Chapter 46-Sleeping was a death sentence

Chapter 46: 46-Sleeping was a death sentence

On the other side of the ocean, survival looked very different.

There was no warmth, peaceful dining room, steaming hot pot, comfortable temperature, or quiet music playing in the background. There was only chaos.

Sarah gripped the railing of their ship with both hands as another enormous wave slammed into the vessel.

"Ah!"

The ship tilted violently, and Sarah stumbled sideways, nearly going overboard.

"Dylan!" She kept calling out to him, Dylan immediately grabbed her arm. "Hold on, Sarah!"

The next wave crashed over the deck, and freezing seawater struck them like a wall. Sarah screamed as the water swept across the deck, knocking several containers loose.

"Grab the supplies!"

"I’m on it!"

Dylan released her and rushed toward the containers. One of the large boxes had already broken open. Cans, bags of rice, bottled water, packets of dried food, medicine, and other supplies slid across the wet deck.

"No!"

Sarah lunged forward as a bag of rice slipped through the gap beside the railing. She reached for it, but her fingers barely brushed the plastic before it disappeared into the black ocean.

Sarah stared after it, her breath catching in her throat. "That was one of our rice bags..."

Dylan grabbed another container before it could slide away. "Forget it! Save what we can."

"We can’t just forget it, Dylan!"

"Sarah, leave it!" He insisted. There was no point, and diving into the ocean to fish them out was not an option.

"We need that food!"

Another wave struck, and the entire ship shook. Sarah screamed and dropped to her knees while Dylan grabbed the railing again. For several seconds, neither of them moved. They simply waited for the ship to stop rocking. It didn’t.

Wave after wave continued pounding against the vessel. The hurricane winds screamed around them, and rain fell so heavily that it was almost impossible to see more than a few meters ahead.

The sky had become one endless mass of black clouds. Lightning flashed, briefly revealing the enormous, furious ocean before darkness swallowed everything again.

"We have to get inside!" Dylan shouted.

"Then who’s going to secure the supplies?" Sarah asked in a desperate tone. "How will we survive without them. Supermarkets have already been flooded and collapsed, there’s not going to be food after this!"

"They’re already secured!"

"Look!"

Sarah pointed toward the rear of the ship. Another container had broken loose.

Dylan cursed and ran toward it. Sarah followed. Together, they grabbed the container and tried to drag it toward a more secure section. Their shoes slipped repeatedly against the wet deck. Their clothes were soaked, and their hands had gone numb from the cold.

Neither of them had eaten properly since the disaster began, neither had slept, and neither dared to sleep now. Every few minutes, another wave came. Every few minutes, the ship was thrown violently from side to side. And every few minutes, something else broke loose. Sleeping was a death sentence in that weather.

"Pull!"

Dylan gritted his teeth.

Sarah pulled with everything she had, her muscles screaming with pain. The container finally reached the wall, and they secured it with rope.

Dylan leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. Sarah collapsed onto the deck beside him, neither spoke after that.

They were utterly exhausted. Their hair was plastered against their faces, their clothes were dripping, and Sarah’s eyes were swollen from exhaustion and fear. Dark circles had formed beneath them.

Dylan looked no better. His normally neat hair was a complete mess, and his face had become pale and drawn. He hadn’t slept properly since the tsunami began.

Sarah slowly raised her head. "How long has it been?"

Dylan glanced at his watch. The screen flickered. "It’s almost midnight."

Sarah stared at him in disbelief. "Midnight?"

He nodded towards her and her lips trembled. "Then we’ve been doing this all day and half the night?"

Dylan didn’t answer because the answer was obvious.

They had. Since the first tsunami struck, they had barely had a moment to breathe. Every time they tried to sit down, something happened. A wave hit, the ship tilted, a supply box broke loose, water entered one of the lower sections, or a piece of equipment malfunctioned. Then another wave came.

There had been no proper meal, no rest, and no peaceful moment. Nothing but terror, exhaustion, and the relentless roar of the sea.

Sarah pressed her hands against her face. "I’m exhausted."

"So am I. I am so tired that I could drop right here and now and not wake up until the apocalypse ends."

"I want to sleep," Sarah confessed. "I want my bed... AC and hot instant noodles."

Dylan looked toward the ocean and felt regretful. "So do I."

"But..."

Neither finished the sentence. They both knew that sleeping on a ship in this storm was dangerous. If they fell asleep while the ship tilted or something broke loose, they could easily be thrown overboard. There was nowhere safe to sleep, not tonight and maybe not tomorrow.

Sarah slowly stood, though her legs trembled beneath her. "We have to keep going."

Dylan nodded. "We have no choice," he finished with a tired yawn.

Another wave crashed against the ship. Sarah grabbed the railing, and Dylan reached for another loose container. They continued, driven forward by fear and desperation.

Hours passed, or perhaps only minutes. Time had become meaningless. The storm made everything feel endless. The ship rose, fell, rose again, and then dropped into a trough so deep that Sarah felt as though they were falling into the earth.

She screamed and Dylan grabbed her. "Stay down!" He warned her while pulling her close.

They crouched against the side of the ship as water rushed across the deck. One of their storage boxes broke open, and Sarah watched helplessly as packets of food floated away.

"More food..." Her voice cracked with panic.

Dylan clenched his jaw. