Savages

26: Shadow of Death

A tingling sensation ran up and down Sannah's neck, and she knew she was going to puke. But somehow, she didn't have a body to move, a mouth or throat to vomit from.

She didn't even exist, and yet she was trapped under all these swampish, confusing sensations. Like the floor was moving beneath her, and she was sliding forwards. Like the world was roaring yet muted, as if she were...

underwater.

She didn't have any eyes to open so everything was black, but the sound, the sound of the water around her, dull and gloopy and all-encompassing...it was unmistakable.

She was underwater.

But she could breathe, and she wasn't wet. What a strange dream!

Then her eyelids came back, accompanied by an overpowering pain in her head. She flickered her eyes open, still unable to move anything else, but was conscious of her nausea, of the boat being underwater, of the fact the world around her was moving, the fact the boat was underwater, that there was a hard floor beneath her sprawling body, and she could breathe, but she was underwater.

The boat's windows blurred into focus as her eyes adjusted. They were opaque and darkened, moving.

They were underwater.

Someone was screaming.

Sannah couldn't move.

Then, with a violent burst, the boat tipped forward, jerking her useless body against the floor, and the water in the windows was gone, white foam running in streaks down the glass.

What on earth was happening? Sannah felt sick. She closed her eyes again, everything blurring into smog.

She lay like that, conscious but confused, for a long time, the world still lurching and rolling around her, surrounded by crashing water and human screams.

***

Someone was lifting her when she came to. Arms underneath her armpits. The movement swelled through her body as vomit, and she was sick down her front.

"She alive! She alive! Get her on side so she no eat sick!"

The voice was far away.

Someone picked up her feet, and they moved and bounced and moved and bounced and am I going to be sick again? No, then she was laying flat, but something didn't make sense, she couldn't work out where she was, and she had to open her eyes because maybe she was in danger, and...

Deera was looking down at her, her face close to her own.

"Sannah! Sannah!" Deera shouted urgently, even though she was only centimetres away.

Sannah leaned to the right and retched again, her stomach empty this time. She let her head fall to the ground and felt it against her face at the same moment she registered seeing it.

Sand.

She lay with her cheek resting on the cold, gritty wetness while the world swarmed into place around her.

Sand. We're on land.

"Sannah? Can you hear me?"

Sannah still couldn't speak, but tried to wiggle her fingers in return.

"Please, Sannah, Please."