Dreamcatcher | ONC 2020 Honourable Mention | ✔

Chapter Five

For half a minute, there was silence. The ship's engines hummed on, but the world outside had come to a standstill, a portrait both unimaginably beautiful and inconceivably terrifying. Dreamcatcher hung in a hole in the storm. Clouds rose to all sides, but none touched them just yet. Far below, the ocean's profound blue was a sari laid out without wrinkles. That was an illusion granted by altitude, Rav knew. Already he could see the snags of whitecaps. To be visible at this distance, they must have been the size of ships.

Rav could have screamed a warning, but by the silence on the ship, it seemed the others already knew. No matter what they did now, Dreamcatcher wasn't going to come out of this afloat.

The ashen trunk of the thunderhead coasted towards them, and Rav saw the very moment Dreamcatcher's nose pierced the clouds. Grey swathed the ship. Then there was a great shriek of wind and it was fired upwards. Rav's back slammed the wall as the room spun out of control. Dreamcatcher was a toy tossed in the hands of a giant. Its acceleration forced Rav to his knees. He shut his eyes, clung to the bolted table, and began to pray.

Let this be over quickly. Let me not feel my death, and die peacefully with the ship. Let my mother have rest when I am gone.

Around and around and around. Altitude sucked the oxygen from the air, and Rav's head began to spin worse than the ship. The change in pressure drove knives through his eardrums and into his head. Endless grey blurred by speed whipped past the windows as they were pitched up... up...

And down.

Rav's weight left the floor as the clouds reversed. A deluge like a waterfall pounded the windows, more liquid than air. They fell as though Dreamcatcher's lifting gas had turned to lead.

Rav wrapped both arms around the table leg. Maybe if they were spat out the bottom of the cloud, they could regain their lift before they hit the ocean. All the hairs on his arms stood on end. Blue light crackled, and a bomb-like boom shook the ship. Rav slammed his hands over his ears. He cracked on eye to find Dreamcatcher suspended in a spider's web of live, sheetlike lightning.

No, they weren't going to make it to the bottom of the cloud. They were going to burn apart.

The ship began to spin again. Gusts pitched it until Rav's arms ached from clutching the table and his head. The fall ended in a blast that nearly flipped Dramcatcher over. The ship was slammed from below. Rav's ears popped and the air rushed past, rushing away, sucking away his breath. His thoughts thinned to a tin whistle's ringing. The boom. A hideous tearing sound. A smash. Something screeched, long and low, then built and built, rising in pitch and volume, until the ship lurched sideways and everything ceased.

Rav did not let go of the table. He was dead. He knew it. He supposed it had been peaceful, given that he could not recall what of all the dangers in the storm had taken his life away.

It was calm on the ghost Dreamcatcher. There were no engines, and only the creak of the ropes supporting the gondola eased the quiet as a wind bumped the ship. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Rav was startled nearly out of his skin as footsteps broke the haven. Someone hammered on the door.

"Cabin boy? Cabin boy! Are you in there?"

Would they see him if he was dead? Rav hugged the table tighter. There was a soft curse as someone rattled the door handle. The latch had fallen into place when the door slammed shut. Footsteps retreated a pace and skipped forwards. The latch flew from the wood under the force of Sanjay's shoulder.

Manish darted past him and crouched in front of Rav. "Cabin boy! Are you awake? Are you hurt? Talk to me."

Rav opened his eyes, afraid of the spectre he would see. Manish looked alive. He took a firm hold of Rav's shoulders and looked him over.