She Lives

>Her name was never accounted for.
>She was on the deck of the ship just like everyone else, and she talked to some folks, and luckily wasn't asked for her name.
>Yeah, it sounds improbable, but no one happened to ask.
>Maybe it was the good luck charms she wears on her wrist and around her neck.
>She'd rather be a mystery when it came to her identity; because she's not supposed to be on this ship.
>It's nothing major, it's just that she didn't have a ticket because her parents didn't want her going on a cruise ship.
>They're used to living out on the open plains.
>The great basin, surrounded by the gentle wind of the open air.
>Experiencing the freedom of life on the land.
>She had to sneak out at night just to get to the nearest train station.
>It's amazing how she made it to the coast at all.
>Even more amazing how she managed to sneak onto the ship unnoticed.
>She is the only person in the world who knows how she did it.
>And here she is, finally getting a chance to see the ocean; the first time in her life.
>It's truly amazing, the ocean is like the open plains, except you can fall into it.
>You can swim through it, it moves around at the surface.
>And it's like everything lives underground.
>Each wave blown by the wind like a tuft of tall grass.
>Dark as her hair, as mysterious as her heart.
>She loves staring at the water.
>From the side railing of the cruise ship.
>Such a sight to behold, only taken by surprise in life when she had to lie to her parents.
>Now she's one of the cruise-goers.
>Sipping lemonade, listening to relaxing music.
>Watching everyone else be something as strange to her as pirates are.
>The ship sometimes rocks back and forth a little.
>So this is what the ocean is like.
>It's so beautiful.
>And she has no idea how long this cruise is going to last for; she didn't pay enough attention to the flyer she skimmed.
>All she knows is that she will return to the docks in due time.
>The same ones the ship departed from, and probably to flashing red and blue lights that were only that much more worth it, seeing how hypnotic the ocean can be to a stranger to it.
>Each day is exciting, yet tranquilizing as she rests in a lounge chair.
>Eating fancy food and indulging in cruise activities at night.
>This is what she's been missing out on in life, and she wants her whole life to morph into this.
>Doesn't even know how far into the ocean these things go; she doesn't know how massive the ocean is.
>She doesn't understand it.
>She can think about this all day.
>When she's not distracted by the bands playing, or the sports and activities she partakes in.
>This is great, why didn't she do this sooner?
>Why couldn't she do this sooner?
>When she was younger and her imagination was even more wild.
>Yearning for as much adventure she can handle.
>Almost wanting to get lost out here in these great blue plains just to see if she can find her way back.
>Not understanding what it would take.
>Now knowing what life lies "underground" in this environment.
>Or how deep it goes.
>If she knew better, she'd be terrified of this brand new location that surrounds her.
>And there's a creeping thought that does just that when she finally compares distance to the horizon like she would on the plains.
>How much swimming would that take?
>How much time?
>How much can a human being do before they are doomed to die from exhaustion?
>Can you drink this water?
>The girl staring at the water can see it looks much different than the water from the river she would gather for fun.
>It's so much darker, and has living creatures swimming around in it. There's a couple of dolphins right over there.
>She knows it's probably not safe to drink water that looks like this.
>She learned from the times she got sick from drinking water with just a few speckles in it.
>But that's fine, she has this glass of lemonade.
>From someone who shouldn't even know her name, and that's the way she wants it to stay.
>No social ties, no drama, just happiness in the only place in the world that is more free and open than the desert or plains.
>Really brings out the nature in a human being.
>The instinct for survival and adventure.
>The knowledge that this feeling will not come back once they are back to the same old grounds they are used to.
>She loves being out here so much, it's worth never being allowed to leave her house for the next couple of months after all of this is over.
>...
>Night four, or maybe five.
>The adventurous girl lost count.
>Ah, yes. Another party with lights and decorations and smiling faces.
>A few drinks for the patrons, a few songs played on stage.
>A few nameless friends to be made with little more than five words spoken throughout the whole night.
>The girl stares out into the blackness of the night.
>The blackness undisturbed by the lights of the cruise ship.
>The only thing interrupting it is the stars above.
>Like outer space.
>The girl swears she can scarcely see reflections of the stars in the water, making it look like the cruise ship is a space ship floating through the beautiful abyss of the cosmos.
>It's like a dream.
>A dream of emptiness that doesn't turn out to be a nightmare, because she can breathe.
>She can sit back and truly breathe for the first time in years, away from her stressful life with everyone watching over eachother.
>Worrying about every little thing.
>Worrying about her.
>The stars aren't going to worry about her.
>The stars just stay where they are, in every direction, shining proudly overhead and in the distance.
>Stretching to the horizon.
>...
>Day five or six.
>She doesn't even remember when she fell asleep.
>The whole thing might as well been a dream.
>But she's still holding the plastic cup she had the night before; it had to be real.
>She pinches herself once to be sure.
>Maybe it's real...
