Jake woke up to the world tilting beneath him.
Water was everywhere—his clothes soaked, the floor slick, and the air heavy with salt. The boat was tossing hard, each wave slamming against the hull like thunder. He struggled to sit up, hands gripping the edge of the cushion as the yacht groaned and tilted again.
Outside, it was chaos.
Lightning split the sky in flashes, turning the sea white and wild. Rain pelted down like needles. Thunder cracked overhead. Through the wind and crashing waves, Jake could hear the Queen and the guards shouting to one another, their voices carried by the storm. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it didn’t matter—the fear in their voices said enough.
Jake stumbled to his feet, slipping as he tried to make sense of what was happening. The boat shook again, more violently this time. He heard a crack—not thunder, but something worse. Something inside the boat.
The yacht lurched with a sickening twist. Jake’s breath caught.
A horrible sound split through the air—wood groaning, metal tearing—and suddenly, the floor beneath him dropped.
The yacht had split in half.
Jake slammed into the side railing as the back half of the boat peeled away from the front. His eyes went wide as he saw the Queen and the guards on the other end, barely holding on. The Queen’s pale hair whipped in the wind, her expression hard to read in the storm—but her eyes locked with his.
And then they were gone. The front of the yacht disappeared into the darkness.
Jake’s part of the boat rocked violently. He grabbed onto the nearest post, trying to keep from being thrown overboard. But the deck was breaking apart beneath him. The floor cracked under his feet, and he dropped with a shout.
He landed hard, falling into some narrow storage area below deck. Everything went dark. He couldn’t see. The only sounds were the roar of the storm and the creaking of the boat as it fought to stay afloat.
His breath came in short gasps. He was soaked, scared, and alone.
He crawled forward, not knowing what else to do, feeling along the floor for something—anything. There was water down here too, sloshing up past his wrists. He pushed himself forward, his heartbeat thudding in his ears.
Then, a sudden burst of light cut through the darkness.
A door burst open—kicked, maybe. Two figures climbed in, soaked and coughing. Jake recognized the Queen first. She looked around, found him, and her expression twisted into something between relief and frustration.
“We’re locked in,” one of the guards said, voice grim.
Jake backed up, away from them. He didn’t trust her. Not after everything.
The Queen turned to him, water dripping from her hair. Her dress, once elegant, clung to her frame in soaked folds. She took a shaky breath and looked Jake dead in the eyes.
“If you wouldn’t have gone to the house,” she said quietly, almost bitter, “none of this would’ve happened.”
Jake stared back, chest heaving. The boat groaned again, louder this time. Water was coming in faster.
The Queen didn’t yell, didn’t panic. She just sat against the wall, silent.
Jake didn’t know what was going to happen next—but whatever it was, they were in it together now.
And the sea wasn’t done with them yet.
They shut the storage door tight. There wasn’t much they could do now except wait.
The Queen sat quietly in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees. The guard stood by the door, back pressed to it like he could somehow hold the storm off with his body.
Jake stayed near the far side of the small room, knees pulled to his chest. No one spoke for a while.
Then, breaking the silence, Jake asked, “Why were you at that house?”
The Queen looked over at him. Her face was calmer now, but tired—like the storm had drained something from her.
“I was handling something,” she said after a pause. “Something you weren’t meant to see.”
Jake didn’t reply.
Another creak echoed through the walls. The boat felt like it was being lifted, like a hand from the deep was pushing it higher and higher.
“I didn’t mean for you to get dragged into this,” she added. “You just… made it worse by staying.”
Jake looked down. He wanted to be mad, but he couldn’t tell if it was all her fault anymore. None of this felt real.
He opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t even sure what—but never got the chance.
A sound like the sky itself tearing open ripped through the air.
Then, it hit.
A MASSIVE wave—towering, roaring, endless—slammed into the broken back half of the yacht.
Everything shook.
The Queen slammed into the wall with a grunt. The guard was thrown into the door, head snapping back. Jake hit the ground, the air knocked from his lungs. Water burst through cracks in the room like an explosion, and the whole space flipped sideways.
Wood cracked. Metal shrieked.
The lights flickered once, then died.
Jake barely had time to register the chaos before everything faded.
His vision went black.
And silence swallowed them all.
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