Array
(
[text] =>
Oh, so much screaming. It was hardly intelligible, to say the least. But the chaos . . . it felt like a thick cloud of smoke over your head, like it’s about to smother you and suffocate you until it did you in. It was something that made your heart beat so hard, like a bird slamming against its cage in hopes of setting itself free.
Just . . . all this that I was experiencing aboard the almighty “unsinkable” was profoundly indescribable.
My heart was pounding blood like no one’s business, my head screamed at my stubborn feet to move, and my lungs refused to heave another breath of the chilled air. It was so cold that it was unbearable, especially since I was still wet from the lower decks of the ship, which no doubt, were completely flooded with ocean water. All I could think about was cold, and wondering what warm felt like again.
Even as I grappled at Harry’s hand beside me felt like I was holding icicles, like the ones that grew on the edge of the roof of my home back in England. But I wouldn’t let go, because if I did, I would become evermore cold. Not physically, but inside of me, I would. My heart would freeze over.
“Louis, we have to jump.”
My brain grew to a standstill. The gears that made me function collectively halted, all at once.
“What did you say?” Of course I knew what he said. I just refused to acknowledge it.
“We have to jump, Lou,” Harry said assertively. “If we wait—”
There was an earsplitting crack that sounded like it could’ve split the air itself. It was the sound of wooden trees being snapped in half, but the sparks that followed indicated that it wasn’t trees that were breaking in two.
It was the ship.
“Oh, fuck,” I breathed.
“Lou! We gotta jump, alright?!” Harry screamed. What I thought was chaos a moment ago was now something like hell breaking loose all over the ship.
“And why in God’s name would I bloody do that?!” I screamed back.
“Because the ship’s suction’s gonna pull us down with her if we stay here and squabble!”
Resorting to my thoughts to think it out, I fell silent as I started to consider if the fall alone would kill us. The freezing water—which, even in my half-frozen state, made me shiver!—would be something I’d hardly look forward to if we survived the drop from the stern.
Harry grabbed my arm forcibly, leaving red marks where my skin was turning a sickly white color. “We have t’do it now, Lou. We’ll go when this half falls back in the water.”
I looked up at Harry as if he was some sort of mathematician, or some kind of physicist. How would he know all about this? About the ship falling back into the water?
Oh, right. Considering we were at about a forty-five-degree angle pointing upwards and the ship’s breaking point somewhere in front of us, we would definitely fall right back into the Atlantic before this half would start sinking. And the huge mass of the Titanic would definitely cause major suction during its descent downwards—however far it’ll have to go before hitting the bottom . . .
“You ready?!” he shouted.
I nodded weakly, looking straight at him in the near-darkness. Concentrating hard enough, I could make out the determination in his jade eyes . . .
Another crack resounded, louder than the previous one but easier to expect. However, as the sound of a thousand breaking trees rang out a third time, it was the fall that caught me by surprise, and how my organs all tried escaping through my mouth simultaneously.
People screamed all along the boardwalks as the ship plummeted down on top of the water, creating a colossal wave that seemed to overtake the stern and pull her down as well. Icy water covered my face and drenched my clothes, so that in a matter of seconds my teeth began chattering again and the tips of my fingers and toes went completely numb with pins and needles.
There were several moments of silence save for the hundreds of people regaining their breath after the magnificent fall. The buoyancy of the ship didn’t help much after the downward plummeting, as the stench of vomit hovered in the air for a good long time. I gagged on the smell alone, feeling like my throat twisted into a knot and my stomach tried climbing up.
“Okay, love, we gotta jump now,” Harry said. His face was ashen-grey, too.
I nodded fervently, and before I could refrain from suiciding myself, we were already over the railing and moments from launching off of the white bars. I kept my eyes focused on the water below me, which wasn’t too terrible of a distance away than I thought. I was glad I didn’t look up, because I didn’t want to see the bodies of the dead crushed by the ship or those who died by the frigid temperature.
“Jump!”
And suddenly, I was flying in slow motion. I felt and saw everything there was around me, from the rail that I left behind to the chilly air wrapped around my body, to the slight warmth I absorbed from the billowing breath I breathed out as I fell downwards.
To me, it felt like the longest time in the world to get off of that ship of death. But in reality, there was probably no more than a few seconds from us leaving the rail to hitting the water below us. We never let go, though, for the entire time.
The fall didn’t kill me, and I doubt it killed Harry as well. I felt him writhing beside me as we struggled with our combined might to break the surface high above us. But I couldn’t move. The freezing temperatures lit every one of my nerves on fire, and goosebumps sprang up on every part of my skin. All I knew was cold.
But it wasn’t forever that I felt like that. I wasn’t immobile for good. Harry wouldn’t let me be, because he was strong. Our hands stuck together by the now frozen sheen of sweat on our palms made me go where he went. I was tugged upwards every second, and I thrashed my way up to the surface when my oxygen started to run low.
I spit up salty seawater that made me gag and heave up nothing again, and then was pushed around by random people screaming in panic for several seconds. I was starting to phase into a panicked state when I didn’t see Harry around me, but when his head broke the surface moments later a meter to my left, I started to swim over—while avoiding the rather violent passengers of the sinking ship.
“Harry!” I screeched, my voice hoarse from the shouting and screaming I did earlier.
“Lou,” he said almost calmly, “come here. I found a lifeboat.”
My heart, which felt almost dead for the longest time now, started beating rapidly in anticipation of finding a way out of the frigid water. I didn’t have a life-jacket on, and neither did Harry, but from what I just went through and what I’ll probably have to go through for the next several hours—hopefully not—I didn’t see the need for one.
We navigated our way through the jungle of people and their kicking legs, all the while getting buffetted by water thrown in our faces. I already got used to the chill of the water, but it was my determination to stay alive and not drown was what made me angry and scared at the same time.
