I took a deep breath, steadied myself, temporarily erased anything non-survival related from my brain, and mentally prepared myself to jump overboard.
I made my way towards the starboard bow as the rain began to pour out of the skies harder, and the wind tossed my hair into my eyes. I reached the end of the line holding the raft and yanked at the bolt. Somehow, I had managed to get the line stuck, and the damn thing just wouldn’t budge. Another wave crashed up and filled my eyes with salt water. I shook drops from my face and hair and pulled the jackknife out of my belt. I cut the cord, and the lifeboat released from the side of the ship into the rough water. I went tumbling in after it.
I hit the water chest and stomach first, which fucking stung and almost caused me to lose my grip on the line. I pulled – hard – arm over arm with my eyes closed tightly, trying to keep the salt water from burning them. I could feel my biceps starting to fatigue, and the muscle pain shot up into my shoulders. I kept pulling, kicking my bare feet in the water to try to get a little more leverage.
The rain continued to pelt my back, and the wind drove waves up and over my head. I wrapped my hand around the loose rope and finally got to the life preserver connected to the side of the raft. I pulled the thing off the side and wrapped it around one shoulder before the next wave knocked me under again.
I came up sputtering and used the rope to guide me to the rungs on the side of the raft. Finally, I touched something solid and reached up, hauling myself over the edge and dropping hard on the bottom of the small life raft. I took a second to calm my panting breaths while I lay on my back with the rain stinging my skin.
I rolled over and coughed, removing the water still in my mouth and lungs and looked out over the waves. I could see well enough to know The Oblation was pretty much completely destroyed. The storm was minor – and there was no way it would have been the cause of all the damage I could see from where I was. I rolled quickly and pulled at one of the sealed plastic containers tucked into the side of the raft. I retrieved a signal whistle and blew it three times.
Nothing.
No response, no yelling – nothing.
I blew again.
And again.
Pieces of the mast floated into view on the top of one of the waves, along with part of a sail and something I thought might have been a chunk of futtock. Someone’s suitcase rose up on a swell, and then slowly began to sink. It went past something wavy and oddly shaped – like a bunch of snakes all coiled together. I couldn’t figure out what it was, and rubbed at my eyes.
When the wave slipped back down I saw it again. It wasn’t part of the ship, and I was relatively sure it was one of the passengers. The water was too rough to try to maneuver in the right direction, so I grabbed the life preserver and dived in.
I swam under and reached whoever it was just in time to grab a hold of strands of hair and coil them around my fist right before they dropped too low in the water for me to have hopes of latching on. If the person had worn a shorter hairstyle, I wouldn’t have been able to reach. Thankfully, whoever it was didn’t weigh much and didn’t struggle.
Shit. I could be risking my life for a body.
Another wave hit just as I was taking a breath, and I took in a mouthful of water. I didn’t actually inhale it, but I didn’t get any air, either, and my lungs were starting to burn. I pulled up on the hair in my fist until I could get a better grip on the actual torso. I managed to grab what was, undoubtedly, a boob, so at least I knew I was saving a woman. I pulled her up against my chest and leaned back, trying to simultaneously float on my back, use the life preserver to keep me above the wave swells, and keep the head of one of my passengers above water.
I got a couple of good breaths and started to pull in the rope. The added weight wasn’t helping when the waves crashed around us. More than once I considered just letting her go because my arms were starting to hurt really, really bad. I didn’t know who she was, but I couldn’t quite manage to intentionally let go of her. If one of the waves took her from me, well, that would be a different situation, but I wasn’t going to just let go of her no matter how much it hurt. I may be a mostly uncaring ass, but that was going too far. Besides, I’d been hurt a lot worse than this and still pushed through.
My hand touched the end of the lifeboat, and I struggled to pull both of us over the side. I got her in first, and then tumbled in after her.
I was balanced on my knees and one hand, breathing heavily with the other hand over my chest. The rain still poured down on me, and I knew I didn’t have any time to rest. I mentally yelled at my muscles to get going again and sat up. I leaned over the chest of the woman I had pulled from the water, just to check.
She wasn’t breathing.