>Once again, she pinches herself on her forearm.
>Yes, this is real life.
>She chuckles to herself after leaving a slight but temporary mark on her arm just because she was trying to decipher what is reality and what is imagination.
>Then she gets a little bit of food and drink for herself.
>Talking with a few strangers along the way.
>They still don't think to ask for her name; she doesn't hold a conversation long enough for that.
>It's hard to remember that she's not supposed to be here when it feel so much like she was always supposed to be here since the day she was born.
>Such a magical sensation that keeps her smile from fading.
>More hours of happiness go by, thankfully never to be wasted spending time where she's always been her whole life.
>She loves the plains too, but she had to get out of there just a little bit.
>Get to another open space just for a little while.
>It's worth it.
>...
>The sunsets around here are just as beautiful as they are in the open plains.
>Especially with so many massive clouds on the opposite side of the horizon as the sun, but with just enough places where there's open sky to show the plain tone it gets on the edges at this time.
>The way everything is painted together is enough to make a girl from the open plains fall in love with every little thing around her.
>She's so used to this yet it's so new to her.
>A whole new kind of horizon in all directions.
>And those horizons disappear with the sun's light as it passes behind them.
>The last the girl can see is towering clouds on the darker side of the sky that spreads to the other side within the next several minutes.
>They eerily seem to grow larger, boiling up to the heavens above and devouring the stars.
>Those are not more stars inside of the clouds, any girl from the pains can see.
>That's lightning.
>And it's the only thing that allows anyone to see how much the clouds are filling more and more of the sky as a distant hissing or rushing sound gradually approaches.
>Water hitting water.
>The ship starts to rock back and forth with a little bit more life than last night, and none of the stars can be seen in the dark of the night.
>And drops of rain fall onto the deck of the ship.
>Harder and harder, moving the party indoors.
>...
>The room is tilting back and forth so much that it might as well do a flip or two.
>It's a little hard to enjoy the party with such concerning movements.
>But the girl from the plains is just as much as a stranger to this as she was to so many other things in this greatest moment of her life.
>It's just another discovery for her, but the worried looks on everyone's faces soon contagiously spreads to her.
>And she plants her feet, sitting in a chair while not understanding what is happening with the ship.
>Her sense for new adventure transforms; she a strong part of her misses the plains.
>The safe ground that doesn't do this.
>The water isn't sturdy enough to calm her down, just as it was too good at rocking back and forth to soothe her before like a baby in a cradle.
>And then the absolute turning point happens.
>The lights go out.
>They flicker a little bit first, but not for long enough for anyone to process the event before the pitch blackness from outside spills inside.
>Screams and nervous laughter start up.
>Followed by soothsaying.
>Reassurance that the lights will turn back on.
>Reassurance th-
>The doors swing open, and powerful gusts of wind that did this rush in bearing a shower of cold rain.
>The ship rocks harder, almost feeling like it's going to tip.
>People struggle to close the door, and the girl from the plains can only see where the door is from the lightning outside.
>She panics.
>Holds onto her good luck talismans for her life, in a literal sense.
>Shuts her eyes and almost falls to the floor as the ship is ravaged by the storm's waves.
>...
>It's still nighttime, but the lightning is on the other side of the sky now.
>And only there.
>The air grows quiet aside a dull but relaxing howl.
>The ship's power is still out, and the deck is glistening with rainwater with each flash of increasingly distant lightning.
>The storm has passed.
>As she had every other time when a thunderstorm over the great plains had finally passed, the girl feels an urge to go back outside and stare at the stars once again to assure herself that the sky is clear.
>Almost as if to thank them for once again bearing a beautiful clear sky of the night.
>And so she does... steps outside before the lights are able to turn back on.
>Something's wrong with the generators in the deeper control rooms or whatever has those, but several crew members are working on it.
>The curious girl wanders around in the dark, with the stars her only source of bearing.
>Sandals slipping against the deck, she finds the rail and grabs onto it despite it being just as slippery with water.
>She watches the lightning fade into the distance once last time, as if looking for a rainbow in the dark.
>The distant storm clouds look so beautiful, causing the girl to mostly forget where she is.
>Thinking for just a brief second that there's soil and grass below the upper half of her body as she leans over the edge.
>She slips before she realizes it, and the majority of her weight falls in the unfavorable position: overboard.
>Into the water she's not able to see.
>Why does it taste like this?
>That is definitely salt in this water.
>The girl holds her breath as quickly as she can, almost suffocating but resurfacing seconds later to choke out the water that made it in.
>She loses her voice for several seconds, as the side of the cruise ship runs by her.
>And then the back of it, where she was just a few feet away from right before she fell overboard.
>"HEEEEEELP!" Her raspy voice tries to scream through remnants of saltwater.
>Can anyone up there hear her?
>She remembers how high up above the water she was when she looked off of the railing during the day.
