Confined With a Goddess

Jake opened his eyes to find that he was floating on a cloud. He was dead. He'd died and gone to Heaven. And for some reason, he was in agonizing pain. He'd always thought that Heaven was supposed to be comforting, and Hell was meant to be agonising pain, and yet, here he was, in Heaven, and so very sore.

As he tried to stand, he realised that he wasn't in Heaven. He was floating not on a cloud, but on a pool of saltwater, wrapped in the white sheet that was his sail. He was still breathing; that was a good sign. It meant that, while he was still aboard the boat, he hadn't sunk so low beneath the surface that the pressure would crush his balloon. His placement in the sail, however, meant that the boat had capsised. If he was floating on the surface, as he suspected, He had no idea how to correct the pitch.

Rolling onto his knees, he immediately felt a sharp sting where he'd been hit last night with the deck chair, but this time, it didn't go as far as making him vomit. He felt a bit nauseated, but that was it. Using his left knee as little as possible, he guessed at the direction where the mast would be and started crawling toward it. He guessed wrong, however, and wheat he found was the lining of the sail. A cold air came rushing in. At first, he was annoyed by it, but then, he gave it another thought. Cold air. Air. He wasn't near the surface, he was on the surface.

He lifted the flap again and peered out. He was sitting atop some rocks, the rigging for his jib wrapped around a tree. He was right alongside a beach, meaning he'd landed.

His ship was in two pieces. Rather, his ship was in at least three pieces, and he could find two of them. The front half of the hull was up on the sand, and the mast and sails were holding him by the rocks.

Sliding out onto the water, he rolled onto his back and stroked his way to shore, mostly to keep himself from needing to use his knee. Had he not been so sore, he'd have picked a faster, more attentive way, but he was injured. This was what he could do reliably.

Coming to the sand with the help of some soft waves, he stood up. As long as he kept his leg straight and didn't impact his knee, he could walk. Standing up, kneeling and lying down were going to be awful, but just walking? He could do that.

He made his way over to the hull and peeked inside. A lot of stuff was missing, but thankfully, the knife that had gone into his pillow and mattress had stuck so completely that he not only knew he had the knife, but a plastic mattress and hypo-allergenic pillow. Not that he had any allergies, it was just the pillow that came with the boat.

Before he left, while going over the ship's functions, he had taken note of the life raft, emergency radio beacon, and rations. He checked the wall where those were stored, and... Just the rations. The radio was gone, the raft was lost. His phone was still there, but it was sitting in a drawer that was full of water. Even if he could dry it out and turn it on, would the internal components still work? Even if they did, could he find a signal out here?

He took a deep breath and stepped back out onto the beach. The ocean went out as far as he could see. If there was another land mass, it was too far away to swim.

Perhaps he wouldn't need to, though. If where he landed was just a peninsula, he could just walk along the beach until he found someone. Surely, there would be a town somewhere, right? People loved the beach. He just had to look.

Four hours later, he spotted a boat. Picking up his pace, Jake rushed toward it. "Hey!" he called out, as much as his voice allowed. "Over here!"

When he came up closer to it, though, he noted that it was actually just two thirds of a boat, with the sail around the rocks with rigging secured to an inland tree, and the front half of a hull. He'd just circumnavigated the place, and that could only mean one thing: He was on an island. No buildings. No river deltas. No civilisation. He was alone and stranded here, with no way to contact anyone to come rescue him.

He found a big rock and sat down. Part of him wanted to cry, and knowing that no one would see it, he almost did. He felt helpless, out of his element, and stupid. He wasn't a survivalist. He wasn't even an outdoorsman. He had chosen to go fishing because it was supposed to be easy. He'd seen doughy snobs that thought they knew what they were doing pass out on television being presented by Bear Grylls, and they had multiple people on the island, camera crews to help out, and field medics. He had nothing.

He took another deep breath and looked behind him. There was vegetation. Trees didn't drink saltwater. There was freshwater here, somewhere. Maybe there was no food, but there had to be water. There had to be fresh water, and if he could learn to fish, he might stand some inkling of a chance, however unlikely that seemed.

It had rained last night. Rainwater was usually safe to drink. Safer than puddle water, anyway. It wasn't a great option, but barring a river, it was all he had. He just had to stay close to the boat. If anyone was out looking for him, he had to make himself easy to find. All he had right now was a bed and a stock of emergency rations. He guessed three days' worth of rations in the box, assuming they weren't contaminated or damaged.

He took a few more deep breaths and stood up. He was screwed. That much he knew for sure. How screwed, exactly, he couldn't say, but he was at least a little bit screwed. But sitting around wasn't going to help. If he wanted the best odds of lasting long enough to see a search party, he needed a drink. And there wasn't a bikini-clad waitress to bring him one, so he had to go find one, himself.