Survivor

I lie there, motionless. Suddenly a strange sensation begins to overcome me. I feel as though I am surrounded by something, but by nothing all at once. My body seems to be floating while something gently tugs at my ankle. I open my eyes to find I’m submerged underwater. I am on the floor of the ocean, my body naturally pulling to the surface but that tug on my ankle keeps it from succeeding: a rope knotted to a cinder block holds me there. Panic sets in. How did I get here? How could this be possible? Who would do this to me? A stream of questions flood my mind as I fight and struggle to free myself from the rope’s grip. I kick tremendously, using every ounce of strength I have. I feel my foot begin to slip through. I keep going as my breathe is running out and exhaustion is overtaking me. The rope falls to the floor as I swim towards the surface. My vision is blurring, my body seems to be going numb. I see a figure moving towards me in the distance, but I am unable to keep consciousness to see it up close. Everything goes black. 

I come to, coughing up water excessively. I feel the cool sand against my body and realize I am on shore. Once I am able to catch my breathe what I just experienced comes flooding back. I jump up off the ground and look every which way for someone, anyone. I am alone. My body shakes with fear, someone had somehow done this to me. Someone had also saved me. Could they be one in the same? I stand there, frozen in confusion and disbelief before I run into the trees of my home, the little deserted island where I was abandoned as a child. I was only fourteen then, on a cruise with my mother and father. I couldn’t recollect all the details of how I’d ended up here, mostly just the chaos of that night. The blur of flashing red lights, screeching sirens, a little yellow life raft. The ship began to go down. My mom set me in the raft and began to step in when my dad screamed for help. She turned to help him and the boat dropped with me in it onto the crashing waves. Sometime the next day I washed up here. As far as I knew I had been alone all that time, until now. I climbed as fast as I could to the top of a tree and search my surroundings. Someone was lurking in the darkness. But who? And why? I slip away and suddenly I hear someone screaming my name, shaking me to. I jerk awake, weak and disoriented. My mother hovers over me. I stare in disbelief, I finally muster out one word, “Mom?” Smiling while crying, her tears land on me as she pulls me to her embrace. “I can’t believe it, I knew you were alive. I have my baby back,” she says as several men life me off the ground. The exchange is short as I am rushed onto a helicopter where I am then flown to a hospital. The doctors say they had never seen someone so near death make it. I look to the right and see my reflection. Something I had not seen in so long. My facial structure appears strong due to the malnourishment. My once pale skin was of a much darker complexion. My freckles still peeking through at the tops of my cheeks. I brush my long hair behind my ear and stare in astonishment. I did not recognize myself. They say it had been five years since the cruise ship sunk. I was nineteen years old. The island kept me alive. The various fruits and coconuts provided me nourishment over the years. But recently they had begun to run low. I ate less and less, watching my body transform rapidly as time passed. My bones were visible all around. I grew weaker every day. I would kneel down in the sand and surrender to God, pleading that someone would find me in time. It is there, in the sand that I collapsed. My body struggled to keep function while my mind began to play tricks on me. My terrifying underwater experience was a hallucination. On the brink of death, my mom finally found me. She sat next to the hospital bed and held my hand. We sit there and talk, she explains to me that dad had died that night so long ago. I was saddened to hear this and hear the pain in her voice but the truth is I had already grieved for years for them both. I was sure they had died so much that as I stare at my mother’s face and into her deep brown eyes I still couldn’t believe it unless I felt her. To know she was really there and this was real, I had been saved. After several days of monitoring I was released home. My mom helped me to the car and I look at my surroundings in awe as we drive. The massive buildings with the sun’s reflection dancing off their glass windows. Someone walking their dog, scruffy and white, tail bobbing back and forth. We pull into the driveway of the house. I get out and examine the porch. The splintering wood was the same as it always was. The little red bird house to my left. We go inside and I enter my room, everything as I left it. My lavender book sack on side of my bed. I had been through hell and back and fought for survival but I made it. I suggest we go outside, so we do and we enjoy each other’s company and conversation for hours while day turns to night. The cool breeze against our faces. My mom looks over to me and smiles with all the love in the world. “I love you,” I say as I reach over and hug her tight. “I love you more than the moon and the stars,” she responds. We relax again and lay back on the blanket that we spread across the soft green grass of our backyard. I thank God for saving me as I gaze into the stars of the night. Wondering to myself what he has in store for me.