>Back when she was up there, staring down at the water she's swimming in now.
>Next to the sound of the ship against the water drowning a lot of her voice out.
>And it can't even cry out loud enough until after a minute.
>The girl doesn't take long to figure out how to paddle like she learned how to do in tiny swimming pools as a kid.
>But it was nothing like this.
>Her feet aren't brushing past the bottom of anything.
>It's just underwater emptiness, infinitely downward.
>With not a thing to be seen the entire way to wherever this probably existent bottom should be.
>The girl cries out again and again and again.
>Now able to see the lights of the ship turn on once more.
>She can't tell if this just happened, or if the ship got far enough away from her that she's not too close up to the side to not have the light be blocked by the shape of the buoyant ship itself.
>She calls to the lights, and starts to hear something peculiar in return.
>Screaming, coming from the ship.
>Yelling and screaming.
>They must have heard her!
>She tries to swim the best she can over towards the ship, but can barely move a couple of arm's lengths with each attempt.
>She tries to get someone to see where she is, but no one is shining a flashlight out into the water.
>Or rather, a searchlight.
>Surely they have to have something like that, right?
>The screaming on the ship continues, but it's collective, and it doesn't so much sound like someone calling out to her.
>There's probably at least fifty people screaming.
>And right when the girls starts to have her doubts about things, she suddenly sees a bright flash of light come from the ship.
>She thinks it's a searchlight... at first.
>But the bright white fades into a yellow, and then orange and red.
>There's a slight boom she hears along with it, almost muffled.
>The screaming on the ship is louder; something must have happened underneath the deck.
>But the girl continues to cry out at them, now having regained her voice but to no avail.
>They'll never hear her screaming over their own screaming.
>Suddenly, another flash of light.
>Followed by a much more apparent and clear boom.
>An explosion.
>Mirrored by yet another one seconds later.
>After having turned her head away from the blinding light, the girl looks again after it dims to find what horrors lie before her.
>Massive flames begin to engulf the ship.
>And they only grow as much more smaller explosions sound.
>Nobody knows what's going on.
>But there's another explosion after half a minute.
>This one just as huge as the first or second, depending if the muffled explosion counts.
>Another blast of light and flames erupts from the ship.
>It's hard to tell, but the girl can momentarily see the ship itself start to tilt more and more.
>As the flames persist, enveloping the entire vessel in the inferno at this point.
>As the girl watches with her eyes filling with tears and dread.
>As the ship's form slowly submerges into the water below.
>As more explosions erupt from the ship.
>As most of the screams can no longer be heard.
>And then... the largest explosion yet.
>It's like a firework, streams of flaming debris soaring in every direction.
>The blast echoing into the endless plane of the sea with nothing to bounce off of and return to the girl's terrified ears.
>The last of the ship is soon submerged under the water.
>The evidence of whatever caused this... goes down with it.
>...
>Already exhausted, the girl finally makes it to the little bits of flames she can still see.
>They float on the surface of the ocean like bobbing campfires.
>Barely illuminating the surface of the water around it to reveal other floating pieces of debris that are no longer set ablaze.
>And the dim light illuminates the very bottom of the pillar of smoke that was left behind.
>It towers over the horrified girl, menacingly.
>She can barely see it; she can feel it a lot more than she can see it.
>She can sense it ascending into the dark heavens.
>But her ears sense a few floating pieces of presumably wall or maybe a good chunk of the deck.
>Loudly floating by her to her left.
>She eventually find it as the last of her body's energy is at the end of its string.
>But luckily, the same cannot be said about her life as she climbs out of the blackness of the water and sits on the mangled surface of wood, shivering and sobbing alone in the blackness of the air.
>On her hands and knees until she rolls to her side and catches her breath.
>Smelling the ashy, burnt surface of the wood she rests on.
>She doesn't even understand how much she is panicking.
>The only way she's going to fall asleep is if her body gives out for the night, and she passes out until she's recharged enough to turn herself back to normal.
>...
>The splashing of waves can still be heard.
>But everything's still pitch black.
>The girl knows she's too cold and tired to look around.
>She rests the side of her head on the least uncomfortable part of the wood she can find with her temple.
>Tries her best to imagine a pillow.
>Tries to pretend there aren't tears running sideways off of her face.
>...
>Everything is still pitch black, but the splashing persists, a lot more peacefully now.
>She doesn't know how long it's been, but the crackling of the flames seems to have stopped.
>She still doesn't want to look around, afraid of that little bit of the pillar of smoke she saw.
>It's still engraved into her memory, like a dark behemoth storm cloud looming over her head in her mind.
>It makes her shiver some more, crossing her arms more tightly.
>She starts to feel warmer after her clothes and hair begin to dry.
>At least it's not winter.
>...
>Everything is still pitch black, but seem almost... red-ish?
>The splashing of the water is still continuing, and the girl now feels like she must have actually slept at this point.
