Queen of Summer's Ice (Book 2)

Chapter 8

     "How in the world did you find me," I croaked in my raspy voice.

     "When everything sort of calmed down I saw you floating face down in the water," he pulled me apart to see my face and the look he gave me slowly broke my heart, "You scared me Evie. I thought you were dead."

     His dark eyes were looking at me as if I did die. "Ew did you give me mouth to mouth," I said lightly. Trying to defuse some tension.

     He rolled his eyes lazily, "No ungrateful. I turned you around and then you breathed on your own." 

     "Don't forget you practically broke my rib cage."

     "I really do believe you mean to say 'Thank you Nazim, you really are the best cousin in the world' or something along those lines."

     I opened my mouth in a retort, but then my surroundings set in. My adrenalin was wearing off, and I had the slow realization that there was no one else on the boat around us.

     "Where is everyone else? Where is the ship?" I said, my broken voice cracking as it rose.

     Nazim reached around me to get the piece of wood that was long enough for both of us to rest our arms on, but definitely not wide enough to rest on top of. He sighed while he looked around and lightly shook his head.

     "I honestly don't know. When I came back up there was no one around except for you."

     Looking around there were a few broken pieces of wood, but not enough to suggest that the ship sank. I just felt utterly in shock at how powerful the tsunami was here in the ocean, if it was strong enough to do that to us here imagine what it would do to the land-

     A creeping ice feeling went down my spine and my breathing shuddered again, and it wasn't from drowning.

     "Nazim..." I said slowly, "The tsunami's heading for land. And I don't think this one will go unnoticed."

     Nazim didn't say anything, but I know the wheels in his head were turning. The natural instincts to go save his people from pain and loss were written all over his face. The way his eyes frantically looked around the ocean for an answer. 

     I too looked around and realized we were truly alone. At least on the surface. I didn't want to know what creatures lied below, and if they could see us. I tried for my power again, but I felt absolutely nothing. Where ever we were, the tsunami took us farther away from land than before, at least I knew that.

     "Can you tell which direction is land?" I asked.

     The oceans gentle tides now the complete opposite of what it was before; I wanted to snort at the irony of its dramatic mood changes, but I didn't. Nazim looked up at the empty sky, I knew if it was night than it would be easier to track where we were due to the hundreds of stars, but right now we just had the sun.

     Nazim shook his head, "I never learned how to navigate." He was quiet for a few seconds and then he tilted his face towards the sun, "When the sun starts to set we'll swim the opposite way."

     I lightly shrugged, "We'll swim in a certain direction for a few hours, if I don't feel my powers back then we'll change directions."

     Nazim sighed, "Sounds like a plan."

     "Sounds like the only plan," I whispered.

     Once the sun shifted from the center of the sky we started pedaling away. Both of us held onto the broken wood and saved our energy. The tides were slightly helping us, moving and pushing us towards the way we were heading. I looked at that as a good sign. As for all the bad signs, I didn't want to think much of them. I couldn't start thinking about how long this will possible take us, how damaged summer is going to be after the tsunami crushes them, how many lives with be lost.

     No. The only thoughts I allowed in my head were to keep kicking. 

     On a normal day, Nazim and I would have never been this quiet, but as the day slowly started to turn into night I knew the quietness wasn't because we had nothing to say to each other, but because we were saving as much energy as we could. Sooner than I wanted, the sun had set. Any other time and I would have enjoyed the calming darkness, but here in the middle of the ocean, there was no light. Except for the starts, but even then they hardly did anything for our eye sight. The only things that I could see was anything at arms length away from me. Which that included the wood, Nazim and the ocean.

     To make things worse, in the quietness of the night the only noises that could be heard was our breathing and the soft noises of water moving around us - and a growl under water right next to me. Nazim ignored it. I wasn't scared, it wasn't a monster, it was his stomach.

     But as if just hearing it triggered something in me, thats when my own stomach growled for the first time ever in my century of life. When he heard mine Nazim stopped swimming and looked at me, eyes darting across my face to see if I was going to faint any moment.

     "We should switch directions now," was all he said.

      I opened my mouth to tell him not to worry about me, that I should worry about him - I was older than him after all - but my mouth felt dry and empty as if I tried to swallow dirt.

     We shifted directions and I looked down at the water. I clicked my tongue, trying to get it to create some saliva to get rid of this thirst, but the salty water was becoming more tempting to drink.

     We swam again through the night, shifting directions every few hours to find land, and each time we did brought us no closer to safety. The sun was rising again, its rays bouncing off the oceans surface and practically blinding us with the reflection. It's been a day of just swimming and being completely lost. And yet time was moving horribly slow. I didn't want to complain about my hunger or thirst. Or that I was completely exhausted, that underwater I could feel the muscles in my legs shaking. I couldn't complain about being human, not when Nazim was going through the exact same thing I was. 

     But I noticed his eyes starting to droop heavy with sleep. Sleep, something that he easily forgot about with weeks of staying up all night and reading summers history and then I dragged him into this plan of mine. 

     "Take a small nap, I'll cover us," I said.

    Without even looking at me he said, "No no, I'm fine. You take a break first."

     I opened my mouth to object, but the dryness halted me for a few seconds, Nazim took that chance to interrupt, "You're not use to this. You're taking this being normal like a pro, but taking the first nap won't make you weak so sleep Evie."

     I'm not sure why but annoyance started to filter through me. I'll blame it on the sun, the pinching pain in my stomach and the whole being lost at sea but Nazim turned into someone I could turn it too.

     "Nazim," I said slowly, "you do not tell me what to do. I told you to take the first rest so just close your eyes and take a stupid nap. I don't want to hear another word from you about it and if I do then I will drown you until you fall asleep."

     Nazim looked at me. He had bags under his eyes and his dark lips were cracked. Again the irony of the ocean to be surrounded by water, and the torture of being so thirsty but unable to drink it. He was about to open his mouth but I raised my hand out from the water and held it over him, ready to push. His eyes squinted as if he was telling me this wasn't the end, but the squint soon turned into him closing his eyes to sleep.

     He fell asleep quicker than I thought. Within a minute he sighed and his breathing turned slow and deep. Without his help and now just the added body weight, it made it harder for me to keep us moving at the pace we were going, but I wasn't about to wake him up. We both needed rest and in a few hours it'll soon be my turn.