Year 2 – Shift 7 – Sara
“This boat looks sketch as fuck.” Sara looked at Gary the dishwasher’s pontoon.
Each of the pontoons was elegantly painted like a giant pickle, and the boat itself was decorated like a sixteen-year-old boy’s room. It was fucking lousy with flames, dragons, and bacon-related humor.
“It really is safe, though.” Thiccolus leaned over and offered a hand to help her up.
She took his hand and got to the deck. The rest of the Wangs crew was already aboard, looking like they were going for a beach outing. Chadriel wore just swim trunks, showing off his ripped eight-pack. Tripod was in shorts and a white tank. Thiccolus wore a one-piece green shimmery suit, but there was one who didn’t come for fun. Glandalf was still in his signature JNCOs and band T-shirt, smoking a joint.
Cody scrambled up the side as Sara cleared the gap. “Okay, I call driving!”
“Shit,” Sara said. “Does anyone else know how to drive?”
“Dude.” Cody cocked his head and looked at her.
“You’ve wrecked nine Jettas,” Sara returned. “And one ice cream truck. And one Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. And a tractor. Several bikes, a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe, several shopping carts…”
“Okay, okay.” Cody climbed up on the bench and started licking his inner thigh. “But you have to watch me do this, then.”
“I got it.” Tripod let his aviators drop like it was cool. “Everyone ready?”
Sara tucked her pack under one of the bench seats at the back of the boat and sat, pressing herself into the corner seat and gripping the handle with white knuckles. “Okay. But go slooooo—”
Before she could finish, Tripod threw the handle all the way forward. A patch of sand ground as it went through the motor fan, leaving a small crater in their wake. Sara’s heart hammered, and she gripped the rope so hard her hands blistered. The rest of the crew seemed to be enjoying the extreme speed, but Sara couldn’t pull herself together. The skin on her face pulled back and her head swam as the coast quickly disappeared. The pounding in her head was massive and unexpected, and her stomach was churning. Before she could even reach over the side, the contents of her stomach filled her mouth behind pressed-together lips. But that didn’t last long, and it all came out, coating her mouth and chin and chest. No one was paying attention. They were all enjoying the pontoon boat skipping off the water’s surface too much to notice her fear. There was nothing but water everywhere she could see.
Glandalf looked up from his tablet and shouted at Tripod. “Just another mile! Be careful! I’m getting a big reading on the island!”
Suddenly, the boat coughed and sputtered, and within seconds, it came to a halt in the sea, nothing anywhere around.
“Fuck.” Tripod tried to turn the engine over, but it wasn’t happening. “What the fuck, Gary?”
Thiccolus looked over his shoulder. “Shit, girl.” He placed a meaty mitt on his dump truck. “No gas.”
“Fuck!” Cody said, coming back from the front. “How in the hell is Gary gonna do us… Sara? What’s wrong?”
Sara couldn’t stop shaking. Between the quick launch, the sudden stop, and the roiling, moving ocean, she turned around and leaned over the side, emptying the contents of her stomach into the vast blue expanse. She watched as the bits floated into the deep and dissolved in front of her.
“Seasick,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and flinging the gunk into the drink. “So, we’re stranded?”
“Umm…” Glandalf jumped to his feet and tapped his tablet furiously. “Something’s coming. It’s big.”
Sara scanned the horizon all around. “From where?”
By the time she was done scanning, she noticed all eyes pointed up, and she followed their gaze. An airship floated by overhead, low enough to see a tiefling with the same horns and colors as her standing with her arms folded over her chest and looking right past them as if they didn’t exist.
“That’s them!” Cody threw the bones of his chicken wing at the boat in frustration. “They’re going to your island!”
“They’re getting away!” Chadriel yelled.
“The hell they are!” Sara rushed to the front of the pontoon. This was the exact application for the new moves she’d been practicing with Muffin. She threw her hand forward. “Get over here!”
A ring rope, complete with turnbuckle grappling hook, launched from her palm and hooked around their engine propeller, yanking Sara immediately off her feet and into the sky.
“Sara!” Thiccolus screamed as she was whisked away.
The propeller didn’t stop spinning until she was dangerously close, and it finally snagged, causing the airship engine to sputter and smoke and catch fire. Shit. She looked down at the surface of the water. At this height, it would be like hitting cement. Her arm was wearing out quick. She had to do something.
BOOM!
The engine blew. But her tether didn’t go with it. Instead, it was locked right into the cracked engine, and fire spread down the rope toward her. Fear gripped her, and the cold hand of a panic attack had her chest.
“No.” She dangled and swallowed hard. “You’re not going to die. You can’t leave everyone…”
Her self-talk wasn’t working. The ice poured into her veins, and her vision started to tunnel. She shook her head and used her free hand to smack her chest. “Remove fear!”
With a wash of relief, she could now spend her last few seconds deciding how to die best. Then it hit her. She kicked her legs hard and swung the rope. Again, she kicked back and forth until she could just see the sail. They were glowing. Good. One more swing, the fire singeing her fingertips.
“Dispel Magic!”
The boat instantly dropped into a rapid descent, only its wooden wings barely keeping it from a straight plunge. It was enough for Sara to grab a porthole window and release her burning ring rope.
She held on for dear life as the water got closer fast. She could barely see land ahead, but the ship was going to hit it. She had a decision. She let go and folded her arms over her chest and pointed her toes. The water was cooler than she expected as she plunged much further than she’d ever been. The rapid stop kicked her survival into gear, and she started kicking and pulling her way to the top. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped for air.
The island was huge. A crashed ship blocked her view of its interior. With no sight of Cody or the Wangs crew anywhere, she swam to shore. As she pulled herself up on shore, the island began to rumble, slow and deep. It wasn’t an earthquake. It was feeding off her energy. She could feel it.
She approached the burning vessel, circling to see if there were any survivors. As she rounded the stern of the ship, she saw them dusting off.
And they saw her.
The ranger drew her bow before Sara could think, but the tiefling raised a hand, holding the rest of her group back. She locked eyes with Sara and closed the distance herself, calmly. Sara had nothing left after the boat and airship rides, but she wasn’t going to give this tiefling an inch.
“Sara, I believe?” The woman came to a stop just in front of her and extended her hand. “Alenikka.”
Sara’s existence ceased.
Alenikka. The name of the protagonist of the novel she’d been working on for over twenty years. The woman she so carefully built and used to write her way out of her own trauma. The exact woman she was being now. Making it possible for others to claim their own destinies.
Why? How had this become the worst version of her?
Alenikka lowered her hand and folded her arms over her chest, nodding behind her. “Your friends are here.”
The remains of Gary’s pontoon drifted into the shallows behind them, apparently dragged along when Sara brought the airship down. The Wangs crew and Cody climbed off, slowly forming around her in the sand.
Sara’s brain shut down. Nothing she had ever conjured in her lifetime of severe overthinking could have prepared her for this. Her senses simply failed, and she froze.
“Thank you for the island, Sara,” Alenikka said. “You can go play your games now.”
The world shrank to a tiny pinprick, and no matter how hard her mind screamed, nothing moved. Alenikka turned and walked away, dismissing her with all the effort of a passing fly. Arms wrapped around Sara as her muscles gave out, and her vision was swallowed by the sun.