“Here, right here, Lou!” Harry screamed as we linked our rigid fingers in place again.
He pulled me with all his might to where he floated, and as Harry and I approached the overturned lifeboat clustered with gentlemen trying to flip it over, we found that most were hostile and aggresive.
“Go on now!”
“‘Ey, leave me be, you filth.”
But once we found a place directly in the middle of the boat, no one seemed to mind our presence. Harry’s legs and torso twitched under his now transparent garments soaked through with water, and like a cat, he sprang up onto the moist, finished wood. Mostly.
“Lou, get over on the other side. It’ll be easier to hold onto you that way.”
Without rationalizing things through in my head again—it almost cost me when we jumped earlier—I kicked and flailed my way around the men crowded against the boat, making a wide, sweeping curve before finally came face to face with Harry on the opposite side of the boat. Where I was, it was much more vacant.
“Hold onto me, Harry,” I whispered. My voice was completely gone by now.
“Always, Lou.”
The seconds ticked by, and it was only when I decided to look behind me that I realized that the Titanic had completely sunk by now. The water where she descended into the ocean was still rippling and moving, but just barely. People were screaming everywhere, so many people. Thousands.
“W-W-What d’you t-think will happen now?” I asked as I clutched Harry’s hand tighter.
He shrugged, but his attempt to make his shivering subtle was not unnoticed. Clearly, he was starting to lose control of regulating his body. “I dunno, Louis.” He forced himself to take a deep breath before letting it out in a cloud that levitated between us.
“M-Maybe we s-should . . . y’know . . . try an-and get warm?”
He chuckled, adding more vibration to his body and fingers that I refused to let go of. “And h-how d’you suggest we . . . get warm, Lou?”
I shrugged, completely out of breath now. My lungs felt decompressed and strained of the function to fabricate more words. I felt defeated, to sum it all up. My torso pressed onto my left arm, giving me more pins and needles. I shifted my body weight to get closer to Harry, but didn’t dare move my other hand out of his.
“Keep talking Lou, it’s getting quiet,” Harry whimpered. He looked like he was going to fall asleep any moment.
I swallowed absently, startled by the loudness of his voice. But, looking a couple of meters around us, I found that most of the men have drifted off of the lifeboat we were currently laying on. The ones that were still clinging onto it were much quieter, but still shivering and still alive.
I looked out further, beyond Harry who was in front of me, and found that most of the people in the ocean who didn’t go down with the ship were in my line of sight. All I could see was black and white: black of the ocean, disturbed by the occasional ripple of blue under the hazy moon above, and the whites of the population’s life-jackets and skin.
“Lou?” Harry was now moving his head up to meet my eyes. There was a crunch of ice as his fingers moved against mine.
“Yeah, Haz?”
“You’re not talking.”
I crinkled my eyebrows, and felt ice trickling into my eyes and lashes. “I’m s-sorry. It’s j-just so . . . quiet, all of a sudden.”
“I wanna hear your voice, L-Lou.”
A shaky breath came out of my lips, and a sharp pain entered my lungs as if I’ve been overusing them. My gaze dropped from Harry’s scarily pale face, and after another crunch and some movements that made the boat rock underneath us, Harry’s fingers brushed against my face and lifted my chin up. Almost on impulse, our cold lips met.
I felt a spark of fire deep inside, but was extinguished so quickly when cold gripped me tighter. Harry pressed more kisses on my lips, but I was so exhausted of energy that all I was able to do was take them willingly and gratefully while it lasted. Then he collapsed back onto the boat, closer to me this time.
“Harry, r-remember how . . . th-that one time, w-when we made love?” I couldn’t help but chuckle.
He grinned, but I didn’t see anything of his eyes. At least he managed to show that he was still here with me.
“Of a . . . all th-these th-things to t-talk about, under these circumstances, y-you talk about s-sex, Lou?”
I burst out in laughter, but only in one breath. That ache in my side was becoming more prominent. “You s-said y-you wanted t-to hear m-me.”
Harry hummed in reply, an affirmative tone. But his head still remained on the lifeboat. I made the effort of pushing myself closer to him and cradling it with my free hand. Harry then curled up into a fetal posture on his side of the boat as our hands were clasped together, and his head in my arm.
The silence ensued again. It was unnerving, because it was this silence that pointed to death. But then again, it was so peaceful . . . so relaxing, almost. Had it not been below freezing point and we had just escaped off of a sinking ship, I would’ve probably enjoyed everything.
I came back from my dream world. Something wasn’t right. It was too silent now. My hand jerked involuntarily, spasmatically, and the tinkle of metal made me look down at Harry.
“Harry,” I said, wrenching my hand free of his. Indeed, there was ice covering both of our palms where there was once sweat.
“Harry?” I started to panic, wondering already if he left too soon. Of course, I had a supposition that he would. I just never allowed myself to think about that . . .
“Harry.” My left hand curved around in a single-arm embrace, somehow trying to hold him closer to my chest in hopes that he would quit this joke.
My face contorted into pain and sorrow as I looked at the love of my life. His face glowed white and his curly hair sparkled with frost, and the slight grin made by his deep, mauve lips gave me a sort of peace knowing that he didn’t leave me without some happiness to cling on to.
“No, no, no, no . . . Please don’t go yet. Please,” I murmured helplessly. There were no tears because I didn’t have any to shed. Everything inside of me was ice-cold.
Ignoring the hand of despair jabbing me in the side, I managed to let a single tear burn its way down my face before dropping onto Harry’s forehead. And then, I lifted my face to Heaven and screamed in agony before a blinding light filled my eyes.
[text_hash] => f2d8d181
)