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Every single person had a different beginning.
I'm not talking about how or where they were born. I'm talking about their new beginning: their rebirth after the floods began.
There was a lot of controversy as to why. Why did this happen? What was the purpose? What was the cause, the motivation behind it? Some said it was the wrath of God. He had finally come to collect us. Others, like the meteorologists and scientists working behind the scenes, believed the excess amount of water came from a combination of excess heat in the poles of the globe, likely due to some sort of carbon emissions, leading to a rapid pace of melting Atlantic and Arctic ice, and combined with a meteor shower that occurred no less than a day before the floods began. No less than a day before the floods began, everyone was out of their cars, houses, and together to watch a magnificent display of shooting stars streak the sky. The mountains of 6 foot long boulders ended up mostly in the oceans around Australia. Being a hotter location with warmer ocean temperatures, it was a logical assumption to assume all of the ice on the asteroids would melt. Unfortunately, the entirety of the meteors WAS ice, with very, very little alien rock. Although small enough to not cause much disruption despite a low-grade tsunami on one of the shores of Australia, the meteors brought with them an enormous amount of excess water via ice that the earth could simply not hold. And thus, it began to rain, and it never stopped.
Now, the world was under the largest flood in the history of humankind. And, well, quite possibly the only flood in the history of the earth to such an extent.
I digress; when the floods began, those who survived the initial cup-filling would have to be reborn, in a metaphorical sense, in order to survive. Some were well-equipped to survive the new barren and vastly expansive underwater world, such as sailors, fishermen, doomsday preppers (specifically those with skills and supplies necessary to survive, and with bunkers that were waterproof and could be sustained underwater for great periods of time), those in the military (not only for their skills, but because most governments around the world gave high-ranking military and government officials a chance to survive in military ships and submarines), those who were on a cruise at the beginning of the floods and who are presumably still safe on said cruise, those with planes equipped for water landing, and those who were rich enough to afford a large boat. Ironically, professional swimmers were not on the list of those most likely to survive the situation.
However, among those who survived the initial floods were outliers: regular people who somehow managed to stay afloat long enough to live past the initial heavy rains and chaos as civilisation collapsed. However, these outlier survivors had virtually no skills and no preparation to allow them to survive any further into the disaster, and many died off after the first two days. Despite this, there were outliers of the outliers, those random persons with no skills and no resources who somehow managed to survive longer than the first two days after the entire globe was flooded. Not rich enough to buy safety, not skilled enough to create safety, and not important enough to be given safety. A large group of average civilians whom were entirely on their own.
Felicity Atlas was of the unlikeliest of candidates to survive the floods. Being only 14, they did not even attempt nor intend to survive the initial flooding. As the water rose higher and their family's once small, comfortable home turned into an underwater prison in Atlantis, Felicity and they's family collectively decided to simply not try. It wasn't necessarily a lack of will, but more of a lack of the ability to find a way. With nothing but ocean over 70ft in depth for miles, covering a suburban area, stranded with bands of unfriendly neighbors and a community very uncivilly fighting for limited resources, the Atlas family very swiftly decided that even if they somehow managed to fight and survive without casualty or terminal disease or injury, the quality of life they would live would simply not be worthy of such a battle. And thus, the nuclear Atlas family, consisting of two parents, an oldest daughter, a youngest daughter, and a genderfluid middle child, held each other close and came to peaceful terms with their unfortunate but humane demise.
So, how did Felicity Atlas, of all of their family, end up here, alive, and stranded?
Well, unfortunately, the family had limited ways of bringing themselves to a peaceful end, especially being a Christian family who frowned upon suicide. They had a single pistol, with more than enough bullets for all of them. However, as stated, suicide was no-go. Naturally, Felicity, being queer, would not be able to go to heaven irregardless of how they died, and thus, Felicity Atlas at age 14 was bestowed upon the task, thanks to the adamant request of their parents, of shooting each and every one of their family members.
And once the task was done, they suddenly decided that they had a will to live. Horrified, of course, they swam as far as their weak legs and arms would take them. Little Felicity was overwhelmed with guilt at their actions, reasonably so, and what better way to process this guilt and bitterness than by ignoring it?
Felicity was in the middle of a seemingly empty and endless ocean. He clung to a makeshift raft of debris, consisting of roof shingles, ply boards, and a partially inflated donut floaty. He hadn't purposefully brought those makeshift things together; they had simply been floating around with piles of other various debris, and he clung to the first viable floating mass that he saw. It gave his legs a much needed break from the swimming.
The water was cold. Not bitterly, but cold enough to make Felicity shiver. Despite this, he was hot, parched, his mouth dry and his skin beginning to flake where it had been submerged in salt water for days. He felt weak, exhausted, and thirsty. Felicity never expected someone to save him; he simply thought about the end, and despite his will to survive, ultimately decided that it was inevitably impossible. He had virtually exhausted himself with swimming.
His fingers, swelled with water, gently dipped below the brown surface of the water and found where that pistol still lingered in his pants pocket. He wasn't even sure if it would still fire after being underwater for so long, though he wondered if it was worth a shot, pun intended, and considered attempting it on himself. He assumed that he deserved such an ending after what he had done, completely disconcerting the fact that he was coerced to do it.
And yet, he hesitated long enough for a sound to reach his ears. It wasn't the squawking of gulls and falcons and buzzards overhead, excited at the prospect of a meal called Felicity. It also wasn't the gentle yet soothing sound the small ripples in the water made as they lapped against his body and the wood he clung to. Instead, it the sound of voices, distant, unfamiliar, but real voices! And it was the sound of splashing, distant, odd splashing, but real splashing! He at first wondered if he was hallucinating after being under the sun and in the water for so long. He pinched himself, winced, wiped his eyes with dirty hands and blinked several times. He scanned the horizon with red eyes. The sun had begun to slowly sink into the west side of the sky, shrouded behind subtle pale clouds, casting long shadows against anything that moved atop of the dark, murky water.
Casting long shadows across the darkening water in the far distance was a small boat. It was a wooden row boat, with a tipped front end that seemed pinched and raised slightly, and a round, white painted bottom that could be seen from below the water. It held four wooden benches from one side to the other with plenty of legroom in between, and then four loops, two on either side, where four oars were attached. There were several folks in the boat, and it floated gently along the bumpy surface of the expansive ocean with the oars remaining still. They did not see Felicity.
Felicity wanted to survive.
Shaking extensively, he pulled himself up on his elbows onto the lightweight ply boards, nearly pushing them underwater in the process, and actually accidentally pushing away some of the shingles that had been attached to the whole thing. They slid off of the boards, and thunked against the surface of the water before slowly making their way to the fallen Atlantis below.
His voice was hoarse, dry, croaky, his throat sore, his tongue thick and dry, his lips chapped and swollen. Still, as loud as his poor voice could manage, Felicity yelled. He hollered loudly.
"Help! Over here! Help me!" His voice was quieter than he intended it to be, and in such a condition his words were a bit difficult to understand. And yet, a few of the persons occupying the small boat turned and scanned in the direction of Felicity's presence; and then, one pointed and hollered in response, shielding their eyes from the sun with a hand. Felicity sighed, shouting again, waving a weak arm in the air. He watched as the ripening sunlight covered his dark skin with vibrant, deepening orange, reflecting off of the water, and almost managed a smile. It took nearly an hour for the distant row boat to reach him, but it did at long last.
The small group pulled Felicity out of the water collectively, his legs and arms jelly and seemingly useless, and then plopped his soaking self horizontally across the wooden benches of the boat. He coughed, gently thanked them, and then immediately passed out.