She is forced to go swimming
Aoi slowly opened her eyes. They were immediately filled with a blinding light obscuring her vision. The brightness forced her to close her eyes again out of fear it might burn them. It took her a few minutes to get used to the light.
When Aoi was finally able to open her eyes without them feeling like they were burning, she sat up and took a good look around herself. An incredibly large ocean surrounded her and occupied her view. Everything was blue. The only exceptions being the few clouds in the sky and some small islands in the distance.
The completely foreign view overwhelmed Aoi. She was just suddenly here without warning.
She was immediately snapped out of her inactivity by a large wave impacting the ground she was sitting on. Contrary to what she was expecting, the ground was pushed and started swaying uncontrollably unbalancing her and making her fall on her face.
Only then did Aoi notice that she was not actually sitting on solid ground but on a raft drifting aimlessly through this vast ocean she was dropped into.
What Aoi described as a raft was essentially just a few floating logs tied together. It was incredibly shabby. She could imagine the thin strings snapping under the pressure. The pieces of wood drifting apart as if the raft's existence were only a dream. It was a miracle that it hadn't broken under her weight. Definitely not not something Aoi would trust to carry her through the ocean.
As if to mock this fragile structure, a normal barrel sat atop the wood, looking completely out of place. When Aoi first set her eyes on it she had to touch it to make sure it was really there.
When Aoi was done thinking about her raft she noticed that she was completely alone on this wide ocean. With no way to steer the raft or get food and water.
She was screwed.
...
Kamachi Aoi was originally just a normal high school student living in Japan. Going to school, having fun with her friends and training in Kendo.
She died in a traffic accident. It was completely unexpected. Aoi was on her way home from a long school day. She was bit exhausted from her Kendo training, so she spaced out a bit when crossing the road.
Because of that, Aoi didn't notice it when some reckless driver ran a red light and crashed into her.
Her tired body had no chance to react. At one moment she was just crossing the street. Then she was suddenly dead.
The next thing she knew Aoi just woke up in a black void. She was unable to feel her body or use any of her senses. The only thing she was able to do was think.
The lack of external stimuli quickly drove her mad. Aoi desperately wanted to do something, anything.
After a way too long time in this absence of everything except her own thoughts, Aoi finally fell asleep and woke up on the raft.
And now she was screwed. She still couldn't do anything. Aoi was stuck on this raft in the middle of nowhere. The nearest island was way too far away for Aoi to be able to no reach it by swimming.
She could only wait and hope.
...
The novelty of being alive again and in such a hopeless situation took a bit to wear off. After she calmed down, Aoi examined herself. The first thing she noticed were her clothes. Weirdly she was still wearing her school uniform. Only it was bigger than she last remembered. The normally perfectly fitting clothes were now more than a few sizes too big for her.
When trying to adjust the uniform so it looked less ridiculous on her, she noticed something wrong with her hands. They were smaller than she last remembered. And not just her hands.
Bewildered Aoi went to get a look at her reflection in the water. She was instantly overwhelmed by a sense of surrealism. The person she saw in the water didn't feel like her. At the same time it was undoubtedly Aoi. Looking at her reflection felt like the times when she and her mother had looked at old pictures together.
Aoi somehow became a young version of herself. She almost wanted to deny it. After all, things like magic or suddenly turning young again didn't normally happen. But she had also just woken up in the middle of nowhere after being dead. So since it was not like she could change anything, Aoi had no choice but to accept it.
The next thing that came to Aoi's mind was her situation. Instead of mulling over the unnecessary details, she needed to focus on what she could do now. Except there wasn't much.
The only thing Aoi could think of was to try to use a piece of wood as a paddle to steer her raft in the direction of one of the islands she saw in the distance, but she had to stop after a few minutes when she started to lose the feeling in her arms. Even then, the island didn't feel like it had come closer at all.
Due to her apparent inability to make any progress Aoi gave up and just waited for anything to happen.
She also didn't manage to find anything to eat so she was incredibly hungry and thirsty. Until now the only time when she didn't eat her full three meals a day was when she tried to go on a diet recommended by her school friends. She had to quit after a day.
