Part One: TRUTH
They had been swimming all day. Soon it would be dark. The island had appeared much closer than it actually was. Three hours earlier he had been nearing exhaustion when his sister stopped swimming. She had a strange expression on her face as she floated in place looking up at the sky.
"I can't swim another stroke," she announced with a finality that was all too apparent.
He threaded water, trying to decide what to do.
"Bluebirds," she cried, pointing up at nothing. "We'll have to wait here for the balloon. The balloon will take us back home."
He realized his sister was delirious. They'd been in the water nearly four days. After floating the better part of that time, they started swimming towards an island that suddenly appeared in the distance.
After hours of effort the island didn't seem any closer, and the two bottles of water he had strung around his neck were nearly empty. Each had only a few swallows left.
His sister began trying to take her life vest off. If she succeeded, he knew she'd sink below the waves and vanish. He could let her have the last of the water, hoping it gave her the strength to swim on, or he could leave her behind and save himself.
He decided to save himself.
It was a dreadful decision, one he was sure to eventually regret, but it wasn't as if there was any love lost between them. Life had never seemed as precious to him as it did at that moment. He turned his back on her, and started to swim off when he heard her voice again, reedy and high pitched.
"It's the rainbow coming down on us, Micheal. Look how pretty it is. There's water there. There's water in the rainbow."
What was he thinking?
He turned around and swam back. She immediately grabbed at him when he came up on her. Twice she managed to shove him under water.
She was babbling about tentacles and motor boats now. He was afraid if she dunked him one more time, he might not make it back to the surface.
He managed to get around behind her, and with as much force as he could muster, slugged her above her right ear. She kept struggling and he had to hit her multiple times before she finally went limp.
He clung to her a few minutes, her vest keeping them both afloat. He looked towards the island, but it was still difficult to judge the distance. With the swelling of the ocean, it kept coming in and out of view. It seemed closer, but it had seemed closer earlier in the day. What if he wasn't making any progress?
His older sister started mumbling, and a serge of adrenaline shot through him. He pulled a single strap loose on her life vest, and not knowing how else to manage, held it with his teeth. Then he began swimming again. He decided if she woke up and started struggling, he would have to abandon her once and for all.
As the next few hours dragged on, he had never known such physical distress. As he swam, each stroke he made in the water burned painfully into the muscles of both arms. He lost most of the feeling in his lower legs, and couldn't be sure if he was still kicking his feet.
He hadn't been thirsty at first. The strap he clenched in his teeth seemed to produce a lot of saliva in his mouth. That didn't last very long. Eventually his mouth became so dry, he had to check several times to be sure he was still clenching the strap.
The sun was setting, and it was quickly getting dark. Soon he'd be swimming blind. He drove himself on and on. It never occured to him to stop and rest. If he was going to die, he was going to die struggling.
He couldn't even be sure his sister was still alive. She hadn't made a sound in quite some time. He had looked back occasionally to make sure her face wasn't in the water, but could only really see the back of her head. For all he knew he could be dragging a dead girl.
One moment blended into another, which turned into the next. This was his life now... Perhaps the end of it.
Had it really been four days since the yacht caught fire, forcing them to jump overboard as flames bore down on them? Four days since his life of comfort and luxury ended? Four days since the rapidly sinking ship exploded into a million pieces?
The concussion from the blast had killed several passengers and crew in the water. The survivors, scattered into small groups, drifted away from one another and disappeared. Two days since he argued with his arrogant, spoiled, sister, about what they should do next.
She had only followed him because the older man floating aimlessly with them had disappeared overnight, and she realized her brother wasn't going to follow her orders to simply stay where they were awaiting rescue.
She followed him, bitching the entire time, because she was frightened of being left alone, and because he refused to give her one of the bottles of water he had strung around his neck. Now he wished he had. It would have been worth it to be rid of her.
Something flashed in the sky, and he realized it was lightning. He had a sudden vision of being struck by it on the suface of the water, his burnt body fuzed together with that of his sister's. A fitting end, he thought madly, fuzed together by burnt bone and flesh to a woman who had never liked him.
They came from a large, wealthy, important family. Only one sibling was younger than the two of them. The other six were older, and already well established.
Seeing as shipping was an important part of the family business, and seeing as the family's 900-Foot "Super" Yacht was making it's maiden voyage, and seeing as the two of them were available, they were chosen to represent the family on part of the ship's round the world voyage. They had actually been scheduled to disembark in a few days and fly home.