>But even then, she's not entirely sure.
>It's not until what feels like almost an hour later passing does her brain finally get enough of a hold of itself to realize something.
>The girl just needs to open her eyes; they're shut.
>They gradually open and let the bright light of day in.
>With a groan, the girl rolls off of her side and onto her back.
>Closing her eyes for a minute or two once again, then squinting for a little bit until her eyes adjust to the brightness of the blue sky overhead.
>She eases up her breathing and soon gets her eyes to open all the way.
>Hesitantly turns her head, knowing full well what she could find.
>On the surface of the water, she sees more flotsam still bobbing around in the water.
>Definitely pieces of the cruise ship, charred mostly black beyond recognition.
>And the scent of ash and saltwater dominates all.
>It only makes it harder for the girl to sit herself up, but she does it eventually.
>A creeping sense of emptiness overtakes her.
>A sense of true lonesomeness.
>There is not another person in sight, breathing or dead.
>This is the first thing she noticed, because it is the first thing she looked for as she weakly resumed her cries for help.
>No response.
>No corpses.
>Just bits of debris.
>One of which hoisting the girl over the water.
>Everything else has been taken by the depths of the sea.
>Into the unknown where it might as well be in the same place as the girl's memory.
>The girl continues to yell in every direction, her voice breaking more and more with sadness as the resounding silence asserts itself as permanent.
>She doesn't dare rise to her feet, lest she get thrown into the water once more.
>But she would have fallen to her knees in tears by this point anyway.
>The once enchanting dream of the open sea has transformed into a hellish nightmare.
>The terrifying, beautiful void of the sea.
>...
>Hours pass, but the sun is still fairly high in the sky.
>The girl sits on the nearly incinerated debris, on her side in a fetal position with prayer after prayer sent up to the sky above.
>She desperately clutches her bracelet and necklace as she whispers in a shaky voice.
>She clutches them harder than she has ever clutched anything before.
>Holds them close to her breaking, racing heart.
>With splinters on her hands.
>Her mind spins, and her world crumbles to soon go down beneath the waves to wherever the ship is.
>And she will not allow her hope to follow it.
>No matter how many tears she sheds, no matter how much it seems that all is lost, the sky will hear her humble prayers as long as she has breath within her to say them.
>And the majestic horror of the sea answers with nothing more than the sounds of the waves.
>...
>She knows that no one is going to search for her.
>Nobody on board even knew her name.
>Her best luck turned into her worst.
>Heaven became hell, dreams into nightmares, bliss into dread.
>Her prayers are soaked in sobs.
>But she continues to clutch her talismans.
>For the sky has been kind to her before in her life, when she didn't realize that every day she was given on this earth was a blessing.
>She continues to shudder in terror, trying to cobble together in her mind a plan to get herself rescued.
>Do any other boats or ships sail around here?
>There don't seem to be any as far as the girl can tell.
>And she's obviously not good at swimming.
>Never had a reason to before; she was in the middle of the land she now misses so much.
>Nothing as far as her eyes could see but earth and maybe a couple of small, slight, distant rolling hills in the morning sky depending on where she was.
>She can paint it into her head so vividly, more-so with the more she misses dry land.
>It's been engraved into her memory all her life and she didn't know it until she needed it the most.
>Now she wants these rolling waves to be infinite blades of grass.
>Swaying peacefully in the prairie breeze.
>But she needs to pull herself together.
>And after another hour or so of clumsy, haste planning, she figures she needs to pull some of the debris together.
>Most of it has spread out, and used to be hundreds of charred chunks of wood right above where the ship sank.
>Now it's much less clusters, and the girl knows that she's running out of time before there will be no other debris in sight.
>There are only about fifteen pieces of debris left she can see, and they're really spread out.
>She uses her hands to paddle towards them, trying to move as fast as she can but it's taking forever.
>She finally gets close enough to a broken two-by-four looking piece of wood that can be used as a makeshift oar.
>But now the clouds are speckled everywhere, peppered across the blue fading to orange in deep violet tufts.
>They gently float across the air, as the bits of wood the girl gathered gently float together now across the water.
>She's made the raft sturdier, wedging a few mangled pieces together the best she can.
>She barely has enough strength to keep things together, though.
>Both on the outside and the inside.
>But her spirit does what it can to persist.
>This is her life hanging in the balance now.
>It's all or nothing.
>She calls out into the empty distance at the horizon.
>Calls up to the sky as it grows more and more beautiful in the evening light.
>Watches the clouds pass by ever so slowly.
>The girl in the past who wanted adventure... where has she gone?
>Where did this unfolding odyssey take her.
>She has disappears, and has been replaced by this... bundle of desperation and regret.
>And the fear inside of her heart grows more powerful as the light of the sun grows weaker.
>Sinks below the horizon, underneath the waves.
>And the blackness returns.
>With a soft but ominous breeze.
