"Bye Ryann!" Myah waved from the ship, gripping on to a photo in her hand. Her parents waved goodbye as well. They were grateful that their only daughter had a friend like Ryann as worry that she'd be left alone on the island plagued their minds.
Ryann waved back at the boat that was sailing away, his own photo safely stored in his pocket. His emotions were bittersweet. Sure, he was happy that Myah could make more friends, but he was also sad to lose her. "Bye, Myah..." he whispered once more before he turned to run into the forest. He wanted to get home quick before this freak storm hit.
"Myah, let's go into our cabin. I think it's going to rain." her mother urged. Myah simply agreed as she watched Ryann run back towards the village. Myah's father picked her up before the wind had a chance to blow the five year old off into the crashing waves.
"Daddy..." Myah whispered as she was set down on top of the cabin bed. "Why do they hate me?"
Myah's parents paused in their tracks.
"We don't hate her, Ryann." His father stated, quite bluntly, as he wrapped his soaking son into a towel.
"Then why don't you like her?" Ryann questioned as he took the towel from his father.
Ryann's father stopped and looked at his son before he stood up and walked into the kitchen. "You're too young to understand." He muttered as he pulled out a pan from a drawer.
"I'm eight, father." Ryann rolled his eyes.
"See? Too young." His father replied as he busily went to work on lunch.
"Will I always be too young?" Myah asked, tears tugging on the corners of her eyes.
Her mother sighed and took a seat next to her daughter on their cabin bed. "I'm sorry, honey. Sometimes some people just don't belong..." she cooed as she held Myah in her arms.
"But Ryann was my best friend! Does that not count?" the little girl cried, tears dripping onto the smiling picture she still held in her palms.
"Oh, darling..." her father stroked her fine, red hair."We know he was your best friend, but some things were just never meant to be."
"So she was never meant to be my best friend?" Ryann questioned rhetorically.
"Now we're thinking positively!" his father praised, "Maybe she wasn't!"
Ryann didn't want to talk to his father anymore. He was only rubbing salt in the wound. "I just hope Myah gets to her new home safely..." Ryann whispered as he watched the roaring sea crash with the earth in this impressive storm.
"Attention everyone!" the captain called through the speaker system in an urgent tone. "Please remain in your cabins! This storm is much stronger than we anticipated, and we might have to turn this ship around!"
"We're going back to the island, mommy?!" Myah asked hopefully. She was so happy at the thought of getting to see Ryann again. She wanted nothing more than to return back to the prejudice island, even if it was where she didn't belong. But her parents weren't as cheerful. They wouldn't mind going back to the island so long as they were safe. "Mommy, does that mean we're going back to the island?" Myah asked again.
"I don't know. Mykel?" Her mother held Myah tightly in her arms, leaving her just enough room to stuff the picture of Ryann into her pocket.
Myah's father rushed to look out the circular window, but he could barely make out a thing in the harsh rain. Suddenly, the boat began rocking violently in the maddened sea and Myah screamed in terror.
"Cidny!" Daddy called for mommy, and he lost his balance at the exact same time that the power went out. Cidny tightened her grip on her daughter as she called out for her husband in the inky darkness, afraid that he'd have broken something in his fall.
"Its okay, Cidny, I'm fine." Daddy reassured the two as he mysteriously turned up from the darkness, a flashlight in hand. Myah had just noticed that mommy was crying. Cidny reached out for her husband, and tugged him down to the other side of their daughter, sandwiching her between their protective embrace.
The family sat there and waited for anything. Calls, warnings, some information, some help. But nothing came. Myah grew tired and nodded off now and again, but she wanted to stay awake so she could go back to the island and play with Ryann.
She called out for her mommy, but when she shined the light on her face, she found her asleep.
"Yes, sweet heart?" daddy answered, instead.
Myah leaned on to his chest and yawned, "Do you think Ryann is okay?"
"Ryann? The eight year old boy on the island?" her daddy teased.
"No, the other Ryann." Myah stated sarcastically as she laughed.
"Well, he is on the island. He'll be perfectly fine." Mykel promised in an all knowing voice.
"Are you..." Myah yawned again as she nestled closer to her daddy's warm embrace, "...sure?"
"100%" he kissed her head and smiled, thinking to himself how he had such a kind hearted daughter. "Now sleep my little angel, we'll be home in no time."
Myah was puzzled by that statement. "Where is...home?" she asked, but her eyes shut before she could hear the answer...
She never really understood what happened next. All she could remember was her daddy shaking her awake, her mommy sobbing off all of her make-up, and the two of them begging her to swim up as strongly as she could. And then, in a nightmarish manner, she was being shoved out of the window.
Myah slipped and fell on her bottom, the rain coming down so hard it made her cry out in pain, the thunder so loud it made her bones rattle. When she regained full consciousness, she found herself sitting on the side of the ferry, and the steel boat was sinking with her parents still in it! She looked back through the now closed window, and she tried to stand up in an attempt to get them out, too. But it only led to her fatal demise. The last expressions she saw of her parents were that of pure terror...
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