Out of the Abyss [Mr. M & JessiDlux]

[Mr Master]

When it comes to sailing the open ocean, people think of the huge luxury cruise liners, floating cities with restaurants and casinos and multiple swimming pools. People also think of private ships, sailboats and yachts that brave the elements and the distance to carry their adventurous owners around the world. But many don't realize there are still mid-class ships around and about, capable of carrying a few dozen passengers in more comfort than a smaller boat, but with the sense of adventure and risk missing in the bigger ones.

It was just such a ship, the Advocate, that was making the trans-Atlantic transit from Boston to Bristol, with a full crew and about half a load of passengers. It was the off-season, so the owners weren't expecting too much profit, but the captain and crew preferred to be on the open ocean, so they were happy to cast off with just enough fares to cover expenses; it was better than sitting around the dockside for weeks, amassing debt.

They were in the deep water, dealing with the rolling swells well enough, when the unthinkable happened. An ancient WWII-era sea mine, long sunk and believed inert, had broken free of its moorings some months ago, and had been drifting with the currents, slowly rising toward the surface. The odds of the mine actually impacting anyone were astronomical; the idea that it could be still active and explosive after all this time was simply ludicrous.

It could be said that the captain's bad luck was ludicrously effective.

It was late evening, shortly after ship's dinner, when the entire prow of the vessel exploded, disintegrating into shrapnel of fiberglass and wood and steel. A good portion of the crew and passengers, including the captain, died in the explosion, or shortly thereafter from grievous injuries. Several small groups made it to lifeboats, but not everyone who survived was so lucky, and so there were a small handful of survivors clinging to wreckage and life preservers. In the dark, in the chaos, the current separated everyone, so within just a few minutes, nearly everybody was out of touch with everybody else. All the survivors were therefore alone, floating in the middle of the Atlantic.

 

[JessiDlux]

Click,
Cr-cr-cr-ccracck,
Click.

It was just before dinner that Amari had spotted a gull, plesantly and perfectly poised, perched on the railing of the side of the boat. Against the last light of the seaside sunset, it was beautiful. She crouched down and started a little photo session with the bird. Carefully crouching down and awkwardly approaching it, trying to get good angles, and the sunset in the shot. From there the time just flew. Eventually the bird took off, they getting very far from shore. They haddn't been able to see said shore for quite some time, but there had been the tiny rocks set in the remaining sand bars and stable flotsam for the birds to rest on. Now though, such recluse for the birds was becoming very sparse. She continued to snap a few more pictures of its receding form, before just staring at the sunset in brief, light, absient thoughts.

She had been living well enough her whole life, a happy, average life, now leading up to a satisfying lifestyle, as far as she was conserned. Her job was of a go-fer photographer, and it paid the bills. She had been just fine with her apartment and her going abouts, but she needed a vacation...

She sighed a little, her bright brown hair blowing in the sea wind. The thought then crossed her mind,
"Oh! I missed dinner!"
She briefly looked around, and without any warning, the bomb hit. She didn't see much more than a flash and then darkness for a brief while. She was consious, she could hear a few yells and screams of passangers, some of thier voices she reconised. When she could see again, she saw the larger remains of the boat sinking away, and a few people, then almost out of sight. She then realized what had happened and caught up with herself, and began to attempt a shaky manuever only abstractly realized as treading water, in doing so realizing most of her toes were broke and her thumb, before accedentally being bumped by a piece of shipwreck behind her. She immediately grabbed on, and climbed up it as far as she could. After a long time where she still was at regestering what had happened, she was left with an emptyness. What could she do now? She looked down at her camera case, still somehow around her neck, and carefully opened it. Somehow, it survived to a glance, in the waterproof case, but pictures woulden't matter if she died first...

[not my best first post, I'll make up for it.]