Aoi was now so hungry that she was contemplating diving for fish. But before she could make a decision, her eyes managed to get a glimpse of something big moving underwater. The shadow quickly grew as that something neared the surface. When it was four times the size of her raft, Aoi knew she was in danger.
Out of some instinct she didn't know she had, Aoi rushed into the barrel on her raft. Just a second after, the water surface exploded.
Giant waves erupted in every direction. Water was spraying everywhere. Aoi's raft rattled on the verge of breaking. Her barrel was rolling around on top of it and she hit her head.
It took a few seconds for Aoi to reorient herself. She gathered her courage and took a hesitant peek from her hiding place.
The sight of a giant fish serpent monster met her. With scales as big as her head shining in the sunlight and even bigger fangs. A mouth that was big enough to swallow her whole raft in one bite. Gigantic eyes with a look that promised pain to whatever dared to try and fight it.
The monster was incredibly intimidating. Easily the scariest thing Aoi had seen in her entire life.
Like anyone faced with such dire situation, Aoi froze. She couldn't to anything but cower and hide in her barrel as the monster took a look around itself. She had a feeling that if the serpent found her, she wouldn't have much longer to live.
So she waited. Even when the monster dove underwater again without doing anything she continued hiding fearing its return.
Only two hours later did Aoi have the courage to leave her barrel. But even then, she didn't think she was save. After all, monster could come back at any time. Aoi spent her time looking into the ocean to see if she could spot anything.
Aoi was observing a swarm of fish when she noticed the wind getting colder. She teared her eyes away from the water and took a look around herself. In contrast to the light blue sky she had gotten used to, Aoi noticed a giant black storm in the distance.
As the time passed, the storm in the distance only got bigger. Aoi already knew she wasn't able to steer her raft anywhere. She was not in charge of where she was going. She was powerless. It frustrated her even more now the storm was approaching.
While her raft was nearing the storm, rain slowly began falling and increased in intensity until a full torrent was descending on her. She was already dripping wet and freezing.
The sky over her darkened until it was completely covered by black thunderclouds. The visibility was so bad, that she couldn't see anything other than the near vicinity of her raft. She could hear the thunder all around her. A few lightning strikes even came dangerously close to hitting her raft.
Aoi noticed an even more worrisome thing. Whirlpools. Her raft was quickly being drawn into their current. And she couldn't do anything to prevent it.
If her raft sank in the whirlpool, she would definitely drown.
Aoi desperately searched for a solution. She didn't want to die so fast after being alive again.
Aoi considered all her options in record time, but she couldn't find any way for herself to survive this dilemma. But just before Aoi was ready to give up, she got an idea.
She could just hide in her barrel. If she closed the lid, no water would reach her and it would float on the water surface.
The moment Aoi had this idea, she was already moving towards the barrel.
But while Aoi had focused on finding a solution, she didn't notice the massive wave building up behind her. She only began to feel that something was wrong when the wave reached its highest point.
Following her instinct Aoi turned around only to have an incredible amount of water crash into her. The raft that had carried her for the last few days didn't offer any resistance and broke into pieces at the moment of impact. Aoi herself didn't even have time to notice it as she was pushed into the sea.
The impact that had come out of nowhere disoriented Aoi so much that she couldn't do anything while her body was being pushed underwater.
When the momentum of the wave left her body, a feeling of weightlessness overcame her. Her eyes opened to the distant light breaking trough the surface of the water. It was already so far away. Aoi's body was slowly falling into the darkness beneath her.
The moment was interrupted by her lungs expressing their need for air and Aoi was snapped out of her thoughts. She immediately began to struggle, but her breath was already extremely short. She tried to use her arms to push herself up, but she couldn't find any leverage.
Her body slowly lost its strength in the struggle, and Aoi sank deeper and deeper. Finally her body took and instinctive breath and she could feel the seawater fill her lungs as darkness overcame her vision until all Aoi could see was a black void like the one spent so long in.
...
The first thing Aoi registered was pain. Her whole body was hurting and breathing was especially hard. Her throat felt dry like all the moisture was stolen from it and her lungs felt like they were filled with syrup. The fatigue made it feel impossible to even open her eyes.
When the pain subsided enough for Aoi to form coherent thoughts, she tried to remember the last thing that happened to her.
