The Power of Ten

Estrella Romero P.O.V.

In all of the madness, the drills that we had rehearsed in detail earlier during the day, all of the lessons and instructions we were given, flew out of the pushed open glass doors of the cruise ship. We fled, like schools of fish swimming away from crocodiles lurking to catch their prey. Some, similar to me, knew where to go and what to do, but were swept away by the crowd anyway. Symphonies of crying children, alarms ringing, and the screaming of frightened men and women seeking safety flooded the sky and the air around us, filling up every nook and cranny of the vessel. Alerting even the heaviest sleeper. We had all trusted the boat to safely make it to the destination, trusting the logistics that the chances of a situation similar to this was very unlikely, almost impossible. As much as I tried, the sea of people fleeing made it impossible to go another way. So I went with the crowd and followed the strangers around me. I didn't come with anyone. A year ago, my dad had died. He was discovered to have terminal bronchial cancer and died after 2 and a half years of hanging on to the edge of his seat, just barely living, living for us. My mom, his mom, my brothers, my sister, and me. He would hold my hand with his frail but calloused hand, the only sign that he was a fisher through and through. He would tell me he loved me, his 'star' in the darkness, and that he would make it, because he was a Romero. My mom and family and been distraught, but I had suffered the most. I was like a shadow, a barely living shadow just trying to keep our family bait shop going. I showed no signs of depression, I was always seen running off to another convention, some sort. Never stopping to catch my breath, to stop and think knowing my mind would be flooded with his memory. Waking up, 4:00 am, to go to our Florida lakes and fish, on our special spot. Summers spent running the family bait shop, "The One That Got Away" where I learned how to run a business and all about the fish and the baits that are used to catch them, and knowing my dad was proud that I was a daddy's girl. Walking into the shop and seeing my dad, his bronze skin tanned by the sun and his Colombian heritage, his arms wide open, the biggest dimpled smile on his face, greet me with a big hug that I would always walk away from smelling like fish and something that I could ever figure out, and after his death everything lost that smell. Lost the smell that irked my mother so much but the one she looks for on her dark days, searching for hours as she looked and looked as we watched on hanging our heads down in sorrow. And we all looked for the smell at night, clothes we held close at night that were his, but we could only smell the metallic and bitter chemically hospital smell. But while they gave up, I held tighter to his clothes, mi papa. My brothers and sister began to worry, they formed a "group" with my mom, and with her help, they got me a ticket on the Rapture Vessel, room 438, on the Festival cruise line. They thought I would party the week away, drinking (responsibly), dancing and embarrassing myself in front of people I would never see again. With a limit of 10 books and a sense of survival, I brought some recreational books. Two classics, "Little Women" and "Oliver Twist". Three Literary Fiction books, "A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue", "The Nightingale", and "The Great Alone". I brought books to brush up on my fishing knowledge, "Fish Around the World", "Anglers Guide to Hooks and Gears", and "Fishers Trick to Get the Best Catch". Finally, I brought my favorite book of all time "These Shallow Graves". Just the basics, like I said. I was pushed out of my thoughts when a man, big and burly holding in one hang a baby and the other a beautiful woman, pushed me to the ground. He gave me a quick glance but continued to move with the crowd. I got up quickly, grabbing my book bag and jumping back into the mob heading toward the lifeboats. I felt something drip down my leg, but I was too focused to notice it. When I rounded the corner the scene in front of me was madness. It looked similar what I imagined hell to look like. Lost souls in lines waited to get on the rafts into the River Styx. Load. Depart. Load. Depart. A never-ending cycle. The boats were packed to the max. Frightened parents, couples, teenagers, elderly, and children crowded the rafts and people in line prayed to get on the raft, to the safety that is off the burning boat. I could see the burly man, his face full of anguish as he looked at the woman from earlier and the child go off in one of the leaving rafts. I start to wonder, 'what if I don't make it on a raft?' 'what if I can't make it out alive?' I start to panic. 'I can't die. Dying is not an option.' With this resolution I decide to get to the front, get on a raft and survive. But as soon as I decide this, the crowd moves faster. In a raging torrent. Then the smell of smoke fills my nose. Clouding my brain making me go into a coughing fit. I stagger and put a hand over my mouth before straightening and starting to run toward the rafts. After a few scary minutes I make it to the front. I was shoved into a raft landing among seven other people, landing on my bag. Right after me, a young gay couple was pushed to get on the raft their hands disconnecting so one, with tan skin and blue hair, could offer me a hand. I grabbed it getting up and muttering a small "Thanks." before sitting down and scanning the faces around me. Burly man! He sat with his hands in his lap staring at the rows of lifeboats connected by rope. There were nine people on here besides me. Burly man, the gay couple, a black girl with short hair like a bob, a man in his twenties with white bleached hair, a light-skinned girl with long blond hair and blue eyes with a flowy dress, a white kid about eighteen or nineteen with tan skin and a scowl hed his arms crossed over his chest, and two Hispanic twins were cuddled close to each other looking scared. What a group.