This is a new piece I'm working on. If it's good I'll finish it after OVERWHELMED, my currect story, which is under OLD STORIES in the navigation bar. Tell me if this is good! Feedback please!

  I woke to screaming. People all around me were shrieking and clambering over deck chairs and life jackets. I blinked, and then looked around a bit better.

There was a woman with dark skin and hair trapped under a small deck table. “Help me, Help me, somebody help me!” she called out frantically in a thick African accent. “Can-” she waved her arms crazily- “Cannot—swim!”

I looked behind me. And gasped. The ship was nearly at a full tilt, almost straight up out of the water. I jerked around and pulled a deck recliner off my chest.

The African woman was trapped in between the railing and the table. She was a bit below me, so I held on to the railing and slowly lowered myself down to her. I reached her and, with a bit of tugging, managed to untangle her from the table. We both held on to the railing and watched the table skid down the deck below us, finally hitting the water and sinking into the seemingly infinite black.

But how could this be happening? Shipwrecks were the stuff of legends. And where was Elyse? And Uncle Ruben?

I shrieked as the ship rocked. Other passengers were screaming and holding onto things, too.

“Elyse!” I called out.

“I don't want to die! I don't want to die!” the cry resounded on the water. “Mommy, I don't want to die!”

My thoughts raced at supersonic speeds through my head. Where were the deckhands? And the lifeboats?

I saw the captain clinging to the railing. “Where are the lifeboats!?” I screamed.

“They. . .they're on the side of the ship that sunk.” the captain said quietly, miserably. A gash in his head dripped blood onto his face. He made no acknowledgment.

“But, sir,” I cried, “Aren't there life vests anywhere?”

“They're all gone.” he replied weakly. “When we first thought the ship was bound to sink. . .I-I gave them to the first-class passengers.”

The African woman put her head down and began to pray. “Lord,” she said, “Don't let me die if it isn't Your will. Save us, Lord, or bring us into Your Kingdom. Save us, Lord, save us.”

That was the last thing I heard. Because right then, the ship tilted over. And splashed. And sunk. I hit my head on the railing and blacked out.

Sunlight filtered through the palms above. Birds serenaded melodies nearby and the sound of lapping waves woke me up. I blinked and rubbed sand from my face. My whole body felt gritty.

Wait. Palms? Birds? Sand? I looked around. I was on a beach. There were about twenty other people around, slouched under palm trees or just waking, like I was.

I stood up, and immediately groaned. My head felt as if someone had dropped a bag of bowling balls on it. I clutched my hair, and drew it back down in surprise.

My hand was covered in blood.

“Farrah!”

Just then, a figure ran up to meet me. It was Elyse, thank God. Elyse was my cousin. Like me, she was fourteen. I feared greatly that I had lost her when the ship wrecked.


“Farrah, thank God you're alive!”

She ran up and hugged me.

“Oh my word, Farrah-” she withdrew, and pointed to my head. “Your head is all bloody.”

I nodded. “Y-Ye.. .ss.” I said. I felt as weak as I sounded. “I-It. . Hurt. . .ss.”

Elyse's eyes opened wider. “We've got to get you to Evangeline. She'll fix you up.”

My brow furrowed. “Evangel. . .”

“Evangeline. I met her on the cruise ship. She was a nurse's intern in the army.”

I nodded. Elyse slipped her arm around my shoulder and helped me limp up the beach.

I decided not to ask about the shortage of the other passengers. Besides, my throat was too parched to speak.

We arrived at a nearby cluster of about three coconut palms. Underneath the thickest was a very thin, very stressed-out looking woman, surrounded by about four or five people, all of whom were injured in some way. There was a man laid out on the sand behind her, with raspy breathing and an ominous-looking spreading stain of red on his chest. The African woman was there, sitting up against another palm. She was holding a cold piece of somebody's ripped shirt against a wound on her cheek.

All of the other people around her were hurt only mildly; a gash on an arm or a twisted ankle.

Elyse walked up to the woman. “Evangeline,” she said. “This is my cousin, Farrah.” Evangeline looked up at us. She had long, wavy auburn hair and green eyes. She only looked about twenty-six or seven.

“Her forehead-” Elyse gestured toward my head.

Evangeline nodded. “Come here.” she said to me. She and Elyse leaned me against a tree and mopped off my forehead with a piece of cloth soaked in saltwater. It stung. I cried out and Elyse looked up at Evangeline. “She'll be okay?”

Evangeline sat back. “Hold a saltwater cloth to her wound every other hour.”

“Thirs..ty.” It was only one word, but to me, at that moment, it meant so much.

“The men haven't found any fresh water yet. They're out looking now.” said Evangeline. “But here.” she opened a pack on her back and took out a water bottle. “Only take a little. This is one of the last water sources we have for now. The army always taught me to be prepared so any situation. So when the ship started to go down, I grabbed a few things I thought I might need.”

I took a sip of the water. It was hot, and gritty, but to me, it was one of the best things I had ever had to drink.

I could speak a little better now that my throat was moist. “Where are we?”

Evangeline sighed. “I don't know. There aren't any other people here on this island, though. It's probably undiscovered, which means. . .” she glanced around. “I don't know when we'll be found here. I'll tell you what though, we are incredibly lucky to have landed here.”

“But we were way off course when the ship sunk. Which means. . .Everyone else in the world thinks we're dead, so they're not going to bother looking for us. Especially way out here.”