Huan seemed rather confused, and also terrified, and yet, waddled from one end of the boat to the other in order to reach Felicity. Felicity peered down in the water again, admiring the small splashes that the heavy creature made. Then, carefully, she tenderly reached a shaking hand down to touch the edge of the murky water. Her fingers made a small few splashes, then raised about a foot above the water. The scaled beast glared at her with large yellow eyes from beneath the water, slowly rising to the top, motionless, until its snout broke through the surface of the water and huffed aggressively.

It was so close to Felicity. She couldn't let herself freeze, not now, not yet. Adrenaline pumped through her like a fresh surge of electricity, pushing her onward, forcing her to react.

As if catching a fish, she whipped the net into the water, liquid splashing and soaking her entire front. Then, she lifted the net, placing pressure on the bottom of the beast's bottom jaw, which was now caught in the net. Huan reacted equally as fast, and with precision. He leaned over the boat and pulled the crocodile upwards by its thick neck. It thrashed, the boat rocking back and forth as it whipped its tail, water spraying from beneath it. Kiui cried out from somewhere behind them. Felicity gripped the blade tightly in her free hand, and then, seeing as the beast's head was still as its body thrashed, she plunged the knife straight into the beast's skull right behind the eye, penetrating armoured flesh. It thrashed, snapped, to which Felicity quickly removed her net, and Huan dropped the bleeding creature back into the water completely. It swam, using its body and tail like a snake, deep underneath the surface of the water, leaving behind a dark trail of blood.

A heavy silence ensued, and then Tati asked, "What now? That didn't work."

"It got it far away from us for us to row safely, I think," Felicity said, staring at the blade in her hands, which was drenched with blood that had begun to run down her arms and drip at the elbows. The red shined like gold under the daylight. She as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Huan, "You're shaking. Are you alright?"

She nodded, "Fine." Not the first time I've had blood on my hands, is it? The incidents, both with the crocodiles and the one with her family, played in her mind on repeat, making sleep nearly impossible that night. The adrenaline rush had worn her out, and she was utterly exhausted and suffering the low.

The group decided to row as far as they possibly could from that area, enhanced with a new fear of crocodiles. The sky greyed and clouded, and eventually it began to rain, slowly filling both their exposed pots and pans, and the bottom of the boat with freshwater. It rained for a good few hours, collecting several inches of water. Felicity and Kiui used a water bottle to pull water out from the bottom of the small boat, filling it and then pouring it out into the ocean. Despite the rain, there was beginning to be a noticeable change in the surroundings of the group as they travelled farther and farther for days and days. Kiui and Huan worked together and caught minnows, and then actually managed to catch a decent sized fish of some sort, although nobody knew what kind it was. It was several inches across and silvery, and truly just looked like an overgrown minnow. Still, the group was ecstatic, and unlike the minnows, was willing to eat what little meat it had raw. After a couple of more days, accompanied by on and off rain, the group had to live entirely off of the tiny fish that they managed to catch, having run entirely out of safely preserved food to eat.

The environment change was extremely subtle, especially at first, but then more noticeable the closer that the group got to the dark silhouettes of the canyon. Despite the dark murky water, below the surface, house roofs and occasionally the top of trees could be seen. The water was becoming shallower here, or rather, the land growing higher. In fact, it was a rather eerie scene, aching the group badly enough to render them silent for most of the time. The houses were buried beneath the water, consumed by it, reminding everyone on that small row boat just how fragile the world had been, and just how badly they missed it. But aside from this, there was the new, unrelenting stench. Occasionally, the group would find a body or two floating along the water. Most of the time, however, the bodies remained under the water, trapped in homes where they used to live, trapped in cars during a failed escape. The water here seemed murkier than the waters that they had travelled through before, and thus nobody dared to get out and swim in it.

Huan and Felicity rowed gently. The boat floated silently above the buried town. Felicity rowed to distract themselves from the many things bothering them. Their thoughts seemed relentless and ruthless both, pestering them, prodding at them, giving them a sickening ache to their stomach along with migraines. Actually, Felicity had also begun to feel a churning in their stomach; although, they were uncertain whether or not this was sea sickness from the constant, incessant rocking of the boat, or if this was a side effect of their obsessive thoughts. Still, the pain that rowing brought to both of their sore arms was enough to bring their head out of the clouds and focus on the present.

