I slept in the water, something I'd never done without a line so I didn't drift away. I woke desperate for a drink of fresh water and more than a little surprised to still be alive. I came up to look around and had no idea where I was.
The atoll was nowhere in sight.
I thought about following the currents back, and decided not to bother. I'd be swimming into a current the whole way, even if I could make it. Another few hours, and I'd be too weak to get anywhere. I decided to just lie there under the clouds and give it a couple of days. Three days without water, and you're dead.
I had water. An ocean of water. It might as well have been poison. I smiled a little at the irony and slipped back under. I had no idea what would happen to me after I died, but it was hard to see how it would be worse. Maybe I'd be born again, born normal. Maybe I'd go to heaven. Maybe I was going to hell - but I'd probably just go there anyway, so what's a few decades one way or the other?
I sank deeper. Below me was humanity's old home, which was destroyed; above me, a decaying world we lived in now. They lived in now. In my slightly dehydrated and very depressed state, the irony seemed fitting. I decided this was as good a place as any to die.
Sometime after it became dark again I fell asleep. I have a few disjointed memories of thirst and cold, but nothing else.
When I woke again, I was on Travis' boat, looking up at the sails. I knew it well enough to be sure.
It had to be Hell. Nothing else could be so cruel.
"Hey." He eclipsed the sun, seating himself on the edge of the boat calmly, and offered me a cup of water. My throat burned; I didn't reach for it. I rolled over and turned my back on him.
That was when I realised my wrists were tied. Descending into cold fury, I looked at the knot. I could undo it with my teeth, but it would take a long time; I couldn't undo it with my hands. The rope would also be next to impossible to cut. The other end was secured to the mast, but it didn't matter; I couldn't swim with my wrists tied.
"You kept trying to escape," he said gently. "Given you'd have drifted away and died, I tried to prevent that."
I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to hear him. I didn't want to be alive. I knew it was childish, but I stayed silent.
"You had us all very worried," he went on. "Tyla was in a state; she was sure you'd die. You just went under and never came up. Frank thought you were hiding until you didn't show up for dinner." I kept looking resolutely at the knot. Was there a quicker way to get it undone? "It took us a lot of searching to find you. I thought we'd lose you for sure."
Why did he care?
He reached out and flicked a curl of hair back from my face. "Now I know why you always wore your hair down." Silence. "They took it pretty well." Now I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. "I think Micah and Greta were a bit wierded out. Toby went all religious on us about abominations in the eye of God, but Mitchell started yelling at him about how God made us all the way we are for a reason and shouldn't he give you a chance since you did so much in the battle."
I still didn't say anything. He kept fiddling with that one lock of hair. "Frank wants to talk to you. Badly. But I have no idea what he's thinking." Even more silence. "Well, we're heading back. I'll keep talking until you open your mouth and tell me to shut up."
I huddled down. This was going to be a long trip, but given what was waiting, the longer the better. He had to sleep some time.
