We screamed as loud as we could, but all it accomplished was to get our mouths full of salt water. No one heard us and we were swept further and further away. The only things that kept us near the surface were the life vests. The plane disappeared and all too soon, even the helicopter searchlights were gone. I could feel myself crying and Jill and I were clutching onto each other so tightly that our arms were almost numb.
"What now?!" I screamed as loudly as I could.
She shook her head. We floated... struggling to stay above the water and together. The sea eventually calmed, but try as we might, we could catch no sight of anything. Jill began to panic. Jill never panics.
"There's nothing... anywhere... it's just flat. I hate flat! Where's the plane?!"
"I don't know. Jill, calm down. We're going to be... alright."
She took a deep, shaky breath. I paused to think.
"Ok, here's what we'll do. One of us stays awake and paddles while the other one sleeps. The sun's that way, so that's East. We were heading West, so we just paddle West until we... um... find land."
She nodded. We both knew that it was nothing even approaching a great plan, but it was better than drowning immediately.
"I'll take first watch."
I didn't bother arguing, "Alright, wake me when you're about to fall asleep."

"Sue... Sue! Wake up!"
"W...what's wrong?"
"There's something swimming under us."
I looked down toward my feet and sure enough, there was something very large swimming under them. I swallowed and looked at Jill.
"It's alright... maybe it won't see us."
Haha... Famous last words I'm sure, but we were going to go crazy if we let ourselves believe that there was something that was going to eat us swimming right beneath our feet. We stopped paddling and tucked our legs to our bodies, just letting ourselves float as we watched nervously, waiting to see what it would do. After a few minutes, it became clear that there were two shapes beneath us. But they didn't attack... so that was a good sign... maybe. After looking at them for awhile, I nudged Jill.
"I think they're dolphins."
She peered down. "I... I... yeah! I think they are!"
This relaxed us both a great deal, even if it wasn't true. We still watched them warily however, not wanting to be surprised by anything. After watching them circle for a while, one of them surfaced a few feet away; followed by the other. They were dolphins after all. One brushed against me and I felt the smooth skin slide over my arm. Four more times they circled us, bumping into us gently. Since we didn't know quite what to do, we just floated there; watching. Eventually, one of the dolphins took a slightly more aggressive approach, nudging my arm like a puppy when it wants you to pet it.
"What do they want?"
Jill shook her head, as bewildered as I was. "Maybe... um... maybe they want us to... pet... them..?"
Hesitantly, I reached out my hand, brushing my fingertips against the smooth skin. My fingers slid along as it swam around until it stopped swimming, merely floating. The dolphin looked at me rather expectantly out of the corner of its eye. Looking down, I saw that my hand was resting on its dorsal fin. I blinked. It blinked back. I tightened my fingers around its fin and looked at Jill. She had hold of her own dolphin and before we could think much more about it, the dolphins took off through the water.

I held on tightly to the dolphin's slippery fin and struggled to keep my mouth free of water. Time went by; I grew numb from the cold water. Hours passed.

It took me a moment to realize that my dolphin had stopped. I opened my eyes slowly, blinking a lot until the world came into focus again. An island gradually came into focus.
"Land!" I gasped.
I looked down at my feet and found that they were resting on the sand. I pried my fingers away from the dolphin's fin and tried to stumble forward. I collapsed into the water, gasping for air and getting lungs full of water instead. I struggled to stand and couldn't; I was going to die here, under four feet of water; only yards from shore. Even in my dazed state, the irony was apparent. Panic began to set in and I thrashed my arms, but couldn't make my legs support my weight. Then I felt the dolphin's fin between my fingers again and grabbed hold. As I broke the surface again, I gasped for breath, choking and spluttering. Jill hadn't been quite as stupid as me, apparently realizing that her legs wouldn't support her.
"This poor dolphin got stuck with the stupid one." I muttered.
Jill was too tired to do more than grin weakly. The dolphin, however, opened its mouth and laughed at me. I was too tired to find this strange and just smiled and concentrated on moving my legs back and forth until I could finally stand upright. Jill and I thanked the dolphins and began to head for shore. When we reached it, we collapsed; not having much more energy than what was required to get that far. Then all the water that we'd swallowed apparently decided that it didn't like being in our stomachs and we retched several times.