In The Heart of the Sea//Thomas Nickerson (Tom Holland)

XI

The past few days had been rough.

The stranded sailers used to eat the eggs of the tropical birds or sometimes, catch fish.

Pollard had suggested that they ought to keep a fire going on day and night so that the smoke could alert passing ships.

Lexi wandered arround,extremely tired and famished.

She walked into a cave that she came upon as she was exploring the place.

The girl brought her hand to her mouth and fell to her knees as she let the tears stream down her face once she laid eyes on the horrendous sight before her.

She hurried back and called the rest of the men to show them what she had discovered.

"I wanted you to see this" she said pointing arround.

There were corpses and skeletons scattered arround the place.

"They must've decided to stay here too" she went on "waiting for a ship to come rescue them. But no ship came, no ship is ever going to come"

"She's right" Owen joined "How long do you think the tropic birds will keep coming until they realise their eggs bieng eaten"

"We need to leave" Lexi said turning toward the crew.

The men spared no time in mending the remains of their boat.

Few of the men however, decided that they wanted to stay back.

One of the few was Mr.Joy.

It pained Owen to leave his best friend on this deserted island. Nevertheless, he promised to send a boat to rescue the people staying once they got back.

So back they went, out to sea.

This time, Pollard had no objections when his daughter decided to get into the boat with Thomas instead of going along with him.

Days and nights passed with no sign of land.

Thomas' eyes opened when he heard Chase yelling about something. He gently shook Lexi awake, who as usual was asleep on his chest.

"Where's the other boat?" Owen asked the children.

Both of them looked arround until they spotted Pollard's boat which had drifted farther away from them.

The third boat too, with Barzilli had been floated away with the currents and was now out of sight.

"Father!" Alexandrea yelled along with Thomas who kept yelling 'captain Pollard' over and over again even though they knew George couldn't hear them.

Lexi turned to face Thomas and noticed that the boy went rigid as his eyes were fixed on something behind her. She followed his gaze to see that Peterson was lying in the boat, lifeless. He had passed.

Alexandrea hung her head low and cried silently as she could hear Benjamin Lawrence preparing to throw the body overboard.

"Wait" Owen called out weakly with tears in his eyes "no right minded sailer discards what yet might save him"

Both kids caught on what was happening and looked at Chase in horror.

"Listen to me kids," Owen tried to reach out to them but they flinched away "he can help us"

Thomas heard Mr.Lawrence sharpening the knife against the wood.

He put his arms arround Lexi who wrapped her hands tightly arround his torso, burring her face in the crook of his neck.

He didn't want her to see all of this. She wasn't supposed to be going through any of this in the first place.

Thomas hugged the girl tighter as she cried while he wispered a soft 'my soul is dead' to himself.