Confined With a Goddess

BANG!! CRASH!!

The thunder rang out across the waves as lightning burst from the sea and sky around Jake as he held onto the rigging for dear life. He was regretting coming out here alone, even as he knew there was no one to come with him.

The wind buffeted his sail, listing his ship almost sideways before slamming back down with enough force to throw him to the flooded deck. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he rushed down into the belly of the boat. Perhaps he'd find it safer below deck.

As he came down the stairs, all of his equipment was either lying on the floor in pieces or sliding around as the boat pitched about, and as he tried to step down, a bucket of chicken liver splashed across his face, and his rented skinning knife landed in his pillow. Suddenly, he was aware of how unsafe it was to be down here, and he'd be better off up in the wind and rain.

It was hard to believe, but just a few short hours ago, the sea was calm. He'd come out here to pretend to know how to fish, and maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn't have to buy something from the supermarket and pretend that he'd caught it. He wasn't a fisherman, he was the deli operator at a gas station. What he knew how to do was scoop egg salad out of a bucket onto a sandwich, wrap it in butcher paper, and put a sticker on it that said "Made fresh everyday!" He could make a tuna salad sandwich, but he didn't know what a tuna actually looked like without being shredded and pre-cooked.

His hopes were high when he set out that he would manage to catch something. He'd showed up late to the marina and someone had rented out the last dinghy, meaning he was upgraded to a sloop at no charge. The attendant was even nice enough to teach him some of the basics of movement, as well as offering a demonstration of how to gut and clean any fish he caught at a discounted rate.

Fat load of good that did him now. Granted, he didn't fully expect to catch anything, meaning those lessons were probably going to go to waste, anyway, but even if he had caught anything, it'd have gone overboard with the bucket of icewater he'd set up.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the deck, and he was made aware of another mistake. The anchor was still weighed. He'd never dropped it. Sure, he'd lowered the sails so as not to catch any wind, but who knew how long he'd been drifting? He might be further out now than he'd intended, or the currents may have moved him either north or south. There was no way of knowing without going downstairs to check the GPS, and with unsecured knives and hooks flying around with every rouge wave, he wasn't going back down there, and he could forget about having his security deposit returned.

BOOM!!

Another rogue wave smacked into the side of the hull, knocking him into the air. He landed on the railing, and his deck chair landed on his knee. The jolt of pain shot through his leg instantly, and as he pulled it away, he suddenly felt nauseated. Being tossed around had done nothing to his stomach, but as the pain radiating from his knee hit his abdomen, he immediately turned and vomited over the railing.

As if he has puked on the face of Poseidon himself, the sea twisted and roiled, and the ham and cheddar sandwich he'd just voided from his stomach was rushed back over his face. His eyes stung, and he coughed several times, trying desperately to keep his airway clear.

There was no place safe on the deck. No shelter from the storm below. No one to take control of the situation. No practised sailor to rescue him from his own incompetence. He wished; he desperately wanted, that he could go back to when he was a kid, when his dad had taken him fishing at the pier, and this time, pay attention, instead of trying to catch a Pokémon. He wished that he could go back to the boy scouts and learn his knots instead of trading Magic: The Gathering cards. Mostly, he wished that he could go back to yesterday and talk himself into staying home and using his vacation day to sit on his futon and play Battlefield instead of trying to pick up a new skill from scratch.

Another crash sent him over the railing and into the water below. When it had splashed his face, it had felt warm, but perhaps that was from his own stomach, or the contrast against the driving rain. Once fully submerged in the ocean, it was frigid.

For a moment, he was lost. He didn't know what direction would take him to the surface, as it was all dark. Luckily for him, another bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, and he saw his boat. Or rather, a boat. But the likelihood that someone else was stupid enough to end up caught out in the storm like this, and also that he hadn't noticed them, was exceptionally low, so he had to assume that this was his boat rental.

He swam as hard as he could to the surface, taking a big gulp of air as he breached the water. He started paddling as hard as he could toward the boat. He was almost completely exhausted, and was running on almost pure adrenaline right now. If he couldn't reach the deck, he'd drown out here, and while his life wasn't that great, he still wanted to live to see the age of thirty.

Luckily, he managed to just barely reach the grips for boarding the boat, and pulled himself up to the deck. His top priority right now was to weather this storm. If he lived to see tomorrow, he could worry about trying to orient himself then, and try to make his way back home. Or at least, back to the marina so that he could turn in the boat and try to set up a payment plan to save him from paying all of the damages at once.

The stairwell. If he were to sit sideways in the stairwell and press his legs against both walls, he could lower his chances of being thrown from the ship. He would have preferred to be inside, but he and the previous renter had both neglected to secure the cargo, so it was too dangerous in there. If he stayed on deck, there was flying debris and rouge waves that would throw him over the edge again, possibly for good this time. No, he had to sit in the stairwell, and he had to stay awake and pressed against the walls. If he passed out, he could fall overboard when the ship tossed again.

He tried to make it to the stairwell. Really, he did. But trying doesn't always yield successful results. The tiller suddenly shot to the side as he tried to walk past it, sending another powerful shock through his knee. As he bent forward in pain, the boom arm swung around and smacked him in the face, knocking him out cold.