The next day, when Rèmy and I were beginning to lose hope, we saw a ship coming our way on the horizon.
It was both an exciting and frightening moment, as we knew that if the people on board were good, they'd let us on. If not, then we'd have to wait for others again. And yet, we had to move out of the way of the ship, as its passengers may not have seen us.
Rèmy and I jumped in the water and began pushing the raft to the left.
When we knew that we weren't in danger of being crushed by the ship, we stopped pushing and hulled ourselves back onto the raft.
The ship was a white cruise-liner with the words, 'ANODYNE FLORIDA' on it.
It was naturally enormous, and there were hundreds of windows on the sides. As the ship drew nearer, Rèmy and I stood up warily and began waving and shouting to it.
It was nearly next to us, and though we thought that it would stop, it just continued on.
We shouted even more, and eventually it did halt, about 25 metres away from us.
Nothing happened in that moment. Rèmy and I put our arms down, and soon many passengers rushed to the sides to look at us.
Two ladders were thrown overboard and were so long that they reached to where we were sitting on the water.
Not knowing whether we should climb on or not, Rèmy and I faced each other strangely.
Suddenly, a loud voice from the ship caught our attention. We looked up to see a large man from the third deck with a megaphone in his hands.
'Climb aboard, young sailors,' he said, 'Are you headed for Florida?'
I shouted, 'Yes!', even though Rèmy wasn't understanding much of the man's American English.
'Leave your raft and climb up the ladders then.'
I looked at Rèmy with hope, and he looked at me worryingly.
'Come on, Rèmy!' I exclaimed, 'Its our only opportunity to get back to Florida.'
'What if it isn't?' he asked me.
I ignored him and grabbed his arm.
'What are you doing?' he asked suspiciously.
I looked at the blue waters and smiled.
'Wait!' cried Rèmy, 'No!'
I jumped in, dragging Rèmy with me.
The water was warm and I felt very comfortable to swim. We swam straight to the ship, which bobbed up and down on the ocean surface.
I let Rèmy climb up a ladder first, and then I.
It was extremely exciting, for I never thought that I'd be climbing up something so high before in my life.
It took about a minute to climb the ladder, and although my arms ached, I was so eager to confirm that I was finally saved-for a while. We still had to try to get to Texas before the month was out, which was in less than three weeks.
And how long would it take the ship to get us back there? And when we did get back there, how would we travel all the way to the different state of Texas?
Despite all of these thoughts, I climbed on. See the metaphor of what I said, Dear Reader? I will climb on.
Once Rèmy and I had reached to where the man with the megaphone was, we were hauled over by many people.
We were soaking wet, and two of the ship's workers handed us over some warm, crunchy towels, then asked us to follow them to the captain's office.
Some passengers welcomed us onboard the ship, like good people do, while others were like vultures-snapping photographs of us without ever stopping.
Poor Rèmy, he had never really seen a photocamera before. The ones many of those ignorant passengers had used were small but powerful, with a strong flash that was so bright sometimes that Rèmy and I covered our faces with our towels.
The crew members pushed the excited passengers away from us, whilst we just followed the two other workers along one of the corridors of the ship, wet feet slapping the floorboards.
The whole ship was beautifully crafted, with colourful walls and shops galore.
I was by Rèmy and I just generally kept staring at the ocean, what had been keeping us afloat for so many days,. He, on the other hand, looked straight ahead, with fear in his eyes. I felt bad for him, I thought. He had been through so much in his life, and especially in the last three weeks.
Eventually we turned a corner and came to a glass door full of artistic, white designs, with the large words, 'CAPTAIN'S CABIN' that were encraved upon it. The two male workers knocked and entered immediately even if the captain within said nothing.
Inside was a wide, white room with plain, square windows facing the corridors outside.
At its center stood a large, surly man by a large wooden steering wheel. He wore a dark blue suit with a similarly coloured hat. The second he saw us he ran over to us almost instantly.
