The attacker strengthened their hold and I felt myself moving up. After a
few seconds I broke surface and suddenly I could breathe again. Sort of.

“Lizz, stop fighting me! It’s me, Howie!” A strangely familiar voice
called out. Then reality hit and my eyes snapped open. I gasped as I took
the scene in around us. The storm was still raging and there was debris
everywhere. I turned my attention back to Howie, panicked.

“What? Where-??” I stammered, still coughing and choking on the inhaled
salt water.

“LIZZ!”

I whipped my head around and saw Nick swimming frantically towards me.

“Oh god...” I choked as he wrapped an arm around me.

“Are you okay?” His eyes traveled up to the side of my face. I reached my
hand up to the outside corner of my eye, right in front of my left temple.
When I drew it back, it was covered in blood.

“Just a scratch.” I gasped, wincing. “What about you?” There was blood
just under his hairline and it looked like it traveled half way down his
forehead.

“I’m fine, my god, I thought you drowned!” He tightened his grasp around
me, trying to keep us both afloat.

“Did you find AJ and Brian?” Howie yelled, his eyes darting skyward as
another flash of lightning made everything light up.

“Yeah, AJ sprained his shoulder or something and Brian got trapped under
some of the wreckage, but they are both okay. They are trying to help Kevin
get the raft inflated.” Nick shouted back. “We need to get around to
them!”

The three of us started to swim around a some wreckage, but a huge
wave sent tore us apart. I started to panic from being separated, but
immediately was faced with another rolling wave. I couldn’t see Nick or
Howie and if I didn’t think quick, I was going to get slammed hard by it.
Still winded from my near-drowning, I took the deepest breath I could and
dove into the wave. Growing up in California and spending time at the beach
had taught me how to handle waves coming at you. Although I had never had
one this big and it sent me coughing and sputtering again.

When I broke through, I saw Nick fighting the wave that followed mine. I
swam as hard as I could towards him and thankfully he saw me and grabbed my
arm just before the wave hit. This time, we didn’t let go.

“Howie!” I cried, looking around after breaking through.

“He’s fine, come on!” Nick yelled back, keeping me with him.

Everytime the sky lit up, I gasped at the site of everything. The jet was
gone except for some of the pieces that were still scattered and floating.
Avoiding those were difficult, but slamming into one of those sharp edges
would have meant instant death. After what seemed like forever, the raft
came into sight and that gave us an added boost of adrenaline to get there.
Kevin and Brian leaned out from the inside as Nick and Howie helped in from
the water. I all but collapsed into Brian’s arms, and we both fell back
against the side. A moment later Nick was in the raft and I grabbed him in
a tight hold.

“Is everyone okay?” I whispered, looking around the small raft.

“All of us except Jason. The windshield exploded and he died instantly.
Miraculously, Kevin didn’t get hit. None of the rest of us were seriously
hurt.” Nick explained, his voice somber. “I don’t know how the hell it
happened, but we are all okay.”

I finally pulled back and looked around. The storm has weakened
considerably and the waves were calming down. It was dusk and the setting
sun peeked through the parting clouds. It glowed a deep red and cast an
amazingly beautiful glow across the water. I studied everyone carefully.
Unbelievably none of us were seriously hurt. A lot of scrapes and bruises,
but we had all escaped without anything that was too bad. I was filled with
sorrow for the pilot, even though I hadn’t known him. Why was he killed and
the rest of us okay? How did we survive something like that when the
chances of survival for that sort of thing are between slim and none?

My eyes filled with tears. It was nothing short of a miracle. Of course
that started a chain reaction and I wasn’t the only one crying. Between the
relief, shock and exhaustion, I think we were all beyond overwhelmed.
Finally after a little while, we had all calmed down and the reality and
graveness of our situation started to sink in.

“Now that we survived that crash, we have a big problem.” Kevin started.
“We’re stuck on a raft, out in the middle of the Pacific. I know Fiji
wasn’t far from where we were, but God knows how far the storm carried us.
Bigger problem, we have no food or water. We’ll die without water.”

“Well maybe when it rains again, we can get water that way?” AJ suggested,
tipping his head back against the raft edge. He was cradling one arm in the
other.

“And what? Open our mouths for a few drops?” Nick rolled his
eyes.

