فصل 95

alfred

I had made it up top. Everyone was screaming. Screaming was not thinking. Passengers struggled toward the rail and the lifeboats. I watched them cry, yell, and beg for help. Beg for life.

The scene played as if to music. People looked to me, eyes panting and desperate. Their hands reached for me in choreographed synchronization.

Save me. Save me. Save me.

We crawled on the slippery deck. An injured woman grabbed my ankle.

“Please, help me!” she shrieked. The salt of her tears had smudged her eye makeup.

I nodded. Yes, she would need help to fix her ruined face.

Panic required me to take action. I could not. The chaos disrupted my ability to focus, pulling me instead from reaction to observation. My arm began moving, turning the invisible crank of Death’s music box. Somewhere inside, I didn’t want the melody to end. I saw Captain Petersen lowered with passengers in a boat. My intelligence then called to me. If our captain was leaving, surely I should depart as well.

A lifeboat. Yes, I would get in a lifeboat.

The blisters on my hands popped and bled. I wiped them off on the wool coat I had taken from the passenger. I shoved through the thick crowd to the rail. And then I saw the recruit, the old man, and the little boy.

The recruit was screaming. Veins bulged in his neck. His mouth contorted as he summoned all of his strength to roar one, single word.

Joana.