Is it because the king of tidal waves is growing out of the horizon, coming faster and faster towards us?
I never liked water. It's my biggest enemy. I don't get seasick; but the slightest interaction with water drives me crazy. A shower is fine only if it's set to the highest available temperature.
I wouldn't have boarded a ship in a million years. But with that giant wave threatening to swallow me, I jump right on, my cheek dragging against the wood of the floorboards.
Panicked whispers form out of the other survivors. I struggle to sit up before I drag myself along the floor to sit in the corner. My knees hugged to my chest, I look through the glass that makes the wall of the ship.
The wave is growing larger, coming closer. Everyone comes forward and watches the sight with me; they fall silent, as if still trying to process what they're witnessing.
Some of them react as dramatically as sliding down to their knees, burying their faces in their hands. The others walk away further from the glass wall towards the other side of the ship, heads stooped low. A few groups hug each other; it must be nice to still have your family or friends during this disaster.
Me? I have no one. I'm alone. I don't know where any of my loved ones are.
The wave comes closer; it's so large it covers whatever sight is left of the sun. I don't move from the wall at all, just watching my fear expanding beyond my strength.
Everything seems to pass in slow motion. I watch the wave hit the floor of the ship, its boards breaking apart; the impact creeping up on me, throwing everyone off and then me. I hit the water, and instantly I can't breathe.
I don't know how low I've gone. Maybe it's just an exaggeration on my part, because I don't like water after all... Being just an arm's length away from the surface still makes me feel like I'm chained down to the deepest recesses of the ocean.
To imagine that giant wave from before destroying our ship and throwing us off into suffering, only to go back into its origin and hiding within the rest of the ocean..... it makes me so sick. Water is a cruel thing.
The currents grow stronger, and I see a few bobbing heads scattered in the water. A few floating bodies, dead. The sight scares me, but I don't know if I'm shivering from the fear of dying that way or from the cold of the wind against my soaked being.
A few quick strikes of lightning.
I'm struggling to find a piece of the ship to float on. The impact of the wave was so strong that nothing is left of it.
And then I see it; a fat line of light coming down slowly from the sky, towards the waters. The king of all lightning bolts, determined to fry us all once it kisses the very tip of the ocean's surface.
Indescribable pain shoots up every fiber of my being. I don't feel my body anymore, don't even remember if I even own one.... How am I still alive? How is everyone around me still screaming in pain instead of floating quietly and dead and charred?
____
The first thing I realise is: I can't feel my legs.
The first thing I see is: people are still alive, but they're not people anymore.
They're burnt.
And as they're pushed by guns belonging to men that still look human, they walk forward, on all fours.
I'm trapped in a world where people continue to slave despite how the kings of tidal waves and lightning bolts had caused everyone's legs to fold beneath them, making them look like distorted frogs.
I don't want to look down to see for myself how my legs are, but I feel the muzzle of a gun forced onto my head, and I proceed forward to find myself walking on my feet and my hands, my knees on either side of my face.
____
I wake up in my bed this time, and my legs are aching, but they're not folded beneath me.
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