Sky and sea. Waves and lightning.

It continues, a torment unending. Breath is a gift, each time I draw a lungful.

Ava.

If I live through this, I’ll…

What? I don’t know. So much. Love her. Forgive her. Beg her for forgiveness. Hold her. Tell her…everything. Spend a month whispering all the truths within me to her.

A light, then. The sun? No; rain still stings my face as I tumble down the side of a mountainous wave. But there is light bathing me, too steady and constant for lightning. I hear a noise, like thunder, but not. Thunder cracks as lightning spears, sound and strike concurrent. The other noise…it’s a grumbling. A deep, bass murmur.

Shouts?

I can’t speak, have no strength to speak. All I can do is gasp for breath when I feel air on my face. Can’t even wave my hand. It might be a dream, a taunting of my subconscious, creating fictional rescue where there will be none. I am doomed to float and tumble thus in the storm-tossed sea until I drown, as punishment for abandoning Ava when she needed me most.

The bass murmur is louder, feeling almost real, now. And I’m imagining voices. Shouts snatched by the wind. Something smacks the water near me, and I hear frantic shouting, but I can’t make out what they’re saying, or it’s not in a language I know. I’m so dizzy, so thirsty. I stopped being cold long ago, which something deep in the recesses of my brain tells me is a sign of acute hypothermia. I manage to roll toward the thing that hit the water.

It’s orange. Round. A life preserver? White lettering. A white cross. I hook an arm through it, still certain I’m hallucinating. But as I cling to the imaginary orange disc, I feel myself being pulled through the waves. I sink as a wave slides past, drop fifteen or twenty feet into the trough and then water closes over my head. Not for long, though. I’m pulled up. It’s all I can do to cling to the orange circle. Is this real?

The bass grumbling is powerful now. I twist in the water as I’m drawn forward. There’s a massive dark shape shrouded in the darkness, a shadow obscured by wind-blasted sheets of rain. A bow. A long, long, long body. A superstructure, lights dim yellow. How close am I? I hear the propeller chopping at the water. Feel the pull of the mighty ship’s enormous draft as I near her side. I wrap my other arm around the preserver, clinging with every last shred of strength I possess, which isn’t much.

I’m airborne.

Dangling.

Twisting.

Drawn upward, my grip fading.

And then, from behind, the rushing of something even more massive and mighty than the boat. A rogue wave, towering so high overhead that I can tip my head backward and see it. How high? Too high to measure. A colossus of the sea. Rushing, reaching. The tanker or cargo ship or fishing scow or whatever it is that I’ve dreamed up or am being rescued by—I’m still not sure whether this is real or not—tips sideways as the wave soars at her, bobbing, heeling, sliding down into a canyon between waves, and I’m thrown skyward. I’ve wrapped the rough fibers of the line around my hand and my arm, tangled it around me so I cannot release it even if I tried. A good way to lose an arm, but better than that be thrown aside this close to rescue, only to drown. I tumble and wheel, spin and twist, and the wave smashes against the enormous ship, and god, how did they even see me in this? I’ll owe the sharp-eyed observer my life, and a lifetime of drinks, should I make it out alive.

I hear a crash, the ship righting itself as the wave smashes past, not even cresting yet. And I’m swinging, still, shoulder wrenching almost out of the socket, hand searing in pain, burning, arm constricted. But I’ve got the line, and I’m swinging on it, arcing back toward the ship.

I get a glimpse of the ship as I hurtle at her.

I slam full-force into the side of the ship, and I feel something break. Agony lances through me, washes over me. I feel myself being dragged upward, and I feel rivets and sheet metal, ice-cold from the waves and wet and slimy.

Darkness surges up from within me, shadows armed with claws of excruciating anguish.

PAINPAINPAIN. All is pain.

I can’t even groan past the pain.

Movement stops.

I settle against something solid and unmoving, and yet I still feel as if I’m being wave-thrown, tumbling and rising and dipping, and I can’t breathe for the agony in my lungs. Broken ribs, and my left arm and leg have been shattered and set afire. My right arm is still tangled in the lifeline, and I peer blearily down my torso, and see blood and things bent in directions arms shouldn’t bend. Thoughts come slowly.

“Est-il en vie?”

A second voice.“Oui, mais pas longtemps.”

A face, garbed in yellow rain gear. “Assurez-vous quail ne meurt pas.”

I shake my head. I try to speak, but it comes out in a moan. Hands grab me, and the agony as they lift me is just too much.

Darkness spins around me, in me, through me, and I tumble into it.

“Ava…”

Was that my voice? Cracked and rough and grating and so weak?

I should be shivering, but I’m too cold to shiver. Not cold at all, maybe.

There’s nothing.

I hear Ava’s voice, but I know it’s in my head. Christian. Come back to me, Christian.

I’m trying, my love. But I’m tired, now. So tired.

The darkness is warm.

I can’t fight anymore.

Ava?