Floating, no falling. The sensation hits her harder than her head crashing against the headboard. Her eyes fly open. Her breath catches in her throat as she blinks through the darkness. Her body sways again but it isn’t by choice. Something is wrong and she doesn't have time to think about the throbbing coming from the top of her head. She grabs the silk-clad mattress to keep from tumbling off the bed.
The walls moan and knock with the sway of the room. She allows herself to slide off the bed as she feels around for her white silk Valentino robe. It's the one she got from her last Rodeo Drive shopping spree. She struggles to put it on as she crawls to the door.
A champagne bottle rolls around the carpeted floor. She crawls into the wet spot of the Laurent-Perrier. The citrus smell hits her nostrils and reminds her of her dry mouth. If only she swiped one of those Filico water bottles that Yvette brought onboard from their winter collection.
Yvette and her fancy water. Water is water. That's how Mina sees it. There was nothing special about Filico water besides a fancy bottle encrusted with precious stones.
Champagne. Now that was a different story. A story she was not going to mull over at this moment. Her hand fails to grab the door handle as the ship sways again, the force pushing her to the floor. She has to get out of this room, get to the control deck, and ring that Captain’s neck.
Could a man of twenty years of experience sailing the high seas be that incompetent to forget to anchor them for the night? After seeing how much the man drank the night before during their mini-celebration, it becomes more of a possibility.
Mina reaches for the handle and uses it to help her stand. Her blood boils now and all she can think about is firing him and leaving him at their first port. Slowly she makes her way down the hall to the stairs. She walks against the wall and when the ship sways to the other side, she slams with it against the opposite wall. The lights flicker. She sees one of her prized Akiane Kramarik paintings on the ground, knocked off its ‘secure’ spot on the wall.
She moves past the painting and ascends the stairs. She leans heavily against the railing made of etched glass and aluminum. She wanted it plated in gold, but being pressed for time, she took the yacht as-is. Still, every time her hand brushes against the cold railing, she swears a shiver goes through her body from the aluminum. She makes a mental note to have that replaced as soon as they get back to California.
But first, the captain.
She finds him along with the co-captain on the bridge. A distraught and hungover Marcel sits in the corner behind them with his head in his hand. He looks like he’s about to vomit. Mina shoots him a displeasing look when his blue eyes meet hers that says, ‘Don’t you dare throw up on my leather sofa.’
She tries to balance herself again as the ship sways. There’s no sign of Yvette or the engineer, whatever his name is who speaks mostly Spanish. They were google-eying each other the night before with their not-so-casual flirting over a bottle of Dom Perignon.
“Captain Rodrigo,” she says.
He doesn't hear her over the roar of the ocean and the beeping of the alarms. He shouts back and forth with the co-captain, Fisher. She wasn’t sure if Fisher was his first name or last, but no one ever called him anything other than Fisher.
“Captain-” her voice catches as the boat sways and she slams into the couch next to Marcel. Marcel reached out to her, helping her to stay put, lest she fall down the spiral staircase into the bar below. Remnants of last night's party crash and roll all over the floor in one big mess of glass and alcohol downstairs.
As the boat steadies upright again, she hastily lets go of Marcel. She straightens her robe to cover her flimsy cream-colored nightgown underneath. Not that Marcel was looking at her $20,000 breasts. He’s too busy trying not to vomit again, putting his hand over his mouth. He still wears the dark grey suit from last night but he looks like he fell asleep in it. It's rumpled and his tie is undone.
She calls again to the captain, this time with more anger in her voice. “What the hell are you doing, trying to capsize us?”
He’s steering the ship, his hands guiding the wheel fast. Fisher turns off the alarms by flipping switches on the dash in quick movements. She has no idea what either is doing nor does she really care at this point. Captain Rodrigo glares at her but says nothing.
A long moan comes from outside. Her eyes search the dark sea for the source. “Get ready,” Captain Rodrigo says as he grits his teeth with anticipation. His hands are now gripping the wheel as he braces for something.
“Get ready for what?” Mina says. She can’t see anything in the darkness of a moonless night against the darkness of the sea. But she can feel it. She can feel how the yacht is responding to the ocean, the waves. Something crashes against them seconds later.
Captain Rodrigo swears in Spanish this time and Fisher responds as if he understands. Maybe he’s heard the phrases enough to know what he said, having been Rodrigo’s co-captain for five years.
The yacht jerks in the water, climbs above a wave, and crashes back down. Mina’s stomach goes into her throat and now she feels like vomiting.
“What the hell is that, a whale?” She wonders if a whale would even attack them. There would be no reason to. But they are heading into blue whale mating grounds and they did see some stragglers yesterday.
“It’s not a whale,” Captain Rodrigo shouts back at her. Water rains down on the windows and Mina wonders if they are actually in a storm. A very bad storm.
“Then what is it? Did you steer us into a hurricane like an idiot?” She shouts above the alarms. “This is a Benetti Artisan yacht. It’s built for the ocean and you’re treating it like a lake boat with your rookie sailing skills.”
He sneers and shouts back at her, “this is a boat built for cruising. It can’t even go faster than 20 knots and you’re lecturing me about sailing.”