"What's that?" Kiui asked suddenly, a hand extended and a finger pointed. The group turned to look at her rather anxiously, in fact, terrified of another encounter with a crocodile, or something worse. Zephyr and Tati made their way to Kiui and Marina's end of the boat to see better what exactly it was that she was pointing at. They narrowed their eyes, and Felicity glanced in the direction they seemed to be looking at. Something was splashing about in the water, not very far from the boat. It was small, and definitely not a fish.

"Is it a person?" Huan asked.

"No, no," Zephyr said, "Something else. Something from land. A squirrel or something."

"That's not too far," Felicity said, "We can row over there and see what it is."

Zephyr thought for a moment, and then agreed, "Alright, let's do that." And so, Huan and Felicity heaved greatly, turning the boat with the oars in the direction of the small creature. As they slowly neared it, it quickly became clear what it was.

"A dog!" Kiui said, excited. "A dog, Ma, it's a dog! Can we keep it? Can we?!"

Marina chuckled, "That's not up to me, love." The dog swam in the water in circles, seeming exhausted, tongue lolled out and whimpering quietly. Felicity knew exactly how he felt. How he felt on the verge of death itself, how his tongue felt thick in his mouth and his saliva choking him like hands around his throat. With this in mind, Felicity stood from his seat at the oars and called to the dog. It glanced at him, but could not find its way over. They pulled the boat up as close as it could possibly get, and Felicity leaned way over the side of the boat, reaching for the dog. Kiui joined him, bent at her hips, her fingertips skimming the edge of the water way out.

"Careful," her mother advised.

"I am, I am," she said back, angrily. But she reached out too far, leaned too far, and the boat leaned with both her and Felicity, tipping just ever so slightly, but tipping far enough for Kiui to slip over the shallow edge of the row boat, and into the water below. She yelped as she did, slipping over into the water head-first.

"Kiui!" Felicity yelled, and Marina stood with eyes wide in shock and horror. The water seemed an unfriendly place to the group, and it was nauseating to think of Kiui being in it.

However, to Felicity's surprise, Marina shouted, "Kiui! Oh, she can't swim! She doesn't know how to swim! Kiui! Kiui!"

"She can't swim?" Huan snarled at her, "You brought a girl on Noah's Ark and she can't fucking swim?" He turned and leapt into the water where she had disappeared, splashing over the group and rocking the boat again. The small dog, whining, finally doggy-paddled over to the edge of the boat, where Felicity pulled him over. The dog was a Jack Russell terrier, small with a stiff docked tail, short wire hair, large bent ears, and brown covering its face. The rest of its body was white. The thing was exhausted. It shook out its coat, and then laid down tenderly on the bottom of the boat.

Huan broke from the surface, Kiui in his arms, gasping.

"Help," he spit, and Felicity and Marina helped to pull the girl out of the water and onto the boat, where they did their best to ring out her hair and clothes and dry her. She shook, clearly exhausted, but was conscious. She took Marina's hand in hers and said weakly, "The dog? Did you save him?"

"He's here," she nodded, nearly sobbing. Despite the unfortunate event, Kiui seemed rather healthy; she spat up a bit of water, coughed, wiped her eyes and then sat up, claiming she felt fine, just a bit cold. The sun was able to dry her out and warm her up fairly quickly. The boat seemed instilled with a burdened, traumatic silence after the event. The worry and fear for the girl's life had taken a lot of energy from everyone, especially Huan, so no rowing was continued, and instead the group rested and attempted to relax. The sky grew darker and clouded over, and a gentle rain began to pitter against the wood of the boat.

Felicity sat on one of the benches, outlooking over the endless ocean. It was riveting; the ocean seemed unruly, the boat rocking restlessly in a manner it never had before, vaticinating the relentless storm that was brewing overhead. The rain that was pouring now was cold and sharp, hitting their skin like needles. Kiui and Marina huddled together beneath a burlap sack, using it as a most uncomfortable but necessary blanket. The small terrier laid rather stiffly underneath one of the benches, disliking the rain just as much as the rest of them. Still, Felicity sat out open in the rain. She overlooked the ocean filled with turmoil, the once reflective and rippling surface now blurred with heavy droplets pummeling into it at high speeds. Zephyr walked over to her and sat down, careful with his steps so as not to rock the boat any further, and so as not to fall into the water by slipping on the slick and uneven surface.

