Author's Note: My short story was written to focus on the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It was edited by Meg and read also by Natalie. Please comment on my voice and use of sentence fluency. Thanks for your input! Cody, was cute, that’s for sure. Keeping in mind he was the only guy for miles, I considered myself pretty lucky. Before the accident I had noticed him once. He had been the cute lifeguard watching over the ship’s waterslide. I’d climbed the stairs, counting seventy four out loud in my precise little way. I reached the top and received a look—from who I now know as Cody—that said I was sweet. He smiled, I smiled. Then I slid to the bottom, the smile not leaving my face. After that it had been three vacation fun-filled days since I saw him again, but this time both of us looked anything but cute.
“Please run in an orderly fashion to the life boats, a life jacket will be issued to all passengers in line.”
“ Help! Please, where’s my son?”
“I can’t swim! I need to board the life boats first!”
These were screams I heard as that boat went down. People had told me that I was good with numbers before, but sometimes figuring things out in your head has consequences. After noticing that the life boats would help a third of the passengers off the ship, I was quickly sent into a state of panic. I sprinted to the front of the line, leaving your Mother and her boyfriend to fend for themselves. I’m sure in a similar situation they would to the same to me.
A bystander would have thought that four years of track would have come in handy in a situation like this, but sadly I had been too late. All the lifeboats had been taken and the two thirds of the people left on the boat were mentally unstable and not a very fun crowd to be around. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cute lifeguard. I decided to follow him, thinking that he must have known the boat better than most, but once I got within a couple feet I noticed he was about to jump. What kind of idea was that? Who knows what could be lurking under the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean? But he was cute, and I estimated that I had about 35 minutes to live, so I took a leap. The water hit the back of my thighs hard and I received sort of a whiplash while I was under. It took me a good minute to fight my way through the seaweed toward the surface. Once I got up, opened my eyes and took a breath, I was greeted by a confused lifeguard in an incredibly small lifeboat.
“Where’d you get that? The life boats have all been taken?”
“I go for night rides sometimes, they keep spares in the near the rear.”
I replied stupidly with an, “oh”. We stared at each other for a few seconds in an uncomfortable silence. Although there were people twenty feet above us still letting out piercing screams, all I could focus on was his eyes. Finally helped me into his rescue boat, all four of our legs dangling off the edge, and we each took a paddle and rowed ourselves out to sea.
The situation could not have been more awkward. I think he felt that he would never see his family again, and I was his long lost sister. He fired off questions like a rifle and by the time our hands were blistered from the wooden paddles, we knew each others’ life stories and secrets. It turns out we would have been attending rival high schools in the fall, ever since he had been kicked out of his last one for breaking a teacher’s collarbone, with his textbook.
We had escaped the sinking cruise ship by a long shot now, and neither of us had an idea what to do next. There was water as far as we could see and the sun was low in the west and to simply state it, I was scared. I didn’t know how we would eat, when we would sleep, or even where we were. I asked him something along the lines of “How are you?” He responded by staring in amazement at my left foot.
“Cody? Cody are you okay?”
“Shhh! Shut up and do not move!”
Cody lunged toward my left foot with his right arm and snagged a fish right out of the water. He smiled maddeningly while I sat their confused. What was he doing? He couldn’t really think that thing was edible! He did it. He ate the fish raw with his perfect white teeth. What a mess, I thought. But neither of us knew how long we would be out here, how we would survive. I was not only for me, but for Cody. He was beginning to go insane, humming a melody of a pop song that was overplayed on the radio. He told me he was singing himself to sleep, but I could tell his mind was not capable of shutting down anytime soon. Eventually I fell asleep in an uncomfortable position, right on top of zoned out Cody. I’m not sure what happened next but I think I dreamt about Cody pulling me down the waterslide…
One week later my body was found, underneath Cody’s floating at the surface. Neither of us were alive, we had been long dead. That night he woke up sometime around midnight to throw up. Raw fish are not a nutritious snack. Since the boat was so small, he pulled me down with him. His weight lowered me and before I was awake I had inhaled a full gallon of water. I died peacefully, but Cody died in pain. We thought we were safe, we thought we had each other. Unfortunately, even though the sinking ship had been in our past, we died along with 300 others in the sinking of Friendship.