>The girl sits in silence.
>More tears roll down her face as she tries to hold the makeshift raft together, only to feel it come apart a little more over and over again.
>She sobs as the night begins, no longer taken away by the beautiful stars above her head.
>...
>The vast ocean spans for countless nautical miles.
>In every direction.
>Underneath it is a whole separate world of life than the world on land that people know.
>It's like another universe.
>Maybe different forms of life, just living every day and night to survive.
>Trying to eat, or not to get eaten, or both.
>So many dimensions to the food chain.
>There's some sort of an order to this madness, one that developed over however many million or billion years.
>That shaped the ocean as we know it today.
>As it goes through dan in and day out of being so much of a mystery to those on land.
>And so normal to those dwelling within it.
>Right now, the day is underneath this side of the world.
>And the sky becomes perfectly clear.
>A canvas of constellations shines from above.
>Now with the moon to join it.
>The light of the moon bears itself down upon the ocean's waves, making them glisten with brewing beauty.
>The horizon shrouded in pitch blackness, yet still revealed by where the stars stop and the sea begins.
>And the gentle ocean wind, and the gentle ocean currents... peacefully passing by everything above and below the surface.
>The wind giving off a soft howl that chimes across the open air above the boundless waves under the moonlight.
>And in between that howl of the wind, is a distant holler that can only come from absolute doom.
>The moonlight shines down upon the girl on the raft, giving her all of its beautiful light as it can be seen reflected from the tears on her cheeks.
>She looks up to the sky and cries at the beautiful stars, pleading and apologizing to them.
>Her heart has been shattered, and her spirit is next.
>She falls to her back and continues to sob.
>Begging to moon to lift her up off of this raft and take her home to the prairie.
>And she soon falls silent.
>But still clutches her talismans with all the might she has left.
>Knowing that if she doesn't get drinkable water soon, she will die.
>Her grief did not have her go through the stage of denial.
>It only went straight to sadness and bargaining.
>If there was any denial, it was back on the ship where everything was too good to be true.
>That chorus of explosions made everything crystal clear to her what her situation was.
>And she's too tired to be angry.
>Too hungry and tired.
>She'd imagine that the hunger will bring out enough rage from her to persist with more might, but this vast openness she's never been in before does things to her resolve.
>Being at the mercy of the ocean, this infinitely vast plane of undrinkable water... is parallel to hell yet could extinguish it with its sheer size and power.
>No, the girl went straight to a state of despair, and she fights it, but it reasserts itself within her.
>She fears for her soul, fears for her life.
>She never thought she'd die like this.
>The crying retreats to only the inside, and she simply lies on her back, calmly.
>With some water spilling its way to the back of her head from the edge of the raft, but in tiny quantities.
>She breathes slowly, trying to calm herself as much as she can.
>With shuddering, uneven breaths.
>She looks up at the moon and grabs her bracelet and necklace once more, silently mouthing another prayer.
>Then another, and another as fatigue takes her.
>She almost hears a voice, but it must have been in her head.
>But she hears it again.
>That's not in her head.
>She's actually hearing this.
>It's not a distantly calling voice, but a really nearby voice, as though someone is only a few feet away and talking to her.
>Floating in the water.
>She can't make out what the words are saying at first, but she doesn't hear anyone splashing around in the water.
>"I will bring you to land." The soft voice tells the girl.
>The girl can hardly speak, with not enough energy to bring out even a word or two from her lungs.
>Her face goes stoic, and she starts to close her eyes before feeling a gentle hand hold them open.
>Then the gentle hand strokes her forehead.
>"Do not fear, my child. For I shall bring you back to land."
>The girl croaks in response to this voice, soon tilting her head in the right direction to see that there is someone who appears to be standing there.
>The voice is a voice of a woman.
>And the figure matches the voice.
>Dressed in many gowns, the woman looms over the girl with her long hair flowing in the wind.
>There are stars in her hair, and they reside within what looks like a blue glow that only brightens under the light of the moon.
>There is something holy or royal about her hair... or both.
>The way it flows seems to have it so it's moving on its own.
>Peacefully swaying like the countless grass blades on the prairie would, but this time, partially against the wind.
>"Have faith in your heart, for you are stronger than you know." The woman insists in a surprisingly relaxing tone.
>The girl tries to say something back, but she couldn't think of a word to say even if she had the stamina to get it out.
>"Have faith in your soul."
>...
>Those words stuck.
>The girl is not sure if she even fell asleep at all, even though it's obvious she must have in order to have just enough energy to sit up once she noticed the sky begin to turn lighter.
>She lets out a fatigued grunt and finds herself surrounded by an even more tranquil sea then before.
>At least she can tell where East is; there's the light from the sun.
>Starting to fill up the sky with more and more color.
>A little less clouds than yesterday are in the sky, but the girl is really just happy to be able to see once more.
>She can see how much her hands are shaking.
