TYLER

Tyler's entire body craved to move, it craved to swim away from the depths of the ocean and reach the surface. But the harsh ocean currents threw his body from side to side, carrying him in their own desired way. His lungs burnt with the lack of air and he slowly felt himself lose consciousness.

The vicious sea tried to pull him away from the raft. The sensation was so painful that he could easily lull himself into the eternal sleep.

If he wasn't so goddamn stubborn.

By the power of sheer will, he managed to stay awake, searching through the darkness of the sea for his swimming companions. The sea was rough, but the raft was a floating device. Eventually, it had to reach the surface.

Tyler used all of his strength to swim for the surface, trying to bend the raft and the sea to his will. But his mind was slipping. All the reasons why he came to this cruise occupied his mind with images he didn't want to face. What if they really died? What if he literally disappeared after all these years of trying? And what if his disappearance changed nothing?

One more stroke, he thought, shaking his demons and trying to drown them in the rough sea. His body needed to breathe, he needed air. His lungs were ready to explode as he felt them spasm, urging him to breathe in.

If he did that, he would be dead.

So Tyler kept his mouth closed, shut his lungs up and swam with all his might. The darkness threatened to take him in, so terrifyingly vast that one might give up simply due to the overwhelming fear of nothingness. But Tyler swam.

And he swam.

Until finally, his head emerged on the surface. Tyler breathed in heavily, the hit stronger than any drug he ever took. Without enough time to enjoy the air, he searched his surroundings.

The raft appeared and disappeared behind waves, its neon orange colour offering some imaginary shelter and Tyler swam towards it desperately.

Corinne was already on the raft, her clothes and her hair completely drenched.

"Olivia!" Corinne shouted and threw her entire upper body into the water, surging for Olivia. Tyler swam as fast as he could and appeared near the girl in the water. He grabbed unconscious Olivia by her waist and tried to lift her up, while Corinne grabbed her under the arms and pulled. Only then he realised how weakened he was. His muscles ached with every movement, only able to function due to the insane amount of adrenaline.

The water rocked their raft, making it harder to swim and climb and hold onto the rope that bound their destinies to the floating device.

"Someone, please!" Greg's voice reached Tyler's ears as he pushed Olivia up and her entire upper body was on the raft.

"Go!" Corinne shouted and pointed to the other side. "I can handle this!" She pulled Olivia towards her and both girls stumbled across the raft.

"Someone!" Greg shouted and Tyler held himself tightly to the raft as he swam to the other side, fighting the salty water that burnt his throat, nostrils and eyes.

He spotted Greg in the water, his head basically submerged as he carried Andrew's limp body with one hand and held onto the rope with the other.

"H-help!" Greg shouted and Tyler's muscles moved on their own. He swam with impossible strength, ignoring the water that tried to sabotage his every move. Greg held Andrew above the surface and it was drowning him.

Tyler threw himself to them and grabbed Andrew by his waist, keeping the boy's head above water and helping Greg. He tried to swim with one hand towards the raft as Greg did the same.

"Corinne!" Tyler shouted, fighting the water that filled his mouth and blocked his words.

"Give me your hand!" She peaked over the raft, stretching herself across the sea, as far as she could without falling over. Tyler grabbed her hand and brought Andrew closer.

"We gotta get him on!" Greg shouted, pushing Andrew's body on the raft while Corinne pulled. But Corinne wasn't strong enough to pull him on alone. Tyler grabbed the rope and slightly jumped out of the water, swinging his leg out to allow him the use of his lower body strength. Eventually, he was on, collapsing onto the PVC ground only for a moment. In the other, he was up and throwing his body over to Andrew and helping Corinne.

They pulled on Andrew and Corinne collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily while Tyler helped Greg up. The sudden relief that flooded him lasted shortly as he realised Olivia and Andrew were unconscious. Unconscious was not something you wanted to be during a fucking lightning storm.

"It's a fucking miracle we're alive!" Greg shouted, burying his wet and drooling face. Tyler immediately turned Andrew around and put him in a lying position. His face was covered in blood and Tyler noticed a wound formed above his forehead.

Tyler's head snapped to the other side as he heard Olivia's coughing. A pool of blood surrounded her body as she coughed out the water. Her left thigh was pierced by something sharp, streams of blood pouring out of it, filling the air with a stench of metal. An expression of utter horror crossed over her face and her lips began to tremble.

"It's okay, we're fine. Come on." Corinne said and looked at Tyler pointedly. Immediately, he realised he still had his backpack on and he thanked all the gods that might exist for this particular miracle.