“I know what it is,” she strikes back, “I bought the damn thing and I hired you because you came with a reference from a friend. A friend that maybe I shouldn’t have listened to when he said you were the best captain he ever sailed with.”
“Well you should have bought a ship, not a floating hotel room,” he says as he turns the wheel in his hand and shouts a command to Fisher.
“Come on, come on,” Captain Rodrigo says to himself under his breath. His eyes are glued to the window. The ocean swells in front of him with the promise of another wave.
Mina rises, her ego taking a big hit. She wants to slap something or break something but there’s nothing to break. She looks at Marcel who sits in a puddle of pink vomit on her leather couch. His dark hair covers his face and he seems to have fallen asleep, hunched over and rocking with the waves.
“Get us out of this mess,” she commands. It’s all she can do or say. She doesn’t know anything about sailing. She knows even less about ships other than hot tubs, silk-covered beds, and a personal chef to make her Bluefin tuna sushi between sunbathing sessions.
“I’m trying,” he mumbles. “Now sit your spoiled ass down and let me work. You hired me for a job, now let me do it and stop helicoptering over me like you know something. When you become a captain, then you can speak. Until then, just shut up.”
She opens her mouth to retort his insults of her character as well as her lack of sea knowledge. But something catches her eye, something in the ocean. She moves past him, closer to the window to see. The waters rain down against the yacht and she squints into the darkness.
“Hold on tight, it’s coming again.” The captain turns the wheel fast, the engines are working at full speed. “Get the bazooka ready.”
Bazooka? She glances back with alarm. “I never bought a bazooka.”
“You didn’t but I never leave home without it. Especially when you have sea monsters to deal with.”
Fisher jumps from his seat and unearths a long, smooth, bore steel tube already loaded and ready to fire. He slings it across his shoulder like a woman’s purse and says, “heading outside.”
Rodrigo nods in his direction. “Fire when ready, aim for the head. If there’s more than one, aim for the one that looks like it’s making all the decisions.”
Fisher stops in his tracks to consider the command. “How am I supposed to know that?”
Rodrigo shouts at him, “follow your damn heart, man. Now go.” With that, Fisher races out.
Mina wonders if the captain hast lost it and she suddenly regrets hiring a man on the brink of a mental breakdown. She turns her gaze back to the windows. The sky is clouded in grey, the stars blotted out. It’s the darkest night she’s ever seen. Her heart is racing, her palms are sweating. She suddenly feels like they’re all about to die and she still doesn’t know where Yvette is.
Life flashes before her eyes. Regret fills her as she thinks about screwing over her longest client for the prestigious Levue account. Industry rivalries were messy, especially when people like her were caught in the middle. She tells herself she made the best choice for her company, a company she built from nothing. And here this no-good captain has the audacity to call her spoiled.
In the darkness of the ocean, a swell forms among a growing light from the depths. A shadow against all others, an ominous blackness that expands out of the waters. It’s huge, gargantuan. Its body is covered in scales. Its mouth is full of sharp teeth and its body is long like a snake. It whips a long tail at them, making contact with the bow of the yacht. It thuds against it and she can feel the vibration from the window she leans against.
She swallows hard and the world seems to stand still as she peers at its size, its force. The ocean bends and swells with a storm, and the monster glides with it. “What is that thing?” Her voice is almost a whisper but somehow the captain still hears her.
“The Leviathan. He's blocking the Southern Gate along the ice wall.”
She backs away from the window. “What are we going to do?” There’s a fearful urgency to her voice now and she’s forgotten about her anger, forgotten about firing him.
“There’s no killing a monster like that. All we can do is hope Fisher is a damn good aim and can stun it long enough for us to get past it.”
The alarms are going off again and there’s a low roar of warning coming from the Leviathan. Its eyes glow red and she can see fire from its nostrils with every breath.
Outside, the figure of Fisher comes into view. His blond man bun is now a messy bun atop his head. He struggles against the railing to stay upright while balancing the Bazooka in his hands.
Mina says a quiet prayer under her breath as if God would even hear a sinner like her. She musters up any prayer she can remember from childhood Sunday school. Memories of attending with her brother and sister enter her mind. And they always had to wear their best clothes, her mother insisted.
She makes a mental note to go visit her parents when this is over. She hasn’t seen them in months.
Outside Fisher brings the Bazooka to his broad shoulders. The surfer turned sailor seems built for this kind of work. He has the physique of a bodybuilder and the sea legs of someone born on the ocean. Rumor has it, he really was born on the ocean. His mother went into labor during a cruise to the Bahamas.
“Hold on to your choines, ladies. This is it,” Rodrigo says.
Fisher steadies himself. He’s a rock, an immovable statue against the fierce waves and the deadly sea creature. It's like none of it is phasing him. He was born for this. Mina feels a sliver of hope as she watches him confidently take aim at the Leviathan. His finger is ready to pull the trigger, ready to let the rocket fly.
The Leviathan roars. Fisher pulls the trigger. An explosion follows, the ocean erupts in waves and a cry screeches through the night.
Hey are you shooting at my sea dragons? 🤣🤣 Seriously though this is intriguing!