"Bit of a day, huh?" He said from beside her on the bench. Felicity seemed to slide from one side of the bench to the other, their lightweight and thin build not helping to keep them grounded whatsoever.

"A bit." Worried she may fall overboard, she slid down from the bench and into the space between it and the next, huddled close to Zephyr's knees, who looked down at her with interest, and then glanced back out at the raging waters, his eyes flickering in a manner that Felicity could not describe. Zephyr, for as calm and collected and gentle as he was, had a dark intensity behind his black eyes, a seriousness that gained the respect of those around him, and in that moment, Felicity could only wonder what kinds of things that the man had seen.

"Do you miss your old life?" He asked her, not looking away from the lightning that lit up the mono sky in the distance.

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"No, I won't. Do you?"

"To be honest," she sighed, "I miss a lot of my old life, like the internet, and showers. And my barber. My hair is grown out far more than I would like it to be."

"Oh, trust me, mine too."

"Yeah. But honestly, I don't really miss my old life as a whole, you know? I like this crew. I wish we could find some dry land, is all, and maybe food that isn't fish and slimy seaweed. But you know, my family wasn't the greatest."

"Yeah. I think every family has a bit of dysfunctionality."

"Oh. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it wasn't that bad. I just like..."

"Being away from them?"

The two made a tender eye contact, and Felicity had to look away. She couldn't let him know what had happened, and she was already shivering with guilt from the initial incident.

"No, of course not. I miss and love my family."

"What happened to them? Are they out there somewhere?"

She hesitated, "Yeah. Maybe."

"Well, Felicity. I'll help you find them. What's your last name, by the way?"

"Atlas."

"That's interesting. Goes well with your first."

"Yeah," she chuckled, grateful to have something else for her mind to focus on, "I always thought so, too. Yours?"

"Alvarez."

"That suits you, too."

"It would suit you, too."

"What?"

His face flushed cranberry as he realised the deduction of his words, "No, no. I meant aesthetically, not like- not like marriage." And then, he began to laugh, for his sentiment had been genuinely innocent, and for someone to misinterpret it as poorly as Felicity had was, quite frankly, hilarious. She lightly hit him in the leg, as if to say, what are you laughing at? But then, in the storm, she began to laugh, too, icy water running down her face and dripping from her chin and pooling at the floor of the boat like tears. She wiped her face with the back of a hand, as if that would do any good with the water, and continue to laugh, a loud, ugly, boisterous laugh that Mr. Alvarez had not initially expected from such a reserved and quiet individual. "What did you do before the flood?" Zephyr asked, once the laughing had subsided.

"What?" The question caught Felicity off-guard, and her mind immediately became flooded with that same, stupid memory.

"I mean, for work?"

"I'm too young to work. I'm 14."

"Ah, my bad."

"How old are you?"

"Me and Tati both just turned 18."

"Oh, happy late birthday."

"Thanks. Okay, let's see..." he bit at his nails for a short minute, then asked, "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?"

"Well, my immediate thought was something stupid," she chuckled.

"No, no. Tell me. I'm sure it's not stupid."

"Okay, okay. Well, the ability to shapeshift, I suppose, because I want to be able to change my body depending on how I feel that day."

"What do you mean?"

"Like gender-wise. One day I could physically be a boy, and the next, a girl."

"Oh! That makes sense!"

"You don't think it's stupid?"

He looked at her earnestly, "No, of course not. That's pretty interesting. Plus, who wouldn't wanna be able to shapeshift?" And then he laughed that same, vibrant laugh that Felicity had slowly grown accustomed to. "What's your favourite song?"

"Uh, that's a real tough one without my Spotify playlist right in front of me. It changes weekly, ha ha."

"Okay, well what about favourite artist?"

"Oh, I'm not one to ask. My taste in music is disgusting."

"C'mon, I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Oh, yeah. My playlist consisted of everything from jazz to dubstep to country."

He hesitated, "Yeah, okay, that's pretty bad," and then laughed. "My taste is no better. I only listen to radio music."

"What kind?"

"Pop. Oh yeah. Ariana Grande, Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran..."

Felicity laughed, "No, really? You definitely look more like a rap or jazz kind of guy."

"Hey," he lifted both hands up in a portrayed defense, "I do take offense to that racist comment."

"Har-har."