>She already started to get used to how much the raft was tilting back and forth.
>Now she can see why she needed to sturdily hold onto the wood of the debris.
>At least the smell of ash seems to have been washed away and taken over by salt water.
>Several minutes later, the enchanting light of the rising sun floods itself across the sky.
>Warming and lighting up the clouds as they churn above ever so graciously.
>Even in this moment of desperation, the girl stops to look up at how beautiful dawn in the middle of the ocean is.
>It is as though she is being spiritually embraced by angels from the heavens with this light.
>With the celestial beams warming her shivering body.
>She breathes more calmly now.
>Finding peace of mind even in the worst of times.
>Almost smiling.
>She looks out into the distance and notices a few find popping out of the water very briefly.
>She doesn't make any connections in her head about this, mostly because she's a little too torn from hunger and exhaustion to think clearly.
>But the dolphins in the distance catch her attention.
>Like angels visiting her during a vision quest.
>It's as though she only now remembers that she has a makeshift oar with her to paddle with.
>Even though she spent most of the evening desperately trying to use it to get as far in any direction she could as if it mattered.
>Her body is still extremely tired.
>But the sun's rays comfort her, enriching her peace of mind.
>"My sister spoke the truth." Another female voice says from right behind the girl.
>Startled, the girl spins around while seated, rocking the raft back and forth a bit before finding a different woman in gowns before her.
>Her hair flowing the exact same way as that of the last woman.
>As it waves in the wind, the hair seems to gently shine in a couple of different radiant colors.
>Green, light blue, pink, light purple...
>"Heed my words." Says the woman. "My light, my warmth, gives you great strength, combined with the strength you already had within you."
>"I..." The girl finally manages to speak. "I... who are you?"
>In response, the woman smiles and closes her eyes towards the water below.
>It's only now does the girl realize that this woman in gowns in floating above the water.
>"Stand up to your fear, and embrace bravery. I shall take you back to land as you go towards it yourself." Declares the woman.
>"I..."
>The girl starts to stutter, mostly just in disbelief now.
>The woman speaks once more.
>"You are stronger than you know. The light is within you."
>The woman in gowns gradually vanishes into thin air.
>Seconds later, the girl jolts awake on the raft.
>But the scenery looks exactly the same.
>Even each of the individual clouds in the sky are exactly the same down to the smallest details.
>And the ocean is almost perfectly flat like an endless mirror reflecting the clouds in the morning sky.
~
>The day goes on.
>And the girl on the raft finally does rise to her feet, finding some newfound resolve and burst of energy within her despite going almost two full days without food or water and very little sleep.
>She starts to use the board of wood to paddle in one designated direction, thinking about the words she probably dreamt.
>The warm summer breeze whips through her hair, and her heart years for the open plains of land she knows so well.
>She's still extremely exhausted, but something inside of her is ignoring it.
>Like she thought before... this is her life on the line.
>It's all or nothing.
>What else to do but keep trying despite all the odds looking grim?
>She has nothing else to lose but her life which she's doing all this to save.
>She keeps rowing and paddling on her raft, staying on her feet.
>The mangles contraption of debris keeps falling apart, but the girl figured she might as well rip off the lower parts of her pants' legs and tie the raft together with that.
>And she uses her belt to reinforce it.
>Keeping her bracelet and necklace on herself for the best of luck she can get.
>And as the hours go on, her stomach rumbles.
>Her heart pounds in her chest.
>And her head starts to hurt.
>Aching like her healing heart.
>She continues to make her way across the ocean.
>Over the waves.
>Through the wind.
>Under the sky as the sun creeps across it.
>Sometimes the sun hides behind a couple of clouds, providing some shade.
>Today is really warm.
>But the girl's willpower is all but lost.
>She WILL make it back to land.
>And she shall return to the prairie, back to her home and gratefully accept whatever punishment is handed to her with full compliance.
>Back to her little house on the prairie she sails.
>...
>This girl never knew so much strength was within her.
>Even though she can't really see how far she's gotten, she knows that she got far.
>She can sense it.
>She might have never gotten the opportunity to swim well, but she learns a bit about how to use an oar really quickly.
>By the end of the day, her exhaustion starts to catch up with her, but the sense of accomplishment does not go away.
>No, her spirit has become stronger.
>But her body is now tired.
>Even more than it has been yesterday; she has had no food to eat, no water to drink.
>Her mind has already started to become desperate multiple times.
>Looked down at that ocean water, desiring to drink it.
>But the feeling that those voices gave her, told her to listen to what she thought back on the ship.
>There is no way this water is good for her.
>It could kill her, defeating the whole purpose of her struggling to save her life.
>On the other hand, she knows that humans can't go three days without water.
>She knows this from what her family told her.
>No more than three minutes without air, no more than three days without water, no more than three weeks without food.
>And it has already been at least two whole days.
