She clung onto the piece of driftwood, praying for daylight.

The shipwreck had occurred at 7pm on the dot. About ten and a half hours ago, she knew not because she had a watch, but because she had counted to keep herself sane. Every single second.

Her arms were tired, the driftwood felt coarse; not to mention the water was cold, not freezing, but cool enough to fill her with discomfort. She didn’t care, not after what had happened.

She didn’t know anyone back at the cruise, not that she cared about any of them. A part of her hoped that eventually someone would come looking for her since dry land wasn’t far from there. She was exhausted.

A couple hours ago, at 11:36 pm to be exact. She was on a life boat with a couple of others who had escaped the wreckage, she was trying to catch some sleep when she felt droplets of what seemed like rain starting to falling on her face.

It was blood. You could tell by the smell.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the starless sky. She saw it. She admired the thing in all its glory, realizing that she wasn’t looking at the sky itself but at the creature’s underside.

It flew over the lifeboat, but it didn’t do it like a bird or a plane, it was like it was frozen in the air, not moving a muscle but always changing place.

They sat and looked in terrified silence at the thing flying over them. A creature so huge you could barely make sense of its outline, which was almost faded in the distance; the shadow it casted was so dark you couldn’t tell the difference between up or down, she though she died, it already seemed like it since everything else stopped existing.

The momentary silence turned to panic and the panic turned into irrational screaming from part of the other survivors. She didn’t scream, she could tell it was a useless effort.

She was right. One by one, the screaming ceased and the boat got lighter and lighter, until it was her and the creature. The thing moved on of its extremities, very lightly, but that was enough to smash the boat into pieces.

She thought about death; waiting for the moment where the creature would strike, but it never did, and that feeling of helplessness and dread made everything even worse.

It was like the creature rebelled in the anticipation of her demise. It knew it had control over her like a puppeteer has over a puppet, like a god controlling fate.

Daylight came, the creature vanished.

She was alive. And as she looked at the beautiful sunrise and tried to rest, a part of her knew there was the harrowing possibility it would come back.

———