Tyler searched for the bottle of water in the opened backpacks to clean Andrew's head wound. He didn't know whether he should try to wake him up, it seemed dangerous considering he was hit in the head. Carefully, Tyler cleaned the wound and realised it wasn't bleeding so badly. But there was no way to know the internal damage the wound might have caused.

"Is there something we can use?" Tyler guessed there had to be something already in the raft.

"I'm going to die!" Olivia screamed, her face as pale as the moon in the stormy darkness.

"No, you're not." Corinne said sternly as she opened one of the pockets of the raft. "There needs to be a first aid kit." She took everything out, the signal flares, knives, a book on how to survive and a first aid kit. Her bloody fingers went through the gazes and she gave Tyler one to put on Andrew's head.

"Is he breathing?" Corinne looked at Tyler.

"Yes, but he hurt his head. I don't know what to do." Tyler murmured as he searched for alcohol to disinfect the wound. "Well, the bottle of vodka is intact. A clear message from the Lord."

"You brought a bottle of vodka?!" Greg shouted.

"Yes, maniac." Tyler poured a little on Andrew's head wound to clean it.

"I'm going to die." Olivia snivelled as Tyler came to her and tried to clean her wound. But she shook him off roughly. "No, don't!" She screamed. "Don't touch me!"

"Stop it!" Tyler commanded while Corinne held the girl by her shoulders. "We have to stop the bleeding, otherwise you are going to die!" He tried not to pour vodka willy-nilly because they would most definitely need it later. For disinfection purposes.

Olivia let out an animalistic scream as alcohol burnt her wound and tears poured down her cheeks. Her green eyes found Tyler's and her lips trembled.

"It's okay." He whispered, knowing there was nothing okay about this situation. "You'll be fine. I have to tie something around it to stop the bleeding."

"I'm going to help Andrew." Corinne said when she realised Tyler had this under control. He took a knife and cut off some of the rope that Andrew used to tie them all to the raft. He tied it around Olivia's leg, hoping it would work. After that, he bandaged it with the gauzes from the first aid kit.

"I laid him down. On the side. We can't do anything before he wakes up. He might have a concussion." Corinne said and finally leaned onto the raft. Olivia mended her inner wounds with a gulp of vodka.

"What the fuck was that?!" Greg shouted, he was shaking near the edge of the raft. His bloodshot eyes scanned the raging sea around them.

"It was a fucking tsunami!" Olivia shouted back at him.

"Tsunamis happen at the coast. This was a rogue wave." Corinne's eyes fluttered, she was probably dying to get some sleep. Tyler was, too.

"Keep the pressure on your wound." Tyler told Olivia and she nodded, her plump limps shivering.

"Guys..." Greg said, making everyone lift their gaze. "How is it possible that we've drifted this far from everyone else?"

Tyler expected to see wreckage around them. There were supposed to be life rafts, people screaming in pain and fighting for their lives. But there was nothing except a stormy sea.

The ocean was entirely empty.

Strangely enough, this was the moment when Tyler experienced real panic, bone-gnawing, gut-wrenching panic. An ethereal sense of loneliness settled over him as he stared at the empty sea.

"We need to call for help." Corinne pulled him out of the sensation. "Light up the signals."

"Oh, my God." Olivia cried out loudly. "We're gonna die! No one's gonna find us! Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!"

"Stop it!" Corinne shouted. "They will find us. We couldn't have drifted off so far and a massive chunk of water will be searched through once they realised the ship capsized. They will find us."

Something about the logic of Corinne's words calmed Olivia down and Greg's shaking lessened. But Tyler wasn't calm; he was even more nervous than before. The deep, sceptical suspicion nestled in his heart.

The wave came mere minutes ago; there was no fucking way they could have drifted so far. They would have at least seen the wreckage in the distance. The survivors had to light up the flares immediately. But the only lighting in the sky were electrified tendrils of the sky itself.

Shaking himself out of the claws of hopelessness, he dug through his backpack and took out his phone, wrapped in plastic bags and the waterproof phone bag.

"Well, it's not broken. Let's hope the water didn't get in." He murmured as he unwrapped the phone. His hands shook as they held onto this hope and the phone lit up. Tyler laughed out loud and leaned back onto the raft in relief. "It's fucking working."

Sighs of relief filled their tiny raft combined with desperate, shaky laughter. They had a working phone! That, in itself, was fucking amazing. He tried to call the first person in his contacts which was his friend that lived in Fiji. His escape plan.

"There's no signal." He frowned. "But I guess they could find us over satellite."

"We need to light up the flares." Corinne said and Greg jumped to do as she told him to.

"We should put Andrew between us." Tyler said, feeling his eyes shutting and the world slowly disappearing. "We need to exchange body heat."

"What now?" Corinne asked him and their eyes met in the darkness and loneliness of the sea.

"Now we wait."