Nick
came up from the water, sputtering, gasping for air. He flailed his arms and kicked his feet
wildly, trying to keep his head out of the vicious waves that surrounded him,
tossing him this way and that.
He
looked up to see his beautiful boat half sunken into the water, engulfed in
flames. But where were the others? He looked around, frightened, but he could
not see them.
Suddenly,
he heard his name being called. “Nick!”
“Guys!”
he yelled, another wave crashing over his head. Struggling to keep his head above water,
Nick spit the salty ocean water out of his mouth and called again. “Guys, over here!”
And
then he saw them, all four of them, clinging together, as they struggled to
swim through the waves. “Nick!” they
called again.
Nick
raised one arm in the air and waved it wildly.
Did they see him? Yes, they did.
One of them, he couldn’t tell who, was
flailing an arm back at him.
Nick
swam with all his might, fighting the strong waves, towards them. And finally, he reached them. He grabbed onto Kevin, gasping for breath,
tears of both fear and relief filling his eyes and mixing with the salt water
surrounding them.
“Inflate
the life raft,” Nick panted. Kevin
turned over the still deflated raft and found a string to pull that he knew
would inflate it. He pulled the string,
and the life raft immediately sprang to life, enlarging and taking shape. Soon it was fully inflated and floating
beside them, Kevin gripping onto it for dear life.
“Get
in, Nick,” he yelled, boosting the now exhausted Nick into the rubber
raft. It started to tip, almost hurling
Nick back into the angry waves, but Kevin held tight to it, keeping it
upright.
Nick
made it in and called, “Come on, guys,
get in!”
Kevin
grabbed a hold of AJ, the nearest to him, and helped him into the raft,
followed by Brian, and then Howie. Finally,
with the help of the other four in the raft, Kevin boosted himself into it as
well.
The
raft was barely big enough for the five of them, and it rocked uncontrollably
in the waves, as gusts of rain came down, stinging their skin. Still, it was better than being tossed
around in the ocean, with nothing to keep them afloat but their life
jackets.
For
what seemed like hours, they all gripped to the sides of the raft and to each
other. But finally, the rain slowed to
a drizzle, the wind died down, and so did the waves, calming so that they
rocked the boat slowly and methodically.
Before
he knew it, Nick could no longer keep his eyes open, and with his head resting
against one side of the raft, he soon drifted off to sleep.
***