It took her sleep addled mind a bit to access her memories. But after a moment of confusion, Aoi finally remembered.
The storm! The raft shipwrecked in the whirlpool. She was drowning. Falling into the darkness.
Aoi jerked upright, ignoring her body screaming in protest. Her heart beat faster than it had ever done before. Her breaths came out in short gasps as her body trembled from the effort and pain.
She forced her eyes to open. They were not taking in any details. Just the bright light that entered her sight was a immense relief for Aoi. She was not trapped inside the dark ocean and sinking to her death.
After a few minutes Aoi's heartbeat slowly calmed down and her brain began to register details.
The first thing she noticed was the dimly lit lamp exuding a warm light hanging from the ceiling. Behind it was a wall painted orange. She could see its rough texture. Looking to her left she saw the other source of light in the room. An opened window. The gentle breeze flowing into the room from the outside made the curtains flutter slowly.
Looking through it she saw a forest filled with lush green trees. Though what immediately took her attention was the mountain in the distance. On top of it, she could make out the canopy of a cherry blossom tree. Not a normal one like the trees she had liked to observe in Japan, but one just as tall as the biggest skyscrapers Aoi had seen. Its canopy was on the same height level as the clouds in the sky. They were surrounding it in a ring as if to make space for the tree's presence.
After viewing the outside, Aoi took a look at herself. Her body was still as young as it had been on the raft. What was different were the clothes. She was now wearing a still too big white one piece dress. While looking at herself, she noticed a plastic tube coming out of her arm from under a bandage.
Following the tube, Aoi eyes found a multitude of complicated machines on the wall next to her bed. Most of them were unrecognizable to Aoi, but she could identify on of them as a heart monitor. The tube that was connected to her arm ended in an IV bag.
Aoi was in a hospital. She tried to think about how she got here. There wasn't any island near her when she saw the storm the last time she checked.
As Aoi was theorizing, she heard a knock. She immediately took a look in the direction the sound came from. There a wooden door she hadn't noticed when she looked around before.
Aoi watched as the door handle was turned and the door opened. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the white doctor's coat the man was wearing. As he approached her sitting form she studied his face.
He looked very old with crinkles littering his face. Looking into the doctor's eyes Aoi could practically see his concern as he sat down on a stool next to her bed.
She was snapped out of her musing his hand touching her forehead. Her head jerked back from the cold touch out of reflex.
The doctor froze in surprise for a moment before seemingly realizing something and addressing her.
"Sorry for suddenly springing onto you like that, but I need to measure your temperature. When you were brought here you had a dangerously high fever."
At Aoi's absent nod. He reached his hand out again and this time Aoi didn't move away as he measured her temperature with his hand.
Out of nowhere Aoi realized her situation again. Her confusion came back even stronger than before. She opened her mouth vocalize it. But the moment she tried to make a sound, her body bend over as she got a coughing fit. Her throat and lungs exploded in pain as she desperately tried to get her body under control.
Aoi coughing fit continued for a few minutes while It got harder for her to breathe, but then it finally ended. While Aoi was still feeling the pain in her lungs she noticed a glass of water entering her field of view.
"Drink this. It'll help you feel better."
Drinking the water that the doctor offered her made Aoi feel less like a mummy. Now that her throat was hurting a bit less, she tried talking again. Her voice still came out raspy, but she could speak.
"What...happened? Where am I?"
The doctor wasn't surprised by her question. As if he was used to people with memory gaps waking up in his hospital.
"Your ship sunk around our island, one of the village's fishers found you and brought you here. Now could you tell me if any part of your body still hurts?"
The doctors explanation didn't help Aoi understand her situation at all. She absentmindedly answered the doctors questions as he examined her wounds. When the doctor was finished, he addressed her again.
"I understand that you might be confused, but I assure you that all your questions will be answered. Just have a bit of patience."
With that he left the room leaving Aoi alone with her thoughts and very confused.
Author's note:
It's me. I am finally back. Here is the first chapter of my new story. A not quite rewrite of my other story.
This time I planned a lot more at the beginning. I also think my writing has become a bit better.
Anyways I hope you had fun reading.
If you have any criticism, please tell me. If there are questions feel free to ask. I will try my best to answer.
Thank you for reading.