>Her desperation becomes more and more powerful as the sun creeps its way to the edge of the sky.
>She wants to drink the water, it's eating away at her on the inside.
>But she made it this far, and she's trying her hardest not to lose her mind.
>She's already begun to see things out of the corners of her eyes.
>Apparitions.
>Probably ghosts of people who already drowned long ago.
>Sheering her on to just... survive.
>She has to make it though this.
>No matter how much she struggles, she has to make it.
>She HAS to make it.
>She needs to survive.
>The girl presses on as the sky once again becomes beautiful in the light of approaching evening.
>Her willpower only growing stronger and stronger.
>She once again sees a collection of lumbering clouds in the distance.
>Just like on that one fateful night.
>A storm.
>She grits her teeth and clutches her talismans.
>Raises her face to the sky, hoping the stars can hear her as they start to appear.
>"I have pushed on for survival with all my might all day today, I have been trying with every ounce of my well being to survive." Her voice is now loud.
>The waves start to become a little more turbulent as the storm clouds in the distance boil taller.
>"Please hear me, I am begging you. Do not send this storm my way. For I am desperate for survival."
>She doesn't know where these words are coming from, it's probably from her lack of sleep and nourishment.
>"Please... keep this storm away. I can't survive it. It will tear my raft apart."
>The girl sweats bullets and the growing storm clouds almost look like their getting closer because of their increasing size.
>There is no way of knowing if they are in the same location of where the ship was before, but it's getting harder and harder to see with the sun disappearing over the horizon.
>The sky behind the clouds turns into deeper shades of indigo.
>The clouds themselves, especially at the tops turn a deep magenta, scarlet and crimson before the sun's light leaves them.
>Then they turn dark as they churn by, hardly visible after some more time passes.
>The girl prays and prays and prays for the storm to bypass where her raft floats.
>The beautiful colors drain from the sky and give way to the darkness of night.
>Closely holding the talismans, the girl prays harder the darker it gets.
>Her body ready to collapse, but her heart and spirit bursting with life.
>Hoping to keep bursting with life by morning, with her body following suit.
>Storms in the night shall not take her soul.
>Nor shall it take her body.
>She will live, and she knows it.
>Even with the thunder rumbling in the distance, she will live.
>Even with the lightning licking the clouds from the inside, she will stay alive.
>The girl prays with everything she has.
>She can no longer see where the clouds are until the flashes of lightning give her an idea of where part of them are.
>She breathes heavily with anticipation, still gritting her teeth.
>Steeling herself, preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
>Something inside her KNOWS she will live.
>No matter how tired she gets, no matter what happens with this storm, no matter how much she starves tonight, she WILL live.
>She will not die tonight, she will live.
>She is going to survive.
>Whether fate likes it or not.
~
>...
>Darkness, everywhere.
>Nothing but pitch blackness.
>Not even lightning.
>No thunder.
>No waves crashing.
>Absolute silence.
>Nothing to be seen or heard.
>Is this what death feels like?
>No, it's what the damp surface of the raft feels like.
>The contraption is starting to split apart again, the girl can feel it.
>She shifts around and confirms that she's still in the ocean.
>There's faint splashing from her movement.
>The tired girl sits up, wiping the chips of wood off of the side of her face.
>Wincing in brief pain when she discovers splinters on her shins.
>The cool air around her remains silent.
>There are no starts to be seen; there must be too many overcast clouds in the sky.
>Better than a storm, but somehow more disheartening.
>There is no lightning, no thunder, no... life.
>Just silent blackness.
>That feeling of emptiness, the notion that there is nothing out there, not even waves... it hits the spirit.
>But the spirit hits back.
>The girl boldly rises to her feet with all of her strength, struggling to find balance but succeeding.
>She stares into the blackness, seeing no difference when she closes her eyes for half a second.
>"I will not surrender." Her voice croaks.
>No echoes; nothing for her voice to bounce off of.
>The ocean itself seems to be completely motionless until she rocks the raft around.
>It is completely silent until she rocks the raft around as well, shifting it with her feet.
>The girl snarls at the ridge of her nose and balls her hands into clamped fists.
>She stares forward into the pitch blackness. "I will NOT surrender!"
>In response, silence.
>Silence and darkness.
>"I will NEVER surrender!" The girl shouts, now finding more of her voice. "Do you hear me? I WILL survive!"
>Silence.
>Darkness.
>"I will continue to live!" She wails into the blackness. "I made it this far! I will make it to the end!"
>She thinks about her situation when she says 'the end'.
>Thinks about the fact that right now, she is living.
>Yes, she is alive, she's been living this whole time.
>But for how long?
>"I will survive!" She repeats.
>How long?
>"I. WILL. SURVIVE."
>She makes it a promise, a promise more unbreakable than the raft.
>She says the words over and over again as the blackness infinitely responds with resounding silence.
>But her spirit is all but broken.
>Her voice grows weaker, quieter, yet more bold.
