Stranded with Them: From Outcast to Island King

Episode 2

"There's room in the boat for three more people if they leave the luggage," Arkan said calmly. "The ship is going to split in less than five minutes. If you don't drop that boat now, the suction will drag us all down."

"Stay back!" Pak Hartono shouted, glaring at Arkan. "This boat is for Diamond Tier members and essential crew only. You’re just a technician. You don't have a ticket for survival!"

Arkan froze. A ticket for survival? The words felt like a slap. "Sir, I’m the one who knows how to operate the manual release when the gears jam in this cold. If I stay here, that boat won't hit the water properly."

"We’ll take our chances!" Zara Quinn sneered, her eyes scanning him with a mixture of fear and elitist revulsion. "Get away! You’re getting grease on my coat!"

"Arkan, just help us get it down and we'll see if there's room!" the Chief Engineer lied from the back of the lifeboat, refusing to meet Arkan's eyes.

Arkan saw it then. The lie. The calculated exclusion. He was the tool they used to open the gate, and now he was the garbage they discarded to keep the boat light. His grip tightened on the strap of his waterproof bag. Deep in his chest, something shifted. A realization so sharp it cut. Being a good man only gets you a seat at the bottom of the ocean.

"The cable," Arkan said, pointing up. "It's fraying."

"What?" the guard looked up.

"The release arm is jammed at a forty-degree angle. If you hit that lever, the boat will drop nose-first into the water. It’ll flip." Arkan walked toward the winch. "Let me adjust the tension."

"Hurry up then!" Hartono snapped.

Arkan reached for the winch, his fingers moving with practiced precision. He wasn't adjusting the tension for their survival. He was observing the metal. The ship groaned again, a deep, resonant sound of tectonic-scale failure. The deck tilted further. People screamed as they lost their footing, sliding toward the icy railing.

"Just fix it!" Zara screamed, her poise completely shattered as the boat swayed over the dark abyss. "Why is he taking so long?"

Arkan looked at her. Her makeup was running, her expensive hair was a tangled mess of salt and terror. For all her millions, she looked like a wet rat. "The mechanism is ruined," Arkan said loudly. "But there’s a manual release on the underside of the crane. Someone needs to be on the deck to kick the locking pin when I throw the switch."

"Well, do it then!" Pak Hartono commanded. "Kick the damn pin!"

"I will," Arkan replied. "But I can't be in the boat and on the deck at the same time."

"Then stay on the deck!" Zara shouted, her voice reaching a fever pitch. "We're launching! Drop us!"

Arkan stood there, the rain lashing his face. The people in the boat looked at him—the people he had spent months serving in silence. The Chief Engineer looked away. The security guard placed his hand on the lever. The elites glared with impatient entitlement. They had already decided he was dead.

"Lower it," the Chief ordered.

"Wait!" a soft voice came from the middle of the boat. A woman with glasses and a frantic look—Maya, the ship's assistant doctor. "We can't just leave him! Arkan saved the engineering crew! There's room! Just leave the bags!"

"Shut up, Maya!" Zara hissed. "The bags are insured, the man is replaceable!"

Arkan’s heart went cold. Replaceable. He took a step back from the lifeboat. "Go ahead. Take your bags. Take your priority seating."

"Arkan, don't be a fool!" Maya cried, reaching out an arm, but Pak Hartono grabbed her and pulled her back.

"Launch the boat!" Hartono roared.

The security guard yanked the lever. The mechanism screamed. The lifeboat descended into the darkness, jerking and swaying as it disappeared beneath the curve of the hull. Arkan stood at the railing, watching them go. He could hear Zara’s shrill voice until it was muffled by the wind.

He was alone on a dying giant.

The ship groaned one last time—a sound of ultimate surrender. Arkan felt the vibration in his boots. The metal beneath him was buckling. To his left, the great mast of the ship began to tilt. To his right, the water was already pouring over the promenade. The ship wasn't just sinking; it was snapping in half.

He ran. Not toward the other boats, for he knew there were none left. He ran toward the stern, the highest point remaining. Every step was a battle against gravity. He saw the horizon—no, he saw the ocean rising to meet the sky. The power died completely. Darkness fell like a hammer.

Then, the world shattered.

A sound like ten thousand thunderclaps erupted. The midsection of The Azure exploded under the pressure of trapped air and failing steel. Arkan felt himself being thrown through the air. He hit a bulkhead, the wind knocked out of his lungs, but he clung to his pack with a death grip. He looked down and saw the ship splitting like a dry twig. Fire broke out for a few seconds before being extinguished by the crashing sea.

"Gotta go... now!" Arkan gasped, his vision swimming.

He saw a piece of the decking—a large, foam-core buoyant platform used for pool lounging—sliding toward the edge. He lunged for it, his fingers clawing at the synthetic surface. As the ship's stern rose into the air, reaching toward the storm clouds like a dying man’s hand, Arkan let go of the world he knew.

He plummeted. The drop felt eternal. The air was a freezing blur of salt and shadow.

Splash.

The water hit him like concrete. It was so cold it didn't feel like liquid; it felt like fire. It burned into his skin, it paralyzed his lungs. The weight of his boots tried to drag him down into the lightless maw of the Pacific. Arkan fought. His instincts, sharpened by a lifetime of being the guy who survives on scraps, kicked in. He kicked hard, his lungs screaming for oxygen that was thirty feet above him.

He breached the surface, gasping, coughing up salt water. The waves were mountainous. In the distance, he saw a flash of light—the lifeboat. They were rowing away, their figures tiny and pathetic against the backdrop of the dying ship.

"Help!" he tried to shout, but the wind snatched the word from his lips and tore it to shreds.

They weren't looking back. They were looking at the shore they hoped was there. They were looking at themselves.

Arkan managed to haul his upper body onto the buoyant pool deck he’d chased earlier. He clung to the edges, his fingernails drawing blood from the foam. He watched as the last hundred feet of The Azure stood vertical in the water. For a single heartbeat, everything went silent. Then, with a slow, majestic glide, the ship slid into the abyss.

The suction was immense. Arkan felt his platform being pulled toward the vortex. He paddled with everything he had, his muscles cramping in the frigid water. "Not like this," he hissed through grit teeth. "Not because of them."

A piece of debris—a wooden crate—smashed into his platform, nearly knocking him off. He grabbed a piece of floating rope and tied his wrist to the platform. He wouldn't let the ocean take him easily.

As the whirlpool of the sinking ship began to settle, Arkan lay flat on his stomach, the rain pelting his back. He was a speck in an infinite blackness. The cold was a predatory thing now, beginning to shut down his extremities. He looked at the waterproof bag he had managed to keep. His hands were shaking so hard he couldn't open it.

"You... think... I’m... replaceable?" he whispered, his voice cracking.

He stared into the darkness. There were no lights. No other survivors in sight. Just the rhythm of the waves and the biting cold. He thought of Zara's trunk. He thought of Hartono's priority seating. They were probably shivering in that boat, wondering if they would ever have a spa day again.

Arkan closed his eyes, his consciousness flickering like the dying lights of the ship. The last thing he saw before the darkness of sleep or death claimed him wasn't a face. It wasn't the ship. It was the vast, uncaring shadow of a mountain in the distance—a silhouette of land that shouldn't have been there according to the maps he knew by heart.

And then, silence.

Wait. No. Not silence.

From beneath the water, right under his floating platform, something moved. Something massive. Something that pulsed with a low, mechanical hum that matched the frequency of his own heart. A light, faint and blue, began to glow through the water, illuminating the depth beneath his feet.

Arkan’s eyes snapped open one last time. He stared down into the water.

The Azure didn’t just hit a reef, he realized with a jolt of terror. We hit something... living.

Before he could scream, a giant wave crested over him, and Arkan slipped into the mouth of the abyss.