Overboard

Overboard

She clings to the piece of waterlogged driftwood, her lower half submerged into the frigid waters of the sea. Her breathing comes out in haggard, wheezing huffs that tightly constrict her lungs. Salty residue stings the back of her throat and the whites of her eyes.

Everything hurts, her head pounding and spinning. Wired barbed twisting and burrowing inside her head the more she struggles to stay awake, an cochapany of white noise and metal on metal combined echoing against her inner skull.

She pushes herself up with her good arm, eyes examining the gash in the left side of her abdomen accompanied by a stray piece of wood protruding from the same spot. She groans, the smallest shift in her position causing the foreign piece of wood to go deeper into the wound. Her stomach shifts uneasily, the smell of bile rising in the back of her throat. 

Her teeth clench together into a hiss as her arm grips the exposed lumber, ready to jerk the obtrusion out in a second decision of impulse before she falters at the last second.

No, she knows better not to bleed out  by making a novice mistake; her blood should always stay inside of her body, as far as shes concerned.

“Rather not bleed to death.” she mumbles out loud, Retracting her hand away back to the floating piece of driftwood she hangs on to

Turning her head to the side, she scans the surrounding area, eyes slightly glazed over from what blood she's already lost in the initial fall overboard. 

Her grip tightens against the piece of soggy driftwood, partly because of the growing number of waves that smash against her, the other part from the images fluttering erratically across the inside of her eyelids, Broken fragments of wood, blood, an eye the size of the moon.

Its piercing stare.

Tremors begin to shake her hands as images of colossal, writhing tentacles smash into the ships deck with a sickening crunch of the wooden planks once holding the ship together now fractured and splintered with little effort. 

The abomination slowly rising out from the depths, an eye the size of her body staring through her soul as its limbs wrap around the entirety of the ship. She can't seem to breathe, neither then nor now. Words dying in her throat as she watches water begin to seep in through the broken boards stained with the poor bastard unlucky enough to be in the same spot, her brothers bright red locks attached to the body. 

What was his name? 

What was his name?

Another blow, like lightning striking on the open sea, a spar crashes into into the stern, her body falls back. Everything hurts, her hands cup around the pain and pulls her fingers back dripping with blood, her blood. Her head spins as shes sprawled out on the deck, gasping like a fish out of water and shes helpless to stop it. 

The voice of her captain sits hazy in the back of her head; standing out in a sea of static.

She feels something tugging at her body, she doesn't look to see what. So tired. Her eyes focus in and out ahead of her, blurry figures scuttling along in a panic.

“-I said, get u- shes jerked upwards, pain shooting up her side. Her throat is too dry to reply. Instead she leans her weight on the person.

 the voice barks something out, something she can't hear, and suddenly she's being dragged in the other direction. She doesn't bother to protest.

The floor beneath her shakes, rattles her brain even more with the spinning world she's in, couldn't tell you which direction was up if her life depended on it

“Ere are the othes.” her mouth slurs, words garbled and distorted her feet don't seem to be even touching the ground. Everything's gone numb. Her fingers dig into the shirts fabric she's leaning against and holds on for dear life gone numb. Her fingers dig into the shirts fabric she's leaning against and holds on for dear life

There's no reply, and the pit in her stomach weighs much heavier. 

Another batch of screams erupt from the upper deck, her gaze watching as the front of the boat collapses into the abyss.

Her mind grows spotty, memory skipping and weaving between the now and then.

Another crash.

Yelling, shoving

A shrill scream that abruptly ends.

The Water rising. The water is red. Where is everybody?

The ship is gone.  Where is the rest of the ship?

The cold water wrapping around her body like a blanket.

Opening her eyes, she can't breathe.

But shes so tired, and the crystal clear ocean looks so welcoming.

Blood soaked fingers wrapping around a broken board.

She's back where she started. Clinging to the piece of waterlogged driftwood. Hands clutching the side of her head. How many times does she have to relive it? She spits the taste of copper from her mouth in a fit of coughing and settles her gaze on the wreckage. Pieces of debris stretched out along the surface around her in every direction.

A sob gets caught in the back of her throat.

There's nobody left.

She screams, fist beating against the water. Her face lifts towards the sky as it begins to rain, wet droplets beat against her body. She screeches at the sky, at the beast, at herself. 

Screams until the only thing she's able to feel is numb.

Her heart drumming in her ears floods everything else. Water in her lungs.

She cant tell whats real anymore, can't tell how long she's been out here by the time she notices the blurry shape ahead of her, if it's all just a sick joke before her body suddenly goes limp. She stares ahead, watching the shifting edges start to settle into clarity. 

She can't seem to move, instead letting the waves pull her along their path, vision sinking in and out along with the current. 

Her body jerks awake at the sound of yelling, commotion, and for a moment she thinks she'll never be able to stop reliving this hell.

But the voices aren't the same, and as her body shifts again, sand is what she feels instead of water. Figures surround her as the sun's rays reflect off her pale body. She's lifted up by a sea of hands, and groans in response.

“-she's alive! Fetch the doctor.” feet scatter along the sandy shore.

Her face is wet again, and doesn't realize for a moment that its her sobs wracking her thin body. She sobs for the second time outloud, the second time in as long as she can remember letting a hoarse cry fall from her lips.

Her hands cover her face as the tears fall freely. Her lips trembling with the rest of her body, shakily her hands reach around her neck, pulse hammering in the drums of her ears.

She's alive

She wishes she wasn't 

What was her brothers name, why can't she remember his face.

Her head hurts, everything hurts, she cant remember how can she not remember?

But Why can She still remember the stare of the beasts unblinking eye seared into her memory.