'Welcome, my friends,' he said, smiling.
The Captain shook our hands, and told the other workers to leave.
'Thank you,' I said to them.
They smiled and then left, shutting the door behind them.
'Well,' said the Captain, 'my name is Andrew, and I am the captain of Anodyne Florida. Please sit,' he offered, gesturing towards some seats adjacent to the windows.
'Tell me, what were you doing on the raft in the middle of the ocean?'
'Its a very long story,' I explained.
'I see,' said Captain Andrew, smiling again, 'What are your names?'
'I'm Zander, and this is Rèmy.'
'Hello, Rèmy,' greeted Andrew.
Rèmy didn't answer. He just nodded and smiled.
'Does he speak English?' asked Andrew.
I shook my head, and explained that his mother tongue was Creole French.
'When does the ship return to Florida?' I asked.
'In a couple of days-'
'We need to get there as soon as possible!' I cried.
'Why?'
'Because...' I suddenly went quiet.
'I understand,' comforted Andrew, putting his hand on my right shoulder.
'Again, it's a very long story.'
'Don't worry,' he said, 'take your time.'
'Well...', I didn't know what to say next. Telling the captain where we came from would probably tell him to take us back-unless we explained to him how dangerous Haiti was.
So, I hesitated, and foolishly felt rushed-even if Captain Andrew seemed rather patient.
Finally I said something; the least I could do in that eerie moment.
'We...just need to get back to Florida as soon as possible.'
'Ok,' replied Andrew, patting my left shoulder, 'The cruise is nearly over anyway. About five days or so.'
'That's too long,' I said.
Then suddenly a question came up into my head: if there was such heat around and soon a heatwave-then what the hell were people doing on a cruise-liner?
And so I asked him that, and felt rather stupid afterwards.
'Where have you been?' he asked, smiling again, 'technology these days is amazing: even if there is a heat wave this ship is covered by a certain chemical that protects people from the calor.'
'I didn't know that,' I said, 'where I've been living until now...I mean, the only thing close to 'technology' that I'd ever seen was a CD player.'
He chuckled, but I felt insulted. My rage was slowly rising to its feet inside me, but I tried to keep it in. I was impatient. We needed to get back to Monroe County as soon as possible. Perhaps he just didn't understand that. No, he didn't. He didn't know that we had to get to the R4HC. I didn't even know why these holiday makers weren't worrying about the heatwaves within two weeks.
Suspiciously, I said to Andrew that we needed to rest. He nodded and irritatingly smiled again. What was wrong with him?
I ignored it, and then he walked to another side of the room and pressed a button, after which the same two workers from earlier immediately came in.
'Freddie, Walker, take these two to their rooms.'
They nodded and I told Rèmy what was happening.
'Well, it was nice meeting you,' said Captain Andrew, shaking both of our hands.
'You too,' I said, 'and thanks.'
'Tenk you,' said Rèmy, bashfully.
Andrew gave him a small smile then told us we would be taken care of until the end of the cruise, with a surprise during the journey.
We were led out by Freddie and Walker, who constantly exchanged glances at each other, smirking, though I wasn't quite sure why.
I had an uneasy feeling about the ship and the crew, but maybe it was the iodine from the ocean that Rèmy and I had been out with for so long, causing me to stress and be suspicious about any small subject.
We passed many passengers in summer clothes, who looked at us strangely.
Eventually we came to a turn where there were a couple of tall and wide lifts.
Freddie, the dark-haired one, hovered his hand over the button and the doors opened straightaway, parting away from each other.
Walker gestured for us two to go inside first, so Rèmy and I stepped into the ocean-coloured lift inside, which had a wall of about fifteen buttons, twelve for the floors of rooms and three for the bars, pools and gyms.
When Walker and Freddie stepped inside, and Walker pressed a button, I realised that each of the twelve floors was named after a zodiac sign.