He realized he was no longer thinking clearly. He could stop, take a swallow of water, and perhaps die comfortably. Instead he pushed on. Why? What was the point? He should let go of the strap, stop struggling, and allow himself to sink into the ocean.
He could still die young and good looking, he reasoned, even if he did end up devoured by some monsterous sea creature.
Another flash of lightning, followed by a thunderous clap of thunder. He wanted to shout at the sky---
"Do it--Kill me--Get it over with!"
He dully became aware of a sound. Was it surf crashing against a shore? He couldn't tell where the sound was coming from, or if he actually heard it. He was in a state of muddled confusion.
Why hadn't he taken the older man's life vest when he had the chance? The old drunk had been nothing but trouble. He was severely burned, had several gaping wounds, and his bleeding threatened to attract sharks. He kept begging to die.
Micheal had only two bottles of water strung around his neck to keep him afloat. That third night, as his sister dozed, the dying man suddenly removed his life vest and vanished. By the time Micheal realized what had happened, the vest had floated off in the darkness.
His foot pressed down against something, or so he thought. It was hard to feel anything. Was it a shark passing beneath him? Had he pushed off against some agressive fish that was going to circle around and bite him in half?
His other foot pressed down on the creature, which was hovering below him, preparing to attack. Dimly, as if from far away, the thought formed in his mind that it wasn't a creature at all. His feet had touched sand, or mud, or a combination of both.
He had encountered a severely sloping landmass of some sort. His body was being pressed against it forcefully by the ocean. He was helpless at first, but then everything seemed to come into focus.
He realized he was no longer swimming, he was wading. Wading through neck deep water, his head back, struggling to breath, as the heavy, foaming, surf, pushed him on. He stumbled, but found his footing. He was swiftly shoved into chest deep water.
In a moment of clarity, he realized the strap was still in his teeth, working against him, slowing him down. He took it in one of his hands, barely able to hold it, and pulled without looking back.
Waist deep water... Thigh deep... Knee deep... He stumbled on, moving through the darkness, the weight of his sister bouncing around like a cork behind him. Another flash crackled across the sky, and for a moment he saw he was on some sort of a beach.
The island!
Just like that, he had made it to the island. He wanted to whoop and shout. He wanted to laugh out loud. He wanted to check if his ornery sister was still alive so he could wake her up, show her where they were, proving he'd been right to make a swim of it.
He dragged her away from where the surf pounded the beach, glad to be finally dropping the strap as he gasped for air. He felt detached from himself. He knew he still had a body, he just couldn't feel most of it.
He hadn't been eaten by sharks. He hadn't been forced below the waves and drowned. He felt his face. It was so dark he couldn't see his hands. He nearly poked himself in the eye. He knew he was whole, but it seemed his entire body had fallen asleep.
The thing to do now... What he should be doing now...
He felt himself falling. Falling in slow motion through a void of darkness. He hit hard and bounced, his face ending up in the sand. He turned his head slightly, smelling fish and rotten foliage. Another flash of lightning, then thunder, then blackness.
Quiet--Peaceful--Nothingness.
When he woke up it was morning. He must have been asleep for hours. He slowly sat up and looked around. One of the bottles he'd been carrying sat beside him in the sand. He swallowed what was left in it, crazy with thirst. Where was the other bottle? Where was his sister?
He was on a beach, perhaps a city block long. On each end was an outcropping of huge boulders. Had he come ashore in either of those places, he might have been smashed against the rocks and killed.
Directly in front of him, perhaps two hundred yards away, was a forest of greenery. It was made up of tall grass and palm trees. Beyond that, reaching up towards the cloudless sky, was what appeared to be a small, lush, green, mountain, flat on the top, which he guessed to be about five miles away.
Where was his combative sister? Had she been carried back out to sea? And where was the other bottle he'd been holding onto the last four days, containing the last swallow of water? He was going to have to find something to drink.
He realized all the vegetation he saw must have a water source. Was it frequent rain, or something else? He'd have to find out soon. He stood up, trying to get his bearings. Every muscle in his body ached.
It was then he noticed the footprints. They led away from the beach, into the tall grass which led to the palm trees. Obviously his sister's footprints. She hadn't been carried back out to sea after all. She wasn't dead. The bitch had stolen the other bottle of water, and left him to die on the beach.
