Eye of the Storm

Chapter 11

Every inch of my skin feels dry and cracked, down to the bone. The sea wind is harsh and unforgiving. Not only that, but also the sun. Shoving its rays deep into me, making my whole body flushed and stinging. Movies seem to romanticise the whole idea of being stranded, with scantily clad girls and over confident men. They also always seem to have a happy ending. I don’t think a happy ending is an option right now. If they were going to find us, they would have. Maybe they gave up, or maybe they were never even looking. At first, I would’ve told myself I’m crazy for even thinking that, of course they’re looking, bunch of teenagers go missing and they’re just going to sit there? But as the days stretch out and my body starts to deteriorate, theories pop up in my mind, theories that make my head start to feel so, so wrong.

I sit in the shelter, completely numb. Nothing left to feel.
“Esme?” someone whimpers from the door. I lift my head.
“Amy, come in,” she sits down next to me. She looks so sick, so sick she may as well be dead. I can’t believe I’m even thinking that but it’s true. Her red hair once showed her passion, blazing like her heart, but now it’s fading, thinning. If you saw her in the street you wouldn’t hesitate to drive her to the hospital, thinking maybe she’d escaped.
“I know what you’re thinking…” Amy sulks, her head sinking deep into her knees. “I’m dying, Esme… I’m dying…” I’ve been through a lot in my life, way more than anyone should have to. So, I guess you could say I’m strong, or at least I thought I was. Because right now, the sight of a young lady with so much ahead of her, being pulled away so quickly by deaths grubby hands, brings me to tears. I’m not talking one stray tear, I’m talking full on sobbing, the type of sobbing where your eyes are full of tears and your throat makes ugly, sad… lost, noises. Amy looks up at me. “It’s ok… Esme,” her hand rests on my shoulder, and even through my jumper I can feel her cool skin, sending shivers down my spine. I shake my head.
“No, it’s not your time…” my throat tightens around my words, making them come it in chunks against my sobs. I look into her eyes, asking for some sort of hope, something to tell me everything will be ok, even though I know nothing will.
“Yes… it is,”

We lay out her cold, lifeless body on the sand.
“I can’t believe it,” Daniel gasps. Lorenzo stares deeply at her, kneeling, his fingers dancing across her skin. The look on his face makes me wish I was Amy. Dead. At this point I’m starting to realise, if we DID get off this hell hole, we would never, ever be the same. Lorenzo is like a new person. It’s like someone reached deep within him and ripped out his soul, tore it in half and threw it half way across the world where he could never find it again, but if he somehow did, he would never be able to fix it. Leo comes up behind me, encasing my hand in his. If he wasn’t here, I don’t know what I’d do. It would probably be me in the sand. We don’t have a lot of food, so if I didn’t have someone here looking out for me, I wouldn’t be eating any, slowly slipping into starvation. He gives my hand a tight squeeze, making his emotions flow through my veins. I look up at him, sad eyes looking back at me. Two down, nine to go.