Young Writers Society

This is from the Terrible Writing Prompts Contest:

6. A man has a terrifying dream in which he is being sawed in half. He wakes to find himself in the Indian Ocean, naked and clinging to a door; a hotel key card is clenched in his teeth. Write what happens next.

A Last Drop of Hope: a shipwreck survivor's tale

I rolled over and couldn’t believe my eyes! Water, water, everywhere! All around was azure ocean, and above that, a wide violet sky. I might have been crying, but I couldn’t tell, due to the abundance of the saline fluid that made up the surrounding environment. Great, Will, whatcha gonna do! I grunted, grabbing onto something that I identified as a door-handle. A door handle? I was on a door! Spitting out seawater, I found a plastic rectangle that resembled a credit card-a hotel card key? How can things get any weirder? My thoughts were fleeting, given the adrenaline that pounded in my veins.

My chest hurt from inhaled water, and I began to shiver, wrapping my arms around my trunk as I lay back on the battered wooden door.

Looking down I noticed that I was stark-naked. Great, just great! Might as well sit back and wait for hypothermia! Most would assume that the water would be warm, but it wasn’t. The tropical sun was setting, and I remembered, as mentioned in a documentary about the sinking of the US Indianapolis, that even equatorial waters become chilly at night. The men on the great warship had been in clothes,

but I was nude! And it wasn’t long before many of them, already burned from oil-fires, were slowly picked off by hammerhead sharks….I shivered, the theme from Jaws reverberating in my head.

Staring pensively at my stomach, I was relieved to find the unfashionably pale skin unblemished. Thank goodness I hadn’t really been sawed in half! It was just a dream-wasn’t it? I couldn’t be sure, given the bizarre nature of my current condition. I could vividly recall the phantom iciness of the serrated blade scraping, puncturing my flesh. In that instant, pain had enveloped me, so excruciating, I couldn’t even scream. I felt the blood gush from my arteries, and saw the crimson fluid staining the shiny steel table. Then all had gone black.

The next thing I had sensed was the shock of being submerged.

My thoughts returned to the present as a rogue wave buffeted my makeshift raft. What now?

You ought to have worked harder at swimming lessons in second grade! I knew that lamentation would be no help. Let’s see…survival. Yeah duh, you dummy! Survival…

My mind wandered back to the story about the US Indianapolis. The crew had survived for days off of rainwater and survival rations, or worse yet….I shivered, fighting the gruesome mental image. They had eaten the cadavers of their comrades.

I looked around again at the surrounding waters that gleamed in the last rays of the sun. I was in for a clammy night.

Slowly, the sun set, glazing the horizons with delicate shades of pink and purple. Then the stars began to appear, searing through the ever-thickening darkness that suffocated me, swallowing up my frugal door-raft as a whale sucks in plankton. I shivered, curling into a fetal position. Worries trickled through my mind as the great waters rocked my wooden refuge. How had I gotten here, and how would ever I escape? I slowly sank into a fitful sleep, praying that the morrow would dawn with a sign of hope.

Streaming sunlight awoke me, and I stretched, letting myself fall into the depths of the sea alongside my frigate. The sparkling water reflected every ray of light, turning the bubbles that streamed from my mouth and nose into glimmering orbs that sped towards the surface. Soon, I too was forced to rise, my lungs screaming for air.

Moments later, I clambered onto the door, spitting the bitingly salty water. Exhausted by my swim, I stared up at the sky, using the sun to sketch out a rough notion of the directions. Thus, I lay, trancelike, aware of the growing thirst that stung my throat. Gradually, it began to overwhelm me, and I wanted nothing more than to drink the volume of the ocean. I tried not to think, for thought brought with it a crushing sense of helplessness. I was alone at the mercy of the sea, with no water, and no shelter; a virtual death sentence.

I stared at my navel, studying the creased skin that sank in a deep slit and disappeared into a fold of muscle. My stomach whined, and I envisioned the deadly digestive acids within eating slowly through my organs, consuming my skin and body, until nothing but a puddle of sizzling green goo was left.

I imagined all sorts of horrible fates, attempting to find one that was worse than my own.

The day stretched on, glaringly hot, salt spray crusting on my skin as it dried. The ivory flesh soon blistered in the sun’s heat. It took all my willpower to resist the urge I had so long been fighting.

It was only a matter of time before I’d give in to my fatal desire and sip the saline waters. I drifted in and out of a fevered rest, hoping to awaken and find my current reality yet another dream.

When the sun was halfway between its apex and the western horizon, a din shook the waves, and I sat upright, waving my arms at the enormous helicopter that came into view.

It began to hover, and as I stared, a thin line came into view, a basket at the end of a cable, spiraling downwards, towards my door-raft. I cried out in joy, my voice a mere rasp, immediately blown away in the cacophony of the blades that whirred, holding the helicopter aloft. Then I lunged from the door, into the drink, struggling towards the metal basket that hung, grazing the waves’ crests. After endless minutes of effort, I collapsed into it, embracing the impact and tightening the straps around my waist.

I clung to the sides, dangling over vast blue waters of death until strong hands grasped the cable and lifted me from the basket onto a dry, cool bed. Someone in the cockpit handed me a bottle of water, and I seized it, gulping every drop of the icy liquid.

“You’ll be alright, sir,” a man said calmly.

“Brother, you’re my last drop of hope,” I murmured breathily, and promptly passed out from the effort.