cabin had been blown away, and the sail burned. All their equipment was lost: radar, compass, batteries, and the flare gun that would never fire again. What a disaster it had been for Sayid to have found that flare gun in that other crashed plane! No, that wasn't fair, if they didn't fire the flare the same thing most likely would have happened as dawn broke. A few pieces of wood were burning, producing a faintunsettling eerie glow around the crew. All their food and water had been knocked overboard. If they didn't get back to land within two or three days they would die of thirst. Of course Sawyer didn't have even that long. There were some pieces of wood that could be used as oars or poles, but fifteen miles? It was extremely unlikely they could make it back like that.
The next thing Michael heard was Jin shouting excitedly about something. Michael couldn't understand until he saw movement in the water. Sawyer had been bleeding for about a minute in the ocean, and that was long enough to attract the attention of some species of shark, which was now circling the raft. It was difficult to tell what kind in the moonlight, but it appeared to be fifteen feet long and had an oddly shaped flat head. Michael and Jin engaged in a confusing conversation, the result of which ended up with Jin tightly tying one more strip of a shirt around Sawyer's upper arm, and then both Jin and Michael slapping at the shark with loose wooden logs.
For several minutes the shark swam around the once-proud raft, never letting the men get a good shot at it. This became a battle of endurance; how long could two tired humans last against a sea creature that routinely swam for hours on end? But thenthe sharkinexplicably stopped for a second, allowing Jin to give it a good whack on the head. Michael and Jin exchanged puzzled yet relieved glances as the shark then sped off at an astonishing speed into the blackness of the night.
… to be continued
