Somewhere Beyond the Sea

by featherfour

Sam leaps into the body of a shipwrecked sailor and gets stranded on a tropical island. Life should be pretty relaxing, but a storm blows up on the island, and in the imaging chamber, the sailor is dying.

2. Chapter 1

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE SEA

…and he leaps. Sam finds himself horizontal, face downward and wet all over.

It could be hazing? Hazy? Hazardous? The last of the leap effect burns through him, leaving a new Swiss-cheese arrangement of his memories. He relaxes into the fit of this life and wonders where he is. Bar floor? Ballroom? Bathtub? He looks up and there's no one round to give him a clue. The horizon tips away to the left, picks up, then swings away again. Everything, as far as he can see, is blue. Above him it's blue and hot; around him it's blue and wet. Pool? Lake? Ocean. He's in the ocean. It's wet and he can taste salt spray coming up from…up from…up from a box. He's on a wooden box in the middle of the ocean. The box tilts and his feet dip into the water. The box tilts again and in the brief water-mirror he catches a glimpse of somebody's face, a man. Maybe late forties; a grizzled beard darkens his chin, he's sunburned and dehydrated and a little green. It occurs to Sam that he was never all that good at sailing and now he's shipwrecked and seasick.

'Oh boy.'