Enduring the Storm

Chapter 12 Back to Reality

Brooke's POV

My eyes instantly flip open out of shock as I spit out so much water, that I feel like I may have sucked up half the sea inside of me. I cough and gasp for air as I turn over, getting on my chest, pushing myself up with my arms as much as I can. I'm hunching over before spitting out every last bit of water trying to gain air into my straining lungs that just keep begging me for some type of relief. I feel sick, shutting my eyes before I vomit as I spit the last bits of water out.

I take a couple of deep breathes before I try to push myself up onto my knees, but there is no strength within me so I fall face first into something soft. I feel it in my hands and it is sand. My eyes pry open as I see many grains of white sand pillowing my body, and covering my hand. I keep breathing lightly as I push the sand between my fingertips, just trying to remember what had happened to me and why I would be here. Wherever 'here' is.

I try to remember what happened to me but that hurts my head. It seemed to have strained my thoughts. So I rub the temples of my head before trying again as I breath. I remember the nice peaceful trip.. Eating some food.. The waking up to an awful storm.. trying to untie the sail.. then the boat tipping and me going into the water.. that's all that I can remember. But now I can speculate why I am here right now.. maybe I got out of the storm in one piece and wound up here.. or maybe this is heaven.

I push myself up and this time I can get to my knees. But in doing so a pain starts to shoot from within my head along with dizziness from my drastic movements. I reach up, touching the aching part, but with the contact that aching starts to sting, hurting really badly. I look at my hand to see that have blood covering it. I feel the frustration hitting me at the sight of the blood as my eyes bounce around seeing if there is anything that can help me.

There is nothing that I can see to indicate that people have ever lived here, let alone that there is a hospital or even first aid to help me out. There is only deserted island around me with my boat nowhere in sight, and not a single living being in my line of view. I see a line of trees behind me, open water in front of me and sand with bushes and twigs surrounding me. The overwhelming thoughts of being stuck in this place and most likely alone, scares me to death. This is not what I wanted at all.. I just wanted to have my boat and sail, seeing the world and now I have nothing.

I cry out, just hating that this has happened. Yes, I survived, which was more than I thought given the circumstances of last night, but the only thing I had of my father and mother did not survive these treacherous events. I clench my fist hitting the sand in a fit, hating that I did this to the one thing I had from them.. The only thing in this world that made me feel loved and apart of a family and it is gone in the blink of an eye.. and there is no way to get it back or replace it. What am I going to do now?

I need to try to figure out where I am, If I can. I look up and around to see the line of huge thick trees behind me with the calm blue sea water in front of me. It looks so inviting that if I almost didn't just get killed in there, I would have loved to go for a swim. My eyes keep taking in the details, just noticing all of the rest is just covered in white sand. I don't know what to do but all I do know is that I can't just sit here and pout about everything or I won't survive the night. I let out a deep breath knowing how exhausted I am, but I know I have to get myself together if I want to see tomorrow's light.

I slowly stand to my feet, stumbling slightly, but I am able to steady myself. I look around, hoping to see more at a higher angle but of course, I am seeing nothing but white sand, blue water and dark green trees. My eyes keep searching for anything, in the trees, but it's too thick.. so I look to the skies for a plane but nothing.. just clear blue skies.. I look at the water for a boat, kayaker, anything in the distance.. but as I assumed from everything before, there is nothing out there that tells me there is a living being in sight. I let out a deep breath feeling frustrated, but I won't let this defeat me.

But as my eyes pan over the waves, I can see that they are pushing items towards the edge of the sand like it probably did for me. I walk straight for the edge of the water as I notice some familiar things from my boat floating on the surface. The excitement in my heart knowing I have something from it gets my anxiousness going just hoping to see what it is as the tears start pouring. This is all so upsetting that I won't tell my body I shouldn't be crying right now. I have lost so much over night. I will just do my best to make it through this.

I feel the excitement taking over my legs as I run through the water to the floating items. I see my backpack, some clothes and a paper. I swim out, grabbing everything that I can as swim back to the shore. I pull everything out seeing what I have on me now. It's a shirt and shorts, my backpack, which has my lighter in it.. that's a good handful. I fall to my knees checking everything out while realizing I am wearing so much.. My jacket, jeans, shirt and both boots.. I reach up, feeling my beanie is gone and one of my gloves on my hands, but as I reach through my jacket I can feel that I still have my knife on me, which will help out so much.

