Neptune

She clung onto the piece of driftwood, praying for daylight. The taste of acid and saltwater still lingered in her mouth from just a few moments prior. The sea tossing her to and fro, violently stirring her about, as waves repeatedly splashed onto her blistered arms. She winced, and just managed to barely open her left eye to see if her conditions had changed; wishing that this was all just a horrible nightmare she could awake from.  

They hadn’t. She remained alone in the middle of the sea. An endless abyss of black surrounded her, with the evening sky providing just enough light of the moon through the clouds that she could see her hands in front of her: pruned and riddled with blisters from the gripping the wood.

As she floated there, practically lifeless, she attempted to call for help, but managed only to barely part her lips as she closed her eye again. Her plea was met with nothing but silence apart from the crashing waves of the ocean that enveloped her and the smell of briny sea air.

She had no idea how long she had been out there, at least two days, but perhaps longer. There was no telling how many times she had lost consciousness swaying there in the ocean, just as there was no telling how many times she regurgitated the salt water the ocean had forced upon her in those hours.

Another wave crashed over her head, submerging her into the inky waters. Still clinging to the driftwood, she resurfaced seconds later, gasping for air, while her ribs seared with pain. They must have been cracked, or least badly bruised. She coughed, and quivered in pain from her side.

Upon opening her eyes once more, the clouds in the night sky had parted enough to let the full blast of the evening moon through. Large, full, and pale yellow.

As the moon glistened upon the waters, it faintly illuminated what looked like a large mass in the distance.

Without concern of what this mass could possibly be, she knew that she needed to make it there, for it was the first thing aside from ocean and sky that she had seen in days.

Mustering up every last morsel of energy she could, she kicked out with her right leg, then left, then right again. The momentum toward the object somehow encouraged her to repeat this, again, and again and again. Every fiber of her being was sore. Everything hurt. Everything ached. If not for severe dehydration, she thought she might cry in pain.

After one last kick, a wave of the ocean pushed her onto the sandy mass in front of her, and took the drift wood with it as it receded back into the ocean.

She coughed, and spat out more sea water. Another wave crashed upon the shore, and began to pull her away with it. She reached her left arm forward, clawing at the sand, and dug both knees onto the shore. With little energy to crawl forward, she would claw and move further inland each time a wave came, and managed to bear down as the waves went back to sea.

When she finally made it far enough inland so that the waves only met the tips of her toes, she put her arms in front of her, as to fully surrender herself to the island that just received her, and closed her eyes once more.

Finally she could rest, if only for a short while.