Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 307

This week's picture prompt was created by Jeffrey Smith, it's called Trust Your Gut. He has some incredible art, and there might well be another one soon. 

A short piece this week. Maybe a survivor of the shift, as depicted in my series, Tricky's Tales. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Adrift

He gripped the sides of the little boat, praying that it wouldn’t capsize and send him into the churning masses that were once sea. There had to be land out here, it couldn’t all be covered; he couldn’t be the only survivor.

The swirling waters took on their own pattern, a mesmerising one that took him further towards the setting sun. As the ocean rocked and rose either side of him, he felt like he was in a tunnel, driven ever onwards. He only hoped there was a destination, one that didn’t involve his death.

He’d lost the oars days ago, and had been drifting with the current for some time. He hoped it wasn’t sending him in circles but instead to a shore, where there was dry land and people.

Was he lucky to be in his boat? Maybe. But he didn’t currently feel like it. He just kept his eyes on the setting sun, and prepared himself for another night watching the starlit sky – a sky he had barely paid attention to until there were no more light sources to disturb it. The tumultuous events that led to him being in this boat were a blur in his memory, much like the landmass as it had shifted and been deluged by water.

He didn’t know how many days he’d been without food or drink. The spray from the ocean kept his face wet and covered with water, which he would occasionally lick as it ran down his face over his mouth. He wanted to dry out and drink a glass of sweet cold water. Hunger was there eating at his stomach, but it was just a background noise compared to the thirst. And he just wanted to stop feeling this churning, inside and out, and feel alive and safe again.

Was that a piece of land, there on the horizon, its hills silhouetted against the sun and cutting into the shape of it? He couldn’t be sure. It could be a mirage, a trick of the light, a play in his mind’s eye as the dehydration disrupted his cognition. It had happened before. But he didn’t keep his eyes off it as he was pulled closer by the sucking and drawing of the waves; he had to have hope, without hope there was no survival. And as the shape grew larger in front of the brilliant disc of light, his hope grew with it.