Summary: Tohru receives tickets for the luxury cruise upon the Poseidon for her birthday, along with 9 other people from the Sohma family. Midway through the cruise, the ship is fatally struck by a rogue wave, and is capsized. Now Tohru must find out where everyone else is and escape the bowels of the ship before it slips under the ocean's waves. But not everyone can survive fate. . .

Poseidon
Chapter Four
Calmer Seas

That was it. Uo and Hana would not be joining them on the journey. Tohru stood there, as the glint of the chandeliers above her head shone still more brightly. Why hadn't the world collapsed around her, and gone into chaos? Surely it would of? As her two best friends had just left her for a painful two months.
The ship's horn boomed up and outside somewhere, the ship gently rocking from side to side, in the waves' motions. Everyone looked uncomfortably from one to the other, as Tohru continued to stare at the door in which her two best friends had just left. It seemed surreal.
Kyo hugged her from behind.

"It'll be okay" he whispered softly in her ear "You've still got us."

Tohru held Kyo's hand as they walked up to a board containing the ship's map. Tohru's faced still looking at the spot where Uo and Hana had once stood.

"Well," said Shigure, staring at the map "We're on deck 5 or 13 public decks. We can't access decks 1, 2 or 3. But still, 13 whole decks! Wow… I wonder how many girls that is…?"

"Shigure," said Yuki, also staring at the map "That's highly inappropriate."

"Do we have a meeting spot, in case any of us get lost?" asked Haru, looking away from the map.

"Let's just say the top deck… Everyone knows where it is" said Ha'ri.

"Wait!" said Ritsu "What if… One of us falls off deck?!?!"

"No one's gonna fall off deck" replied Kyo "No one's that stupid… Maybe you, but no one else."

"Wait!!! I'm gonna fall off of the deck!!!! Argh!!!!" Ritsu was on the floor, panicking.

People stared as they walked past his flailing body, which was twitching wildly. The group simultaneously grabbed him and picked him up. It was hard work, as he kept falling back over. Five minutes had passed, and the ship's horn blasted once more.

"Hey," said Yuki, once Ritsu had been placed upon a chair "There's an introduction to the ship in the ballroom in 15 minutes. Why don't we go?"

"Good idea, Yuki" said Tohru, who had finally realized Uo and Hana were not coming back.

So the group set off for the ballroom, which was on deck 7; two decks up. Even though they only had to climb two decks, they still got confused. The ship was enormous, and even with the maps to help, it did seem they were heading too far to the bow or stern.
Eventually, they reached the ballroom. They stood at the very back of the crowd of people. The captain was stood on the stage, and was already partway through his speech, it was quite difficult to hear him talk.
The captain was a portly man, dressed head to toe in a white captain's uniform; many badges hung from it, such achievements meant he had to know what he was doing. He was also quite old, a white beard and moustache hung from his face. He was also sweating; he may know how to steer a 150,000 tonne ship, but he didn't know how to talk to a crowd of people.

"... Poseidon is a state-of-the-art cruise liner," he exclaimed with pride "Brought into service in 2006, she can carry up to 3000 passengers and crew. Being one of the largest cruise liners in the world, the Poseidon is constantly going through refurbishments and upgrades to ensure our passengers travel with the top comfort and top satisfaction from your cruise.
Based upon 15 decks, 13 of those being passenger decks, and boasting more than 150 shops in the shopping mall, she is like a floating city rather than a ship.
Many services are available from the ship, such as cell phone access, WiFi in selected areas of the ship, gyms, spas, restaurants, bars, casinos. You name it, the Poseidon's got it!
Without any further ado, I'd like to thank you all for coming to this presentation, and if you have any questions, queries or comments, please, do not hesitate to talk to any of my staff.
May you all have clear sailing and a fantastic voyage with the Poseidon. Enjoy your cruise!"

A rapturous applause erupted from the crowd as the captain left the room, and crew members handed out leaflets and other pieces of information to passengers.

"Awww," said Tohru "We missed it!"

"I guess this is what we get for being so disorganised!' replied Shigure.

"Maybe it had something to do with your four trips to the bathroom" said Kyo, glaring over at Shigure.

"Hey, you try drinking sixteen cups of water and see if you can hold it in and not go to the bathroom" replied Shigure, a hand in the air to show his innocence.

"Why the hell would you wanna drink sixteen cups of water anyway!?" retorted Kyo.

"It's called being healthy" replied Shigure.

"Healthy?!" cried Kyo "Four cups of water is the average people drink! You drank four times that amount!"

No one really seemed to notice or care about Kyo and Shigure's pathetic fight; they were all too busy thinking about what they were going to do during the cruise.
Tohru decided she was going to go to the pool upon the top deck of the ship, so she went back to their cabin and grabbed her swimming costume. She pulled out her one-piece costume; she still wasn't that confident to show off her body to others, especially a ship full of strangers!
She put on her costume and put a sarong over her hips and put a sunhat on; grabbed a towel and a bag full of essentials (sun screen, key card, sunglasses etc.).
She got into the lift and found Haru in it too. A man and a woman were also in the lift; they were discussing wildly to each other; their whispers an annoying hiss.

"Hi there, Haru!" said Tohru brightly "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to my cabin now," replied Haru, watching as the light flickered from floor to floor.

The lift was currently going down to Deck 11 (Haru's deck), and then to Deck 9 (Tohru could only guess that's where the other people were going). Tohru pushed the Deck 15 button, as the doors skidded to a close, screeching slightly as they went.
The lift fell as it clattered down to Deck 11, Tohru humming to herself as the lift's music gently wafted around the small box.
The lift shuddered to a halt; the doors slid open on Deck 11.

"See you on the Sun Deck!" said Haru, waving a hand as he walked off.

"Bye!" replied Tohru brightly, as the doors slid once more, and the lift clattered downwards.

Tohru once again hummed to herself; the two people behind her had not stopped talking. Their voices mixed together, and almost emitted a high-pitched squeal as the giggled and whispered.
The doors slid open once more as the lift arrived upon Deck 9, and the two people left, the whispering still audible as they turned left and headed off.
The doors slid together once more, but the lift shot upwards towards Deck 15, then it was a staircase up to Deck 16; the Sun Deck.

The lift finally arrived at Deck 15, as Tohru exited the music gently strung in the background, until the doors shut behind her, and the lift descended.

Tohru gasped in amazement at what she saw; a huge room, walls made of glass stretched out beyond her. The dull noise of talk spewed all around her, and she looked 360degrees around herself, taking in all the delicate and expensive (and probably irreplaceable) objects around her. Crew members all in a light blue T-shirt and dark-blue shorts rushed past her, each with a towel in hand. A spa and gym was upon this deck, and Tohru knew she would have to come back at some point during her journey.

Tohru found the flight of stairs she needed to go up onto the Sun Deck, and ascended them quickly. Immediately she was 'greeted' by the sounded of the ship's bellowing horn, as it echoed over the city in the far distance. Tohru rearranged her hat so that the sun was blocked from her view.
She took in the sights around her, the deck stretched from about 150feet in front of her, up to about 700-odd feet behind her. The wooden deck creaked slightly as she took step over to the spread-out sun beds next to the pool, and took one.
She placed a towel upon a sun bed (one not too close to the pool, as children were splashing and getting water everywhere). And lied down upon it; placing her bag under her bed. She grabbed the suntan lotion from the bag and applied it from her face to her toes; placed her hat over her face and had a relaxing sunbathe, before falling asleep...

(A/N: Sorry about the long update! College has been quite the... y'know annoyance to me! I'll get this back on track soon! Well, I'll write more ASAP!)