Lost At Sea

 Daniel’s body rocked back and forth. He heard familiar sounds, waves. He had been to the beach many times, so he knew the sound was familiar.

I must be dreaming, he thought. I can’t be at sea.

But when he opened his eyes, he felt a hard, rough surface beneath him while a cold wind blew over his skin. He sat up quickly. He was not in his warm bed. He was not surrounded by his grey curtains. Everywhere was dark but his eyes adjusted. 

He was in a small wooden boat.

And around him, in every direction, there was nothing but endless water.

His heart pounded. His hands shook. He rubbed his eyes, pinched himself, even knocked his head with his fingers. But nothing changed. The sea was real. The boat was real. The darkness was real.

How did I end up here? he wondered.

He wanted to jump into the water and swim, but he knew he would die. So he hugged himself and tried to calm down. His chest felt tight. His head hurt badly, as if someone had hit him.

He wasn’t a man of prayer, but fear pushed him to try.

“If there’s a God out there,” he whispered, “please save me.”

No answer came.

Minutes passed. Hours passed. Daniel cried, screamed, and laughed hysterically. He thought he was going crazy. When the sky finally began to brighten, he felt relief, until he noticed something.

His palms and clothes had red stains.

Wine? Paint?

It couldn’t be blood. He told himself again and again that it wasn’t blood. But when he looked to the side of the boat, his whole body went cold.

A woman’s dead body floated beside him.

Her pale face stared at nothing. Her hair drifted in the water. Daniel almost fainted. He vomited, peed on himself and shook violently.

Did I kill her? Was I set up? Who is she? Why can’t I remember anything?

Tears ran down his cheeks. He felt like a child lost in a nightmare.

The sun rose. He was hungry and thirsty. He tried screaming for help, but the only answers he heard were his echoes.

He searched the boat for anything useful. There were dirty rags with blood, a rope, a small blade, and a beaded bracelet. Daniel’s eyes widened. It looked exactly like the bracelet Tony always wore, the one his little daughter made.

Tony would never do this, Daniel whispered. But his mind was filled with doubt.

He was lost in thought for the rest of the day, weak, cold, and scared. As night came, hunger got worse, but the idea of eating the dead body made him sick.

Two days passed. He tried to catch fish using his shirt like a fishing net with the help of the rope but failed woefully. When he was desperate for water, he drank his own urine which he collected in his palm. Rain had fallen the night before, but he barely collected enough to survive. There was no container to collect any water and the sea was too salty.

That night he had blurry flashbacks of someone hitting him on the head. A woman crying. A fight. A man beside her. Everything was still unclear. He barely slept.

On the third day, Daniel saw a large ship so hope filled his heart. He waved his shirt, shouted until his voice became hoarse. The ship got a little closer but then it sailed away. They didn’t see him.

Daniel cried until he had no more tears.

By evening, the idea of eating the corpse didn’t seem so impossible anymore. Starving to death felt worse.

Shaking, he used the blade to cut a small piece from her arm. He apologized to her and swallowed it quickly before he could think. It tasted salty, cold, and metallic. He almost threw up. Hours later, hunger forced him to eat a little more. He hated himself for it, but he wanted to live.

The next morning, he ate again. This time, he swallowed faster. He was horrified, but alive. He again, this time not out of faith but out of a routine e had developed to fill up the lonely moments. This time, he saw an aircraft in the sky. He waved his arms with the last bit of strength he had and someone saw him.

The aircraft moved lower and a rope was dropped. Two trainee pilots pulled him inside. They wrapped him in a blanket and gave him warm tea and cookies. He had quite a story to narrate to them. One of them looked through binoculars and saw the dead body in the water, confirming his story. They reported everything to their superiors who informed the FBI.

Daniel was taken to a secure safe house. The FBI started investigating the case. They retrieved the woman’s body and the boat. He was visited by a psychologist and medical doctors every day because he had nightmares and struggled to sleep. He had headaches and flashbacks but still no answers. FBI officers watched over him every day in the safe house.

Two weeks passed. He was tired of waiting for answers. He felt trapped and he wanted answers so he thought of how to carry out his own investigations. And maybe confront Tony. One afternoon, the officer guarding him fell asleep. Daniel saw his chance. He took some money lying on a table, slipped out the back door, left quietly and bought a cap and sunglasses.

He went to his own house first. Tony’s car was parked outside. Daniel panicked. He hid and watched. Tony came out carrying some files. Why was he in my house? What did he take? He suddenly wished he had not left a copy of his house key at the office. That was supposed to be for emergencies, not for anyone plotting against him to enter his house in his absence. 

Had Tony reported to the police that he was missing, he wondered. Or he was trying to frame him for that woman’s death?

Daniel followed him in a taxi to his home but hid outside, contemplating on how to deal with the situation.

When Tony stepped outside again, Daniel confronted him this time and Tony was surprised.

“What…are you doing here?” Tony stuttered.

“Did you think I was dead?” Daniel asked.

“Dead? Why would you be dead? You told me you had a family emergency.”

“I never said that,” Daniel said sharply. “Someone stole my phone. Someone planned all this.”

Tony was confused. Daniel checked his wrist. Tony still wore his bracelet. The one in the boat couldn’t have been his.

Both men were trembling now.

Tony took Daniel inside. They sat and talked. Daniel told him everything—the boat, the body, the bracelet, the flashbacks. Tony broke down crying. So did Daniel.

Tony drove him back to the safe house after they spoke at length. The FBI officer was relieved to see him. He hadn’t reported Daniel missing to his superiors because he feared punishment for being negligent.

Daniel warned Tony not to tell anyone anything. Their enemies could be watching and plotting.

Months passed as the FBI investigated and finally, the truth came out.

The dead woman was Claire—Tony’s mistress.

Tony’s wife, Kate, had suspected the affair and hired a private investigator to follow him.

On that fateful night, the investigator told Kate that Claire was meeting Tony at the office. Kate followed her and confronted her but things escalated. A gun went off. Claire died instantly.

At that same moment, Daniel had come to the office to finish some work. He saw part of the scene. The Private Investigator panicked, grabbed a piece of wood, and hit Daniel on the head. They thought he was dead because they checked his pulse but felt nothing.

Kate and the PI put their bodies in the back of a car, drove to the sea, placed them in an abandoned boat, and pushed it out so the ocean would destroy the evidence.

They used Daniel’s phone to send messages about a “family emergency,” then got rid of it.

During the chaos, Kate’s matching bracelet which was similar to Tony’s fell into the boat.

When the FBI arrested the PI, he confessed everything. Kate tried to escape the country but was caught a month later.

The story shocked the entire city. Daniel was relieved it wasn’t Tony while Kate was sentenced to life in prison. Tony broke down completely—he had lost both his wife and mistress and lived in regret.

A year later, as Daniel walked along the seashore, the waves were kinder now. The memories still hurt, but he was grateful to be alive.

He had survived.