>"I will survive." She whispers, remaining on her feet.
~
>It doesn't matter who's in the wrong or right.
>Entitlement is a myth.
>Survival is survival.
>Might is might, spite is spite.
>Life is life.
>Death is death.
>And time is time.
~
>Morning inevitably arrives.
>Only about 12 hours left before this supposed 3 day limit.
>The girl very slowly awakens.
>This time, she has practically no energy at all whatsoever in her body.
>Her eyes are bloodshot, lips are bone dry.
>Hair a mangled mess, skin excessively pale.
>Her legs shake uncontrollably as she tries to make it to her feet.
>She struggles, and struggles.
>Needs to make it to the end, she's almost there, she can feel it.
>Not sure if the feeling is death or being rescued.
>She almost feels like she didn't open her eyes until just now, when she's somehow now finally on her feet after so many failed attempts.
>There is not a cloud in the sky.
>Not a wave in the sea.
>Everything is completely plain and flat.
>Plain and flat as the sun rises in the East.
>Turning the sky from black to deep violet to pink to orange.
>It won't be long before the sky turns to its well-known light blue.
>The girl stands in the light of dawn, now seeing before her what was in the blackness.
>It's nothing.
>Absolutely nothing.
>Not even waves; everything is completely still.
>The sky nothing more than a beautiful orange and bluish gradient.
>The ocean nothing more than that same endless mirror of a floor reflecting the sky perfectly.
>And the emptiness, the emptiness of the beautiful world, that emptiness of it all is terrifying.
>There is no one around to see her, no one to save her, and now not even a storm to end her life quickly.
>Just... nothing.
>Nothing, like her name.
>Nothing, like what the blackness was hiding.
>Nothing floating in the nothingness that was hiding nothing.
>And within all of that, in the midst of nothing...
>...Is her spirit.
>Right here, right now, in the vast break of dawn, there is nothing but her spirit.
~
>She didn't go to sleep.
>Just stood there on the raft as the sun rose.
>Feeling her strive for survival.
>Still breathing, but not too well.
>Still starving and wanting nothing more than to pass out.
>Nothing more except one thing... to survive.
>She eventually felt as though her legs would break if she stayed on her feet any longer, and lied down.
>She stayed on her side for hours on end.
>Too hungry and tired to even move.
>Not even sure if what she saw this morning was a dream or not.
>It sure looked like a dream.
>It sure felt like a dream.
>Now the open water looks normal once again.
>There's waves that can be softly heard.
>And the raft tilts slightly as those waves push it.
>She can't find the strength to move, let alone sit up.
>There is nothing inside of her but her spirit.
>But that spirit is all she needs when she faintly hears the distant sound of helicopter blades.
>It happened so suddenly.
>She just started hearing it.
>Impossible to tell if she passed out somehow without realizing and was woken up by the sound or if a helicopter spontaneously appeared out of thin air.
>Regardless, whether or not if the sound is even real, she forces herself to her feet with every last bit of her well being.
>Squints into the distance, at the blue haze that obscures the horizon that separates sea from sky...
>There's a little black figure floating in the air, traveling... to the right.
>It seems to stop traveling to the right and gets a little bit higher and larger.
>Then it starts shifting its direction of travel to the left.
>The girl doesn't even have the energy to raise her arms.
>And her legs give out as soon as she realizes that the helicopter looks like it's doing what it's doing because it's getting closer to her.
>It has to be a rescue team. It must be.
>It actually is.
>As soon at it gets to a certain distance from the raft, it heads straight for it as if having spotted it from above.
>A weak smile tilts upward at the corners of the girl's mouth.
>She collapses entirely with a loud splash in the water.
>The helicopter blades get closer and closer.
>Soon to the point where the sound is deafening.
>The wind from the helicopter blades make rings around raft.
~
>An airport.
>Well, sort of an airport.
>That's what the building technically functions as.
>Next to it is the ground.
>Earth.
>Out of the open door on the side of the building, a girl rushes.
>Her legs are still a little weak, and her lips are still a little dry.
>It's easy for her to drop to her knees and embrace the ground with her tired arms.
>Easier than anything in the entire world.
>She cries with her cheek planted against the dirt.
>She cries hard.
>Never wanting to let go of the Earth beneath her.
~
>Months later, she is finally allowed to go outside unsupervised again.
>She's home.
>In the open plains of the prairie.
>In the middle of the entire continent.
>She lies on her back and stares at the afternoon sky, watching the clouds go by as the cool breeze whips past her hair.
>With the ground at her back, and never allowed to leave her.
>As she is never going to allow herself to leave it.
>She remains in the middle of the plains for the majority of her life, never daring to set foot on a boat or even on a dock ever again.
>Lives out the rest of her days a a woman who lives on the prairie.
>And dies of old age after almost an entire century.
>Yup, she still dies before the story ends.
Fin.