The buttons started from the bottom with 'Aries' and our floor was named after the fifth sign, which was Leo, marked with the Leo symbol on the clear button.
Rèmy was Cancer and I was Libra, which I had once heard was the most difficult combination.
Strangely enough, we were good friends. Of course we had fall outs, but we were naturally forced to live with each other and therefore had learnt each other's character and likes and dislikes, so eventually we did get along.
From the very top floor, we descended five storeys until the elevator halted and we heard a 'ding!'. The doors opened to a long and deserted corridor, brightly coloured, to represent the floor's symbol.
There were doors on each side of the corridor and Freddie and Walker led us close to the middle, where our door number, which was imprinted in white on the wooden door, was '537'.
Freddie waved his hand over a detector by the bronze handle, and we immediately heard a 'click' between the locks.
Rèmy, by now exhausted, eagerly entered.
'Zander?' he called, looking around the dark room, 'Where's the light?'
'What did he say?' asked Walker.
'He can't find the light.'
'Where have you two been living these days?' he asked, smiling.
I didn't bother to answer him. Instead, I entered the room and looked for the switch, that, to my surprise, was not anywhere to be found.
'You just have to clap your hands together once,' said Freddie.
I clapped, and the light flickered on straightaway.
'How did you do that?' asked Rèmy.
I clapped my hand again, and the light, naturally, switched off.
'Oh,' said Rèmy. He looked amazed and then started to clap every now and again, and giggled with amazement, which was entertaining to the two crew members.
'Well, do you like your room?' asked Freddie.
It was rather spacious, and to the left straight after the door was the bathroom.
In the middle there was a small dining table covered in a white cloth, fit for two.
At the very end there were two circular windows, which I went to look outside, and saw that we were going to be staying on the floor that was just by the ocean's surface.
They were a bit high for me, and so I gripped on a window seal for me to see better, but I fell down, and the window came with me. Not in the sense that, the window actually fell off, it just came down on the wall, but still stayed stuck there.
'Be careful!' said Walker, who was still waiting for my answer about the room.
'How did that happen?' I asked, rubbing my head that hit the wall.
'You can adjust these windows,' he said, walking to one, 'If it's too high you've just got to pull it down, like a blind, to where you want it. You can even push it to the side if you want to look in a different direction.' He showed me and an awe-inspired Rèmy, who was watching the demonstration with his mouth wide open.
'Unfortunately, they can't go diagonally as there is no lane for them to move within the wall, but at least you can change their positions.'
'That's amazing,' I said.
'Maybe for you,' said the odd Freddie by the door, waiting for his friend to return, 'but there's loads more things for you to see that, if you think this is amazing, I don't know what you'll say to the other technologies this ship has to offer.'
I nodded and gave him a small smile, though inside I was seething at him.
'So, do you like the room or not?' asked Walker, a little bit impatient now.
'Oh yeah,' I said, 'I think it's really comfortable.'
'Your bedrooms are comfortable,' he said, walking to another corner of the room where there was another room that we had to clap in order for the light to switch on. Both of our beds were there, seperated by small wooden writing desks. There was only one window, which Walker described was the only one that could not move for the fact that, 'only expensive rooms had such comodities wherever the passengers went'.
'And that's it, my little friends,' he said, leading us out back to the living room.
'Thank you,' I said. I kind of liked Walker, at least definitely more than Freddie.
'My pleasure. Now, you guys can do whatever you want, and as Captain Andrew had told you already, you will be taken care of. Now, you will have some time to yourselves for relaxing and taking your mind off all things that bother you... since we know how tired you are. You must be starving, so we've ordered someone to bring you food.'
They did?
'I don't know what to say,' I said, smiling brightly, 'thank you so much!'
'We can't let you starve!' exclaimed Freddie, with his arms folded at the door.
