But It Isn't Right (Duskwood Fanfic)

Cold

I woke up with a piercing headache. The once-cold room was now unbearably warm and smoky. "Richy!" I shook him and he jolted awake. "We have to get out of here!"

We quickly pulled on our shoes and stumbled out of the door, shutting it behind us when we realized the smoke was even worse in the hallway. We pushed open the door onto the deck. In the moonlight, we could see horribly thick smoke pouring out of ventilation pipes near the tail of the ship. We hung our heads over the railing, trying to breathe some relatively untainted air. The ship groaned ominously beneath us.

"Why did we get imprisoned on such a fucking death trap of a ship? No sprinkler systems, no fire safety--what the hell!!" I screamed. Richy looked at me in bemusement for a moment--I tried to never curse since some of my audience was younger. But this--was too much.

"Let's get back up to the tower and try to fix the antenna. That's all we can do," he said. He was trying to sound calm for my sake, but I could see him breathing heavily. I squeezed his hand, and we covered our mouths as best as we could and went quickly to the stairs. The tower was less smoky, but still hard to breathe. I pushed open the windows, letting the frigid air inside and pulling my gloves from my pockets.

We worked as quickly as we could in the dim light, our eyes and lungs burning from the smoke filtering up the stairway. More shuddering and groaning noises happened, and my heart jumped to my throat with each one. The light bulb started to flicker and go out just as the sun was cresting the horizon. We kept working by feel until the sun was high enough that we could at least see a little. More jolts occurred, and then there was a horrible noise that I couldn't describe, but I knew was the ship's death knell.

"I think--I hope, that we got everything connected," Richy finally told me in a hoarse voice. "Now we have to go back down."

The smoke was so thick and black in the stairwell that it was easier to move with my eyes closed and just follow the railing. When my foot hit the final landing, I reached for the door and we slunk low along the hallway to get back to the bridge. Alarms were going off and lights were flashing when we got inside.

"Fucking ridiculous," I muttered. "We could've told you that something was wrong, you stupid computers." Richy made a beeline for the radio. "Were those lights on before?" I asked him, pointing to some green lights below the radio."

"I don't think they were," he replied, his eyes lighting up. "Here's hoping..." He picked up the microphone and put on the headset. "We need some help! We're on a ship that's on fire...can anybody hear us? Please help!" Richy's face flooded with relief. "Yes, I'm here! I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the ship or where we are. Someone kidnapped us and left us here, and the ship is burning! Really? Oh. I don't know. But...no. Please hurry. We have to go outside now."

Richy picked up our blankets and pulled them over us, instructing me to put the corner over my mouth. "We have to get to the other deck," he told me through the blanket. "Away from the smoke." 

I didn't question him about the conversation; I just walked in tandem with him back into the heated, pungent hallway. Visibility was only marginally better as we traveled away from the aft deck. When we were through the door to the fore deck, the icy wind came as a relief as we gulped in large breaths. It was much easier to breathe here; with the wind in our faces, the smoke was being pushed back away from us.

I followed Richy to a tall metal pipe protruding from the deck. He sat down on the side that was most protected from the frigid gusts of air, and then pulled me to lean back against his chest. I settled the blankets around us tightly. "Tell me," I requested. "I know it isn't good."

"That was the Coast Guard. Apparently, we're somewhere off the shore of Alaska. Other ships reported seeing the smoke, and they were already sending a rescue vessel to us. But it isn't close. They're mobilizing a helicopter, but it's going to take four hours." I pressed closer to Richy as his voice shook, wanting to give him comfort. "They--they asked if there were a lifeboat or life preservers that we had found. I told them no. They wanted to know about some kind of cold-weather boat gear that I'd never heard of. They told me if the ship starts sinking, we have to...to jump off as soon as it's safe and then swim away from it so we don't get pulled under. But we won't last very long in this cold water."