"Well, I do like jazz... as long as it's pop." And the two began to laugh once again. Felicity felt at ease for the first time since she could even remember, and she thanked Zephyr silently for that. lightning crashed through the clouds overhead, and then a loud, rather alarming boom echoed and shook the small boat. Felicity had never liked storms, unlike some, and in fact was rather terrified of them. She had managed through this storm thus far by simply ignoring its existence, but it seemed she could not ignore it any longer, and as the thunder grew both louder and closer, she tended to talk less and laugh more anxiously with Zephyr rather than boisterously as before, and he finally asked, "You okay?"

"Fine, fine. Just not used to storms, especially like this."

The boat rocked to the left, and water sprayed over the edge, to which Kiui cried out fearfully.

"I don't think anyone is used to this kind of storm," Zephyr said, which wasn't exactly comforting to Felicity, whom pulled their knees to their chest and shook gently. Zephyr eyed her, and then sighed, "Hey, kid. We'll be alright. We didn't make it this far, fighting goddamn alligators just to die in some rain, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Okay." For some reason, it still felt difficult to breathe.

"I can ask more questions, huh? To get your mind off of the storm?"

"No, I'm a bit tired, actually."

"Suppose sleeping will do that, too. Get your mind off of the storm, I mean."

"Thanks, but I'm not sure I can sleep on this rocking thing. I just don't feel safe."

Zephyr thought for a moment, glancing down at Felicity, and then over at Marina who was huddled with Huan and Kiui. He slowly suggested, "How about I squeeze between those benches with you, so you feel more stable?" Then, louder, over the chaos of the rain, he said sternly, "And Tati, too."

"Actually," Felicity thought, "That might help. But it's no bother. I mean, I don't want to bother you, you know? You don't have to do that. The floorboard has got an inch of water, so your pants will be wet."

"Girl, my pants are already wet. It's raining!"

Tati crept over to their side of the boat on all fours for stability, mocking, "Uh-huh. That's why."

"I did not pee my pants, Tati."

"Suuure, if that's what helps you sleep at night. This storm getting to you, Zephyr?"

"Very funny," he said, very much not finding it funny whatsoever. Felicity, however, found it ridiculous, and let out a sharp snort. Still, Zephyr slid from his bench and sat in the cramped space on the floor beside Felicity, and Tati begrudgingly did the same on her other side. Felicity already felt safer, as if being secured between the two older friends was equivalent to a life jacket or seatbelt, keeping her in place and afloat if necessary. She could relax, although sleep during such a raging storm was impossible; she felt the need to stay awake in case the situation were to go awry. The rolling, black waves pushed the boat this way and that, and multiple times Felicity watched as Kiui or Marina vomited over the side of the row boat. Felicity herself was beginning to feel very, very sick to her stomach, although she couldn't tell if it was from the rocking of the boat or from her own anxiety. Still, she swallowed it down as best as she could and tried to focus on absolutely anything else. The warmth of the bodies beside her only did so much against the burning cold of the water being sprayed from either side of the small, fragile boat. In that moment, the small boat seemed extremely fragile, like porcelain riding the waves. A heavy pit formed and twisted in Felicity's gut, nearly gagging her. She expected the boat to disintegrate on the roaring waves, to fall apart board by board and drown them all. The thought of it, however unlikely, only made her stomach churn worse.

The chaotic landscape seemed only black and white. The clouds were mono, with dark, deep greys, and the occasional streak of white, blinding lightning. The water, which was once a murky brown and even blue, was now black, moving in tall, relentless waves in seeming slow motion. The ocean was angry, and to Felicity, appeared like thick, black syrup, or even reflective and sharp-edged tar. Or, perhaps like obsidian, with sheen, almost translucent jagged edges, like dark ice or broken glass, reflecting the lightning overhead. The harsh waves grew higher, taller, and angrier, roaring as they lifted from the turmoiling ocean and then pounced on the boat, nearly drowning the occupants. The waves crashed aggressively over the top of the boat multiple times, the group shouting or screaming in fear and protest, Felicity included. The water was just as thick as she had imagined it to be, blacking out her eyes and suffocating her like a tight, cold blanket wrapped around her face. When the water receded, she and the rest of the persons on the boat coughed up plenty of dirty water. The bottom of the boat was now filled with several inches of the water, seaweed included, and the boat seemed to set deeper in the ocean than it had prior, the water foaming and spraying along the wooden sides even more than it had before. Then, the water pulled away from the boat, gathered, and roared back up in a massive wave, overtaking the boat, and this time tossing it over completely.