Thread: Island of the Lost - Survivor00 & Cheshire Pup

Elliot Dobson was going to die. As he stood on the twisting deck of the Erusian galleon Juliet , looking up into the heavens that had damned them, he knew he was going to die. Their ship had trespassed into sacred waters, angered the Gods that guarded these lands, and they had unleashed their absolute fury upon the ship. The skies above boiled over with black clouds, while arrows of lighting pierces the air around them. Mountainous waves ?? taller than any Elliot had ever seen - crashed against the timbers of the Juliet ??s hull, making them groan and pop. Their sails had either been ripped away by the winds, or were stowed below, leaving the ship at complete mercy of the sea. His clothes were completely plastered to his body from the stinging torrents that lashed at them from above. A wave thundered against the hull, rocking the ship over ?? almost onto its side. With a whipping crack! one of the cannons broke looks from its restrains, tumbling down the canted deck, crushing a hapless crewmember underneath as it hurtled through the opposite wall and into the ink-black waves. Elliot wrapped a wet rope around his arm, using it to keep himself from being hurled overboard. The fibers dug into his arm painfully, but the ship miraculously settled out, listing horribly, but still floating. Still alive. ??Keep those cannons secured!? A voice bellowed over the shrieking wind. Captain Odessa Wilkins ?? an ox of a man ?? stood behind the wheel, despite the worst that had been thrown at him and his ship. He was determined to sail his ship and crew out of these hellish waters, and if Elliot knew the man, Odessa would personally murder the man that had sent them on this course. Elliot scrambled to his feet, slipping on the deck as he rushed over to the nearest cannon. He lashed more ropes over the cannon, securing it as fast as he could before another wave had a chance to send him overboard. The Juliet dropped, the sea seemingly sucked out from underneath her keel. Elliot??s stomach rushed to his throat, and as he looked towards the bow, it was joined by his heart. At first, he thought the ship was heading for a cliff, but as he saw the wind-whipped foam at the crest, he realized it was a wave taller than anything he had ever seen. It seemed to dwarf the galleon under its size. There was no way that the Juliet could survive this. There was nothing on Earth that could withstand? grabbing the ropes that he had used to tie the cannon to the deck, he held on for dear life, closing his eyes as he turned away from the death that was to devour them. He heard the Captain screaming at the heavens, voice raw, as the Juliet bucked once in protest as she slammed into the front of the wave, and then she was swallowed by the sea. Elliot had a fraction of a second to suck in a breath before he found himself under a mountain of black water. His body was pummeled by the waves, and the pressure crushed at his chest, but he held onto the ropes, even as the sea dragged at him, tried to pull him down? Air. Through a miracle or sheer, maddening determination, the Juliet clawed herself out from the depths, refusing to die. Elliot puked up a stomach of bitter seawater, finding himself on a deck eerily devoid of people. He swallowed down breath after breath into his pained lungs, gasping. The Juliet was hardly recognizable anymore, her masts stripped away, her gallery crushed and splintered. The Captain, the wheel, was all gone. Elliot found himself alone on a ghost ship, caught in the mercy of an angry sea. Elliot also found that his shirt had been peeled right off his back by the force of the water. Wearily, he stood to his feet, squinting at the distant mass of land, illuminated only by flashes of lightning when it appeared behind the waves. The Juliet seemed to take a mind of her own, creaking miserably as she aimed her crushed bow towards the dark shape? Waves continued to crash against the galleon??s hull, but the worst of the punishment seemed to have subsided. The rains were lessening, and the waves grew smaller with each passing moment. Even the skies seemed to clear, the clouds that had seemed so endless that he couldn??t tell where the sea ended and the sky began breaking up and revealing the soft blues behind them. The island grew closer to them, and Elliot cast his gaze upon the white-sand beaches. His stomach lurched as all he saw was the dead. Those men who had been washed overboard and drowned had washed ashore here, and their broken corpses littered the beach. Already, seabirds had risked the winds to rip and peck at their bodies. And the stench?the stench of the dead was already beginning to rise, mixed with the sea breeze as it washed out towards the possessed Juliet . Elliot??s relief at survival quickly turned into fright as the Juliet seemed blindly determined to thrust herself onto the damned island??s beaches. She almost made it. With a sickening groan and the sound of thick timbers being crushed, the Juliet ??s keel ground into the rocks some 500 yards off the island??s shore. The whole ship bucked angrily, as if enraged she had been denied her home on the soft sands, but as the rocks gouged into her belly, the Juliet settled deeper into the waves and stilled, finally dying with a final wail. Elliot stood to his feet, having been knocked down by the angry motions of the ship, looking over the rail at the shore, and down towards the waters that now lapped much higher against the Juliet ??s broken hull. The sea had invaded several decks, and the ship would never sail again. He walked up and down the length of the ship, his muscles aching horribly, bruises starting to appear on his skin from where the sky and sea had battered him. He groaned, sitting down and leaning against the railing, almost content to just stay there. Stay there until the death that had claimed the ship and the crew claimed him as well. What had he done that deserved a punishment such as this? Elliot wasn??t sure how long he sat there, curled up against the railing, but when he moved again, his joints felt stiff and awkward. With a groan, he stood again, looking out towards the beach once more. The dead continued to rot underneath the sun, the waves continued to roll up the beach? The Juliet creaked beneath his feet, and Elliot realized that if another storm were to strike, the broken hull would be crushed against the rocks. As much as he dreaded leaving the ship, it was safer for him to be on dry land? He scoured the ship for as many supplies that he could carry ?? any food that had survived the storm, any clothes, whether it had been his before or not? He tossed those supplies in a barrel, sealed it as best as he could, and tossed it overboard. He would have to hurry, before the barrel filled with water, or was bashed against the hull. He grabbed a rope and tied it around the broken stump that had once been the mainmast, the wet rope digging at his hands as he tied it into a crude knot. He tossed the rest of the rope over the side, and began his precarious climb down. It tore the first layer of flesh from his hands, and he squeezed his eyes closed against the pain, just trying to keep going forward. But the rope ended before the water??s surface, the end slipping past his feet, and as he struggled to keep holding on, the rope lashed at his skin, drawing a long line of blood as he fell, crashing into the water ten feet below. By luck, he avoided being broken on the submerged rocks, and thrashed his way to the surface, crying out in pain as he draped himself over the barrel, gasping for breath. Finally, he gazed wearily upon the shore, and began kicking, pushing himself closer to the island. His body seemed strangely weak, and exhaustion wracked his frame, but he didn??t dare stop kicking, or the current might drag him out into deep water. It must have taken nearly an hour of fighting against the tides, but finally, the water was too shallow for him to swim, and he stood on legs that trembled and shook underneath him. He took a few steps and collapsed to the sand among the others. His vision swam, and he was cast into blackness.