Title: "Stormbound"

Status: Finished... I think?

Last touched: Early 2021 (submitted for a creative writing contest off of Wattpad)

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Johanna felt as if at any moment the world might slip out from underneath her as the boat tipped from side to side, threatening to toss her into the ferocious sea. It had happened so suddenly — one moment she had been at the bow of the trading ship, and the next thrown onto a rowboat as the waves swelled around them. Then the boat had capsized, creating such a grand tide that Johanna's boat had tumbled away across the waves. Now she was alone in the great sea with no view of other survivors or land within miles, and no supplies in her possession except for the broken paddle she clutched in her left hand.

The young woman shivered. The sky was dark, clouded over by the raging storm that had caused her original ship to capsize. Her fiance had been on that ship, but she had seen no sign of him after she had been rushed off of the deck into her current boat. She hugged herself, trying desperately to conserve body heat as thoughts of what she was going through passed through her mind for the first time. She wouldn't survive the night; there was no possibility of that.

Johanna felt, among other things, incredibly seasick. That had never been a problem before; growing up in a family of merchants, she had grown accustomed to being on ships for hours — sometimes even days — at a time. But there was a difference with being contained in the safe holds of a trading ship and being perched atop the tiny rowboat she was currently rocking in. On the large ships, she had felt as if she was in control. But on this tiny boat, Johanna felt as if she was the ocean's puppet, swaying this way and that in whichever direction the sea wished for her to move.

There was no food on the boat, which would have been a useful addition, considering the small thing was meant to be used for emergencies just like this. Johanna crouched as low as she could, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and wishing she were anywhere but there. The rowboat tipped backwards as another wave swelled at the bow and the young woman wretched dryly over the side. She hadn't eaten for at least a day, and at this rate she would be quickly dehydrated as well. Unless Johanna was lucky enough to shipwreck on an island with fresh water and somehow find the strength to drag herself ashore, she was most definitely going to die.

A bright flash lit up the sky. The young woman raised her head to stare at the stormy skies that surrounded her on all sides. The lightning flash had provided just enough light to silhouette something humongous on the horizon, but it took her a moment to realize what the shadowy shapes belonged to in her energy-depleted state. A ship. Her eyes lit up and Johanna managed to get into a sitting position in her excitement. She was nearly knocked over again as a wave shoved into the side of the rowboat, and for a moment she just drifted helplessly, until another wave appeared from the opposite direction and caused her to float back to where she had just been.

Just as she raised an arm to wave the ship over, Johanna came to notice the sails. They weren't English sails; they weren't even those of the French ships that she would sometimes see passing through the Strait of Dover. The sails displayed an unmistakable symbol: a bleached white skull and crossbones over a midnight black background. Another flash of lightning further outlined the symbol, and Johanna suppressed another shiver, but this time it wasn't caused by the cold.

Pirates. A spindle of dread trickled down Johanna's spine as two more of the ships drifted into appearance on either side of the first. An entire fleet of them.

The young woman gripped the paddle in both hands and hurriedly began to steer away from the boat, desperately attempting to battle the waves that battered her from all sides. But Johanna knew even then that there was no use: she was too weak to shove past the waves... and the ships had already surrounded her.

Her fate was now in the hands of the pirates. And heaven knows that pirates show no mercy.

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My Thoughts:

The reason why I'm not sure if this is technically finished is because I believe it was originally written with the intent of being a longer length (not a short story). I'm pretty sure I just wanted to enter a writing contest and hurriedly pinned an ending onto what I had already written of this. The last line is far too rushed to be an ending for a story; it could serve as a cliffhanger to lead into another part, though.

This definitely reads as something that was meant to be longer than it is. It doesn't read like a short story, but the beginning of a larger one. It could serve as a decent prologue, I think.

The descriptions are pretty well done. There are some big blocks of text that aren't amazing (considering there's no dialogue to break it up), but other than that it's alright.

Honestly? Not much is happening in this story. You get the sense that something more exciting is coming, and then it just... ends.

It would definitely be interesting to continue this. I'm not sure what will happen next. I seem to remember envisioning a romance of some kind between Johanna and one of the pirates (kind of cliche, I realize now), but other than that, I'm really not sure. Would the pirates adopt her as one of their own? What would the conflict be? Would it be between Johanna and the pirates, or the pirates and some other unknown villain? Definitely interesting to think about.