 

[Mr Master]

The fragment of fiberglass hull was flesh-rendingly sharp on two sides, but Amari could grip the other two. While it was floating, it was reasonably stable, but it had the tendency to float lower with her weight on it, just under the surface of the water. It was not an ideal situation. The one good thing was her camera still intact in its case. The memory was solid-state, it was just a question of whether the battery would last. But what would she take pictures of out here, now?

The night darkened, and the clouds grew wispy, and the stars were incredibly brilliant. Amari could have enjoyed the amazing vista more if she hadn't been deathly thirsty, and unable to sleep on her fragment of hull. And then, something strange happened.

The hull made a knocking sound, like something was bumping it, but there was nothing around the sides. Could there be sea creatures? There weren't any fins in the water, so it might not be sharks, but what could it be?

 

[JessiDlux]

Amari remained in a confused, essentially stunned state after that, she didn't realize hardly any time had passed until she felt her throat ache for water. In that moment, she blinked and found the world darker, and the sunset gone. She took a heavy breath and sighed, looking down at her water-tight camera case again. She coulden't help but be thankful for that much, and besides, becoming frantic now would only cause death that much quicker. The thought of death, it sat there in her head for what was shaping up to be another long moment that would probably leave her with sunrise when she snapped from it. She didn't feel affected to hard from it, death had been something she was never as touchy as most people about, and she had accepted it back when her parents died. These thoughts started a trail that could last that long again, she, living alone, had a lot of time to think, Though it woulden't be lasting here.

It was another moment when there was the moving and the sound that snapped her from her daze, and she tottled on her knees with the movement. She winced at the pain of her knees being tight and ache from the time spent on them. She shook her head and tried to stay from the edges of the small piece of debris she was on. She wondered what it could of been, but in all fairness it could of been anything, a shark well hidden below, a squid, or something? She didn't know enough about the ocean to narrow it down, so she just shakily held what ground of this she had, and hoped it would pass...

 

[Mr Master]

The knocking went away for a time. Then without warning, there was a terrific impact, which lofted the edge of the piece of hull entirely over, forcing Amari up in the air. She had a few moments of weightlessness before falling into the gentle waves. There was enough time to catch her breath before something grabbed her kicking ankles and pulled. The odd, possibly terrifying thing is, they felt like hands.

Amari was dragged beneath the surface of the water. She could feel the pressure on her skin building, the movement of the water past her cheeks, her wildly waving arms. There was no light, she couldn't even see the stars above through the water. She sensed... something near her, a shape, a presence, a disturbance in the water. What felt like hands grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and she felt something forced into her mouth, a hard kind of pointed thing, like a horn or a beak, pushing past her lips.

 

[JessiDlux]

She tried to hold herself tightly to the smooth surface she was on, in tenceness, but when whatever hit, hit, she was easily gone. She tried to treat water immediately, but had not the time before she was pulled under. She tried to slip from whatever had her, continueally. She could do nothing and was only left in her first hit of panic since the exsplosion. She struggled against whatever held her, but the salty water stung her sences so terribly. She bit against what was being forced into her mouth, and she jerked from the girl whatever it was had on her hair. She kicked and flailed, her own cool tears her only washing comfort to the fury the fairly foreign water burned on her.

 

[Mr Master]

The pressure kept increasing, as whatever it was pushed its way into her mouth, the hands (there were more than one now) staying gripped to her head even though she was being dragged swiftly down and down. Then the thing in her mouth squirted, something thick and cold and tangy, tasting like milk but different. She was forced to take in a large mouthful, and there was nothing she could do but swallow it.

It was very strange; as soon as she swallowed, the hands left her head, the thing pulled away from her mouth, and she was left with only the grip around her struggling ankles, dragging her ever deeper into the blackness. The pressure was getting high, but after she swallowed, the pain in her temples eased a little. The water pressure was still oppressive, but she didn't feel like her blood was trying to push out of her skin anymore.

Now there was just the pressure of the air in her lungs. If she let it out in the scream she surely felt bubbling up within her, she'd never make it to the surface in time for another breath. This lungful of air she'd been holding was all that stood between her and drowning...