Sinking Survivors

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Jae- The nonexistant

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Jae pet her small kitten shakily. She was shivering, but she was too worried about the small, wet kitten to care. The kitten's black fur was sticking to her skin as she mewled, her blue eyes closed tight. Jae looked up at the other survivor. "I-I'm scared." She whispered, brushing a strand of wet black hair out of her green eyes.
 
Vance's clear blue eyes, narrowed against the driving wind, flicked towards Jae as she spoke. He pushed his black hair back up and out of his eyes, scanning the waves to each side. Still no sign of any ships. He brought a reassuring smile onto his face, though, as he sat down across from Jae-- he was sure it looked false, but it was the best he could do. "Don't worry," he said. He'd never been any good at this kind of talk, though. "Many ships traverse this area on a regular basis. I'm sure we'll be found." Though, in reality, I doubt it. The area of the ocean is vaster than one could imagine, and we're drifting, on top of that. As much as he hated to admit it, they'd probably be most likely to survive if they crashed on a deserted island. At this latitude, it wasn't an empty hope, either.

The slightest shadow of a genuine smile flickered onto his face as he looked across at her. "That's your kitten, huh?" There was nothing he could do for the moment; might as well distract himself.
 
Jae smiled a little, lifting the kitten up a little. "Yeah. He's Jack." The kitten sneezed and Jae cuddled him close. "My mom gave him to me.."
 
Vance smiled, leaning down to look at the kitten. "He's cute." He himself had never had any pets, perhaps because his parents knew that he wouldn't take care of them properly, perhaps because he knew the same. "We'll have to have him catch fish for us." That quip brought Vance's mind back to the present, though, and he checked in one of the seat compartments nearest him. There are some supplies, but we'll have to be careful. I don't know if we'll have enough.
 
She nodded. "I guess he could. I don't know." She pat him on the head, smiling as he purred. She looked around them, remembering their situation. She glanced around, hoping to see land. "Do you see a map?" She asked as he went through the compartments nearest to him. She went through those near her, but came up empty.
 
Vance dug beneath the dried rations, finding two things that would potentially be useful: a GPS device and a map with clearly marked latitude and longitude. Unfortunately, both were waterlogged. He gingerly put the map down, laying it over one bench to hopefully dry it, and pushed a few buttons on the GPS, to no avail. "I could try to repair the GPS, but I don't want to do it in this boat. One part overboard would end any hopes of fixing it." He shook his head. "Should have taken electrical engineering."

He looked around, squinting. "Do you see any land?"
 
Jae looked at the map, then around them. "No..but according to the map, if I'm reading it right..we're about 200 miles out to sea. The nearest land is 200 miles that way," She pointed East, "and that's Hawaii." The little kitten meowed as if agreeing before it jumped out of her arms and into the bottom of the boat, padding around and shaking his fur.
 
Vance's eyes widened. "What?" How far could they possibly have drifted? "If that's true, then almost no ships cross this area of water. All of the efficient shipping paths take different routes, and we're far enough from land." He bit his nails, thinking, and nudged the kitten away from the map. "What about the Polynesian islands? They should be on this map." He squinted at the paper. "Anyway, we can't steer. Our best chance is washing up somewhere before we run out of food." He looked up, almost desperately, searching for a bump on the horizon. Don't panic.
 
Jae looked into the water, shaking a little from fear, but she ran her hand in the water, the cool, soothing touch keeping her a little calm. "M-maybe there's an uncharted island..or..or..umm..." She glanced around. "I don't know.." She was losing grip on herself. She'd never been in this kind of situation, and it was scaring her worse than being lost in the national park last year. "Are..are we going to die?" She asked quietly, looking at Vance and hoping he knew something she didn't. She knew 200 miles was far, she knew they needed fresh water, and she knew these waters where unsafe to enter. Too many dangerous creatures.
 
Vance put one hand over his mouth and nose, recalling something he'd been told years ago. A decreased oxygen content in the blood has an initially-calming effect, and is an effective treatment for any form of panic attack. His hand slipped back down after a few seconds, and he took a shallow breath. Freaking out wouldn't help. His eyes scanned from side to side, and eventually caught sight of a string of sparkling beads on the horizon, barely distinguishable from the waves. A slight smile curved over his lips, and he turned back towards Jae. "No, I think we're going to be fine." He pointed. "If I'm seeing correctly, that's an island chain. I learned a few tricks for getting fresh water, and if I can fix the GPS, we're gold."
 
Jae glanced in the direction he pointed. "B-but they aren't on the m-map.." she stuttered, looking back at the map. She had quit shaking now, but she wasn't exactly sure they were clear yet.
 
Vance frowned. "Really?" That didn't make much sense. "Maybe they've just recently emerged, or just hadn't been found before?" He bit his nails. That could complicate things. Mostly it meant that people wouldn't be searching for them there, but it wasn't as though they could pass up the refuge from sharks and salt water.
 
Jae glanced between the islands and the map. "I-I don't know." She adjusted the map, then quit. She looked into the water, trying to see if she could see a current. "How are we going to get to them?" She asked.
 
Vance squinted. "Well, it looks like we're drifting towards them. But the wind is going sideways, so making a sail would probably do more harm than good. Maybe we'll just run aground, but we'd better be prepared. Do you see anything that we could make into oars?" He searched his compartment, coming up with two poles, but nothing to fix to the ends.
 
Jae looked around, but came up empty to start. Then she glanced at the doors of the compartments. "We could..we could tie the doors on the rods.." She said quietly, pulling one of the wooden doors out of the staples and some rope.
 
Vance nodded. "Good idea!" He began to fiddle with the rope, slipping it through the holes in the door and wrapping it around the pole. "This is kind of flimsy, though-- do you think it will work?" It would have been ideal to have real oars, but they could easily have been swept overboard in the accident.
 
Jae shrugged. "I-I'm no carpenter, but maybe." She glanced down in the water, but she looked back up. She didn't like the fact the water was so murky.
 
Vance nodded. "I hope so." He frowned at the murky water, then lowered the excess pole into the water. His eyes widened as it hit bottom, only about five feet down. "It's really shallow here! We might run aground soon, and it looks like it's high tide right now. When we do, we'll have to haul this boat up to dry land." He didn't relish the job, but it was better than drifting.
 
Jae glanced around, but nodded. "Umm..okay." She picked up the little kitten Jack and tucked him in her jacket so he wouldn't get wet.
 
Vance nodded approval. The islands were coming into sight now-- thin beaches of pale sand quickly gave way to a dense green jungle, and then sloped upwards to small peaks, likely volcanic in nature. His musings were interrupted by a jolt at the bottom of the boat, and he almost fell forward, one arm thrown out to catch his balance. "You all right?" he asked, the oar partially buried in the sand as waves sloshed into the boat, the edge of the beach barely fifty feet away. "We have to move quickly-- if a big wave knocks this boat over, all our supplies are gone."
 
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