“Shut up ass.”

I laid a hand on Nick’s arm and Brian gave them both a disapproving look.
“Guys, please don’t fight. Things are bad enough.”

“Ya know, it could be worse. It could be in the middle of the winter. At
least it’s somewhat warm.” Brian offered.

I looked at him and had to smile. Somewhat...I was smooshed between him
and Nick, my head on Nick’s shoulder. Shivering.

“Aren’t there a bunch of uncharted islands around Fiji?” Howie asked, his
eyes scanning the horizon.

I followed his gaze, but in the darkness, I couldn’t see anything. Every
once in awhile some object would float by. Usually a small piece of the
plane or part of a seat or something.

“Yeah...” Kevin trailed off.

“Maybe in the morning we’ll see something. There’s no chance of seeing
anything near us in the dark.” Nick pointed out.

“We should take turns staying awake just in case.” Brian suggested.

I was trying real hard to pay attention to the conversation, but the
exhaustion had caught up with me. My eyes kept falling shut and then I
would jar myself awake.

“Give it up, Lizzard. Go to sleep okay?” Nick smiled down at me.

“No.” I mumbled, my eyes shutting again.

I heard them chuckling at my expense, but was too out of it to tell them to
stuff it. Before I knew it, I was out like a light.

Surprisingly I slept really well through the night. The gentle rolling of
the waves was soothing and the fact that we were okay helped too. When I
woke up, I was relieved to see that it wasn’t really sunny. That would have
been murder on my sensitive eyes. The sky was overcast and the air was
warm. I couldn’t help but smile. The amazing fact that we had survived
encouraged me and I figured it was for a reason. That made me confident
that a plane would spot us or that we would somehow get rescued. I shifted
against Nick, but immediately regretted it. I didn’t want to wake Nick, not
to mention I was kind of stiff and sore. Instead I looked around the small
raft and saw that Brian was the only one awake.

“Mornin.” He whispered.

“Morning to you too. It’s beautiful isn’t it?” I grinned at the water.

“Sure is. Hopefully we’ll get some help though so this wont be the end of
getting to see it.” Brian said wryly.

“See anything at all?” I asked hopefully.

“No, except some more wreckage.” Brian sighed.

“Crap.” I sighed too. We fell into silence, not wanting to wake everyone
up. I kept my eyes trained on the water. After a good half hour, I saw
something sticking up, sort of a greenish color. When I saw what it was I
gasped.

“What?” Brian looked at me sharply.

“My backpack! It’s got our meds in it!” I uttered, my mouth agape.

Brian stared at me, mouth agape. Right before Nick woke up, when we found
out the jet’s engine was struck, we put all of the meds in the backpack. I
don’t know why really, because I think we all doubted we would survive.

“I have to get it!” I started to move and it rocked the whole boat. Kevin
and Howie barely moved and AJ groaned, but Nick woke up immediately.

“What the hell?” He growled, sleepily.

“Look!” I pointed.

He squinted out to where I was pointing. “What? More plane debris? You
woke me up for that? Lizz, we’ve been seeing it all night!”

“No, dumbass. It’s my backpack! And that has all our meds!” I exclaimed,
exasperated.

“Holy shit!” Nick looked at me, then out at the backpack. Then he
scrambled up and then jumped into the water.

“Hey, I found it first!” I yelled, jumping in after him. I vaguely heard
Brian laughing before I hit the water. It felt good when I jumped in, but I
didn’t take time to enjoy it. Nick was already ahead of me so I started
swimming as fast as I could to claim my “prize.”

“Beat ya!” Nick hollered out, holding the backpack triumphantly over his
head.

I started to fire back a reply, but something in the distance caught my
eye. Something moving back and forth on the other side of Nick, about 30
feet away. My breath caught in my throat and my heart started pounding. I
was almost halfway between Nick and the raft, but closer to Nick.

“Lizz?” Nick called out, perplexed by my sudden weird behavior.

“Oh god. Nick! Don’t move!” I cried back, my voice laced with fear.

I whipped my head around, afraid to move either. “Brian? I called.

I heard him swear softly and I turned back around to Nick and very slowly
started to move towards him. His eyes were darting back and forth between
the moving fins and me.
“What do I do?” He said quietly, a hint of terror seeping through his
voice.