Nicole could hear a song. She was walking along a beach, she could tell by the smell of the sea, but it was so misty that she couldn’t see anything. The words were unclear, muffled. But, she was walking towards the sound and it was becoming clearer.
“Nicole?” said a voice uncertainly. Nicole felt a hand gently pushing her, trying to wake her up.
Nicole got up suddenly from her dream, hoping to find Tasha over her waking her up to go to school, but saw Kyle instead. Not that she didn’t want to see him, but she just wanted to think the whole thing was a nightmare, that she would wake up any minute to find out it never happened.
“Mmm?” Nicole replied, sitting up.
“Uh, sorry, but it’s your turn to row and keep watch,” Kyle said. Nicole saw him clearly now, and he looked exhausted.
“No problem. Go to sleep, you look exhausted,” Nicole said.
Kyle tried to smile, but couldn’t and fell asleep immediately.
Nicole took the oars. It wasn’t like she was an expert at rowing a boat, but she knew what to do, basically. She didn’t have a watch but figured it was around midnight.
Nicole stayed up rowing the boat peacefully in one direction for at least two hours. Then suddenly, it seemed as if the sea was fighting with her. She tried to row, but the force of the sea was just too much. She got overwhelmed and couldn’t think straight. We’re gonna die, she thought, and it’s all my fault!
She stopped thinking. Her mind blanked out.
Then the thought that Sara and Kyle were still here, in the boat, thinking they will be safe with Nicole on watch, brought Nicole back to earth.
If the sea is fighting with me, she thought, I’m gonna fight back.
Nicole tried to row with all her might. Then she suddenly shouted, “Sara! Kyle!” about to warn them, but the wave crashed on top of Nicole as if trying to crush her, before she could say anything more. Faintly, she heard someone, either Kyle or Sara, call out her name, then she blacked out.
*
Nicole was lying on sand. She did not open her eyes. She kept them tightly shut and replayed everything that had happened in her head. She wondered if she was even alive.
Then suddenly she heard someone, Sara, whisper, “Nicole, Kyle?”
Then suddenly something on her right stirred. Kyle, she thought.
“Thank goodness! You’re alive!” Sara said.
“Yeah, but if Nicole hadn’t shouted out before that wave came, we would be dead,” Kyle said solemnly.
“Nicole! Get up! Please don’t be dead,” Sara said suddenly, almost sobbing.
“She’s breathing. She’s alive,” Kyle said.
Somewhere in the back of her head Nicole registered: she was alive, all three of them were alive, they were on land, and they survived. But she still kept her eyes shut, hoping that the longer she kept them shut, then the more she could convince God to change all this into just a nightmare.
“Get up!” Kyle said shoving her.
Maybe they think I’m in coma or something, that’s why they’re so panicked. Well, I can’t lay here with my eyes closed forever, Nicole thought, I need to face reality.
Nicole slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a pair of grey eyes. Then the image got into focus. Kyle, and to his right Sara, who was looking somewhere in between being scared and relief.
