Wrecked

Crisp, cool, blue, water. It was everywhere, surrounding and smothering her like a lifeless plain. The waves crept onto the small, white, wooden door that she sat upon, tickling her feet and causing a chill to course through her body. She was so alone, surrounded by emptiness, not even a lone seagull had passed through the sky for days.

Oh the irony, she mused, trapped in that which she had always loved. The ocean: her constant friend, her newfound enemy. She’d always loved escaping to it, journeying out with her friends on a sunny day to have a good time.

But it had all backfired, hadn’t it? A day out on the boat, with her friends, had turned into a nightmare. A summer storm had rolled over top of them like a bulldozer, crushing the boat and sending them into the sea. She’d managed to climb atop of a door that had blown away from the boat and cling to it until the thunder and rain had passed. Floating at the mercy of the current and wind, she’d searched for her friends- calling out for them and straining her eyes till they stung.

But she was so, so, terribly alone; she felt as if the world had deserted her and cast her into the unknown. Her worst fears had been realized. Her body shook with fear whenever she allowed herself to even think of that word. Alone; abandoned; forsaken. It hammered into her like a judge’s hammer, beating down on her relentlessly. She was sentenced to serve out the rest of her days in her worst nightmare, her morbid and terrified thoughts as her only friend.

Five days she had spent in the company of herself and the rolling seas, five days without food, five days without water, five days without any human interaction. It had been five days since she had felt anything but anxiety and fear.

She’d been hungry for so long that she couldn’t even feel it; it was just an empty pit that grew larger as the hours passed. The need for water was forever consuming and torturous. Gazing out at the fathomless sea teased her in a way that drove her to the edge of insanity. All that water and she couldn’t even have a drop of it.

The pain of losing her friends tore into her mind almost as often as the smothering emptiness or the burning need for water. Just minutes before the storm hit they’d been laughing and joking, making fun of her fair complexion and how she was so worried it would burn.

Now, it was red and inflamed, blisters peppered her skin as the unrelenting sun surged down on her.

She lay down and listened to the slosh of water hitting against her wooden life preserver. Her skin stung as it rubbed against the course wood, but she was so terribly tired. She begged for just an hour or two of silence, an hour without the screaming voices that begged for company or the sight of the empty horizon. So she laid her hands over the thin yellow fabric of her sundress and cleared her mind of any thought. The rhythm of the waves and the gentle lilt soon had her eyes growing heavy and her thoughts turning foggy, before long they were gone, and she was in blissful, yet fitful, sleep.

As hours passed and the hot summer air turned cool, she awoke to the shock of the sea washing over her and the wooden slab. She shot up with a gasp, her dress was drenched and she saw that the sky was uncharacteristically dark. Clouds were thick in the sky, blocking the sun’s rays and turning day into night.

The wind howled and sent the water into an angry whirlwind, tossing it onto her meek raft and sending shivers through her spine. She curled into the center of the board and stared as everything around her plunged into chaos.

The raft moved suddenly, lifted up by a careening wave, and rose into the air before crashing back into the water. The front half was submerged momentarily, taking her with it. As it bobbed back up to the surface she sputtered and coughed, clinging desperately to the scrap of wood.

The storm surged on, tossing her around like a small bath toy, her lungs were filled with salty sea water and her body shook with cold. The shrieking wind pierced the air and lightning lit up the dark sky. Thunder boomed and together the storm sounded like a deathly chorus. She was terrified, and felt as if hell had descended upon her.

The waves were getting larger and the wind was only getting louder and angrier. The cold water was numbing her arms and hands and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to stay aboard the small, white, wooden door much longer.

A clap of thunder shook the thick, salty air and reverberated around her. She screamed out, though no one could hear her. Her grip on the slab was loosening and tears streamed down her face, mixing with the rain that pelted down from the sky.

She looked up, staring through tear glazed eyes, as a monstrous wave hurdled towards her. She squeezed her eyes shut, the faces of her family and friends flashing through her memory like the lightning streaking the sky above her.

As the wave crashed over her it sent her flying off of the small, white, wooden door that she had made her home for almost a week. It pushed her under the ominous water like a ten ton weight, not even granting the mercy of one last gasping breath.

She tossed through the water, getting caught in the fierce currents. She could no longer tell which direction was up and which was down, her only thought was for air. As the seconds ticked by, and were nearing minutes, she felt her vision starting to waver.

She began drifting in and out of consciousness and her strength began to fade. The cold water had numbed her whole body, giving her an escape from any pain, except for the burning, searing pain in her lungs as they fought for air.

A few more seconds ticked by and her body began to shut down. The current was throwing her around aimlessly, treating her like an old rag doll, and she just let it carry her where it willed. The last remnants of oxygen were squeezed out of her lungs, her body failed, and nature won.

The shell of her body was all that was left now. The storm moved on, coursing across the wide expanse of ocean and leaving behind the broken girl.

An hour passed, and then another, and as the sun began to tease the brim of the receding layer of clouds, a boat broke across the now calm surface. Voices called out, searching for any sight or sound of a young girl who had been shipwrecked. They raked over the water, desperate for any sign that she was still alive.

But all they found was a small, white, wooden door.