'Exactly! You are the guests,' added Walker, 'we have to go now, but if you need anything just call us via that small button by the dining table,' he pointed to a medium-sized button stuck on the wall by the table. 'To lock the door all you have to do is close it, and to open it you've just got to say open, the first time twice so that the machine gets used to your voice-therefore it should be only one of you to always open it.'
I thanked him again and shook his hand and he left, with Freddie happily following.
They closed the door behind them and by the time I'd turned around, Rèmy was already walking into the bedroom.
'Why can't we have our own seperate rooms?' he moaned.
'We can't pay so it's not like we get the best rooms,' I explained.
'Oh well,' he said, jumping into one of the beds, 'I need to rest.'
'I should rest too but soon someone's going to come to give us food.'
'Well, save some, but I'm too tired to eat now.'
I nodded and I left the room, clapping my hands once before shutting the door.
I strode into the living room and sat by the couch. There was no television but at least I could relax for some time.
I don't know about other parents but I clearly remembered my mother as being very protective. A little over-protective. It's love, of course, but when you become a teenager, I think it's normal that you feel to be on your own for a couple of hours, and for once in a very long time, I wasn't with Rèmy.
Perhaps we both needed our own alone time.
But he felt tired, and I didn't-why?
Suddenly there came a loud knock at the door.
'Come in,' I said, standing up.
No one entered and I remembered that I had locked the door.
The person knocked again so I went to open it.
Outside there stood a gorgeous young brunette woman who had long hair and pushed a trolley that held a lot of covered dishes.
'Hi,' she said, vaguely smiling.
'Hello,' I answered, blushing.
'Can I come in to give you guys this?' she asked, her strong American accent drowning out my British one.
'Of course, please come in.'
She entered, and there I got to see all of her uniform.
She wore a navy blue outfit, that seemed rather tight. It fell just above her knees, and she wore clear tights.
I had never been so awestruck in my entire life.
She pushed the trolley to the table and started placing all the dishes there. I could smell delicious food from the door yet I couldn't tell what it was that we were going to eat.
There were drinks as well: above all water, however there was also some coca-cola.
She finished preparing our table and said that all we had to do to call her back was to press the button near the table, like Walker had explained to us earlier.
I thanked her and shut the door, as she elegantly left.
Hungrily sitting at the table, I eagerly pulled off one of the metal lids of the dishes and my mouth watered.
Steam soared into the air whilst I looked carefully at the food within.
A large, red and juicy fillet, topped with pepper and other herbs that I was a little bit weary of eating. Next to them were some thin, crunchy yellow sticks which at the time I had forgotten what they were called. I think, if I remember well, that they were called 'French fries' in American English or just plain 'Chips' in British English.
That was not all. Curiously, I opened one of the other lids of the dishes, and inside there was a large hamburger, filled with cheese and sauces that I did not know-then a tooth-pick inserted in the top.
I was starving by then and didn't bother to look inside the other dishes, so I immediately ate the huge hamburger and even nicked a couple of fries from the other plate with the meat on, which I had left for Rèmy when he woke up.
My stomach was full by the time that I had got to the dessert: a large glass bowl of strawberry ice cream with an actual strawberry next to it.
In nearly four years of eating simple foods such as fish and coconuts, this was the best and proper meal that I had ever had.
Afterwards I went to sleep in my bed, where I found Rèmy fast asleep in his, this time not snoring as much as he used to and not moving as often as he once did.
I was hopeful for the future now-Rèmy and I had finally found salvation that would take us to Florida, and from there, somehow, we would get to Texas.
Hold on a second, I thought. None of what we were doing really made any sense.
Why weren't the people on 'Anodyne Florida' worried about being burned up or starving? I mean, the cruise is supposed to be covered by some sort of substance protecting it...but why would you go on a cruise when a part of the world is about to be destroyed?
I felt suspicious and anxious, though I was exhausted, like Rèmy, and before I could even think of another question, my eyes shut and I was dreaming away.
*
I woke up the following morning screaming. It was dark outside and I was sweating. The bed sheets were soaking with sweat and my heart was pounding non-stop.
I don't recall to have ever had a dream as horrific as the one I had that night.
The scene was blurred, but I could still manage to make out certain figures present.
I was walking into a large hall with many people who were eating.
I wasn't sure what was happening, so I proceeded a little farther into the hall until I arrived at a large table. Upon it lay the most nightmarish and heart-ripping thing I could have ever imagined: Rèmy.
He wasn't moving, but I knew he was dead anyway.
I called out his name. No answer. Tears streamed down my face and landed on his cheeks.
I pecked his forehead and tried to hug him, but someone stepped in front of me and said, 'Forget your love, it is wasted within the waters of our minds. All the slaves of the world will perish; you also, shall follow. Come closer, Zander, permit us to devour you. Come closer... come closer...'
I began vomiting. Everyone there cheered and shouted in honour to the feast.
I remember screaming. I hadn't a clue what was happening in that room, nevertheless I had never felt so relieved when I woke up to realise it was only a dream. Perhaps the journey I went on with my soul-brother proved too much and therefore caused me to think strangely.
Or perhaps I had eaten something. Something poisonous.
There was some sort of triangular clock on the wall that read 7.25. I turned to my right to realize that Rèmy wasn't there.
Jumping immediately out of bed, I ran into the living room. He wasn't there either. But the food was eaten. The untrustworthy meat I had left for him had now been consumed by Rèmy. I really hoped it hadn't been poisoned.
But where was he?
I peered into the bathroom but no avail.
Surely he wouldn't have gone to visit the rest of the ship without me? Plus it was so early in the morning.
I suddenly had a bad feeling. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but dreadfully enough I feared it had something to do with my dream.
I immediately had a shower. Only this time, it was no longer how showers were when I used to live with my mother. In those days, they were manual and all one had to do was hold the hose and shower himself with it. However, this was a pure white, 7-foot capsule that hung on the bathroom wall and covered my whole body all the way down to my feet, as an invisible air force at the bottom and outside of it prevented water from spraying on the floor while I was being washed by water jetting at me from all sides of the capsule.
Therefore, you did not need a towel, for once you opened the capsule and stepped outside, you were already dried by the invisible air force which, like a magnet, dragged any droplets away from you. Of course, it was only your hair that could still have some small iotas attached.
I managed to prepare myself rather quickly, but by the time I was in the bathroom, somebody knocked on the door.
'Come in!' I called.
No one entered, so I ran to the door. My hair was a little wet after I had my shower and I was also shirtless.
My hand reached for the handle but as soon as I had even touched it the door flung open and smacked my face.
I fell back and rubbed my face in pain, wondering to whom the responsibility belonged.
'Oh, I am so sorry Zander!' cried the same brunette waitress who had entered earlier.
She ran to me and helped me up, looking seriously worried and stupid about what she had done.
'Don't worry', I replied back to the ever so stunning waitress, whose name-tag was hidden somewhere on her uniform.
She sat me on the couch and took out a small tissue to absorb the blood dripping from my lip.
I don't know what it was, but despite the awfully long journey that Rèmy and I had made with the raft, and the painful door-hit from the waitress' carelessness, I was feeling rather giddy.
'I truly am sorry about this,' she apologized, constantly dabbing at my lip with the smooth tissue.
'Honestly, it's no problem, ' I answered, 'I just have to find my friend, Rèmy.'
'Why, is he not here?' she asked confusingly.
'No,' I countered slightly irritated, 'I've really just woken up but I can't find him. He was very tired yesterday so I doubt he's gone to look around.'
The waitress hesitated. 'Well, you're done,' she finally announced, suspiciously folding it up and putting it in her jacket pocket.
'Thank you,' I uttered frowning a little. Why did she keep it?
'Again, I am so sorry about what happened, really, I was so clumsy!'
'It's no problem!' I reassured her, though I really didn't care. I was truly worried about Rèmy and where he could have been.
I attempted to stand up to leave, but the waitress urged me to sit back down and tell her more.
'I really don't have time, madam,' I said, 'I have to go.'
Her smile turned into a twisted grimace. I no longer trusted her. Something was wrong, and I felt I had little time to resolve it.
'Why don't you stay a little longer, Zander?' she asked, stroking my right cheek.
'We could talk together for a long time and get to know each other more.'
She drew herself up close to me, exposing me to a strange perfume she had put on.
I suddenly felt dizzy, but upon realizing that the effect was due to the perfume and most likely the food I had eaten, I said bluntly: 'I have to go'.
Without warning her face snapped into a snarl and she lashed out on me, causing me to fall to the ground.
'Help!' I cried, while she pinned me down.
No one arrived.
'Be quiet!' she ordered, pulling out a dagger from her waistcoat.
I writhed and flailed my arms, but I could not resist her. She was too strong. Not even screaming aided my escape.
'What is it you want from us?!' I cried, still in the process of attempting to throw her off.
The waitress didn't reply. She simply continued to hold me down, and finally bring the dagger down upon me. I resisted her powerful right arm which was pushing down my chest. I couldn't breathe.
While I was suffocating, my left arm was constantly trying to push away her dagger-wielding hand.
A moment of pure darkness, perhaps among the worst of all I had ever experienced.
Just then, the light seemed to fail. The room was quickly beginning to dim, although I wasn't sure what was causing it. Soon, I felt dizzy. My suffocation was about to take its toll, and my arm resisting the waitress' was slowly weakening, growing weaker by the second.
I remember seeing her face twisting in frustration as she too started to debilitate.
I couldn't lose. I had to win.
I called upon my mother, like I normally do in these situations. Why so many, however?
Just then her arm fell and I seized the opportunity to jump and wrestle her to the ground.
I grabbed the dagger then held it above her face, pointing exactly at the mouth.
''Try it!'' I ordered, tightening my grasp, ''Do it if you can! I'll cut your tongue out!''
Her eyes widened with grief. Surely she wasn't expecting a boy of 13 to pronounce such threatening words. Unfortunately, neither did I expect myself to say such, and in that precise moment I recall feeling guilty of something I'd said to an enemy. Mother would be stricken by those words.
Yet I knew I had to do something. What I proceeded to doing, next, however, was something totally beyond me. I struck her right hand with the dagger she'd previously attacked me with, then pinned her to the ground. She screamed. I fastened my grip around her mouth, shaking and selfishly gasping for air.
When she finally stopped resisting, I used some life-saving rope under my bed to tie her up to the nearest chair. I couldn't shut her mouth with anything other than my clothes, so I used a pair of already-worn socks to stuff her mouth with and keep her wailing voice quiet once and for all.
I put on the first shirt I could find, left the room in a hurry and walked nautically through the corridors, keeping my surroundings under close watch.
No one seemed to pass. Where was everyone? I thought.
I stopped outside an elevator and pushed the open button with the fiery 'Leo' symbol tattooed to its bright yellow surface.
When the doors opened to an illuminated moving room, I stepped inside and decided to descend to the captain's cabin. He was on the Scorpio floor, just three beneath where I was staying. I still don't know why I decided to go precisely to his cabin, but I needed help.
The elevator doors closed, and while the machine slowly took me through the Virgo and Libra levels, I thought deeply to myself.
'Where could Rèmy be? Why did he leave the cabin without informing me?'
I passed through Libra and prepared myself to exit the elevator, when suddenly, it stopped, leaving me hanging on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio.
At first, I reacted by doing nothing. Then, once I started to panic a little, I pressed the buttons once more. I started by pressing just the Scorpio button, but when I realized it wouldn't work, I began pressing all of them and didn't care which I'd touch.
The lights went out. I was stuck. Don't panic. What do I do?
Call mother.