I stand up to see if there is anything else floating out in the water from my boat. I see my other glove! I run out into the water splashing through it before I dive in and swimming out to the glove.. gloves will be helpful in a place that I don't know if I can trust the terrain. I swim back as I keep my eyes peeled but I don't see anything. I get to the beach as I feel the weight of the water leaving me with every step I take out of the water.

I keep my eyes looking for anything to help me out as I notice something buried in the sand around the area of where I was beached. I can see the sand that held me because it looks almost like a sand angel. It's an imprint of my body in the sand with something buried off to the side that I never noticed before. I jog over to it as I swipe it up to see that it was the beanie I was wearing. That's good.. I have some things to help me out in this time of need.

I turn back to my pile of items on the sand to add my couple of other items, but as I get closer, I look down seeing the paper I retrieved from the water, on the sand but under the other items.. I had almost forgot about it. I kneel down on the ground as I let out a deep breath before flipping the soaked paper over to see it's the picture of my mother and father. I gasp out in shock with the tears that never stopped now completely pouring down over my cheeks. I cry out in despair as I hold the wet photo to my chest.

I can't help the words from leaving my lips as if I am talking to the pair of them right here in front of me. "I'm sorry.. I am so sorry.. I never meant for this to happen, you have to believe me.. I thought I could handle this but I now know that those thoughts of having solidarity on your boat was stupid.. that storm was too much for me to handle on my own.. I'm so sorry. I feel like such a failure.. maybe I should have just stayed home, never trying anything new for myself." Once the words leave my mouth I hate it. I shake my head automatically objecting to them.

"No, this is not my fault.. Yes, maybe doing this on my own when I have just started might have been idiotic, but I had no other choice since I don't have anyone else in my life.. Besides the trip and boat before all of this was amazing and the most relaxed I had ever felt.. It was the strongest I had ever felt and I don't want to take the serenity and strength back because of a storm I never saw coming.. I deserved to have those things and I have to realize that I couldn't change the weather, no matter how much I might have wanted to.. I can't keep berating myself for something I can't control.. I got caught in a storm which has happened to many.. and I did my best.. but my best wasn't good enough to save my boat I guess.. but I won't hate what that boat gave me.. I won't.. I have come too far for that." I say this trying to reassure myself that I can make it through because I have been through so much in my life that I won't let another hardship get me down.. I'm hard-headed and pushy, so I won't let myself give up out here, no matter how bad things may seem.

I keep nodding to myself while I keep crying for who knows how long until I think all the tears are drained from me.. what am I going to do? I look around as I take in what I know for sure. The sun is almost above me, which means it's almost lunch time, so I have some time to make some shelter or find some food.. I need both, so this is something I need to spend time working on. I keep nodding as I put everything into my backpack before I flip it onto my back as I stand up and start heading towards the trees. They look old by the mere humongous size of them, towering over me and the entire area around them, making it look dark within the close-knit trees as if it may be night time, when I know it is not.

My eyes stay peeled on everything in my line of vision. The vines hang down, with the big leaves covering them, roots sprout out of the ground, so I need to watch out for those.. and I don't know what all is in the bushes, so I need to be careful of those, but luckily most of me is covered at the moment, so not too much to worry about. I keep looking not seeing much for life in there.. there are bugs chirping, frogs hopping, birds fluttering by and some monkeys cooing in the trees.. but not much else that I can see.

This forested area is dark and dreary, making me want to stay out as much as I can, just by staying close to the open, sanded area if possible, while still gathering what I need. I have a strong feeling within me to not go deep into the dark treed area. So I just stick with my gut feeling by staying to the outer area of the trees, not wanting to wander further in. I flip my knife out and cutting many vines, throwing them over my shoulder as keep my eyes peeled for anything else that might be of use or worse, a threat. I keep tripping over dried and broken branches that have fallen off of the trees. So I lean down, grabbing as many as I can while knowing I will need so many more than this.

I walk out of the line of trees, quickly finding a nice flat spot next to a couple of trees that hunch over that said spot, looking as if they are covering it, which is perfect. I choose this as my dedicated spot, setting my haul onto the ground as I wander back into the trees, grabbing a whole other haul of the same items, unloading them with the pile I have already made, making sure I have enough at least for the night.

I go back to the trees again, to make sure to grab the big leaves that are not dried but still wet and as firm as they can be. At this point, I have made a big pile of items as I start what I need to do with them. I look up just to see that there is not a cloud in the sky, so I don't think I will have to worry about shelter for right now.. But I have heard many stories and know that I can't sleep on the ground because of what might lerk out here.. so I need to make something that I can sleep up and off of the ground.. like a hammock.

First things first. I need to get some a fire going to help me take care of multiple things and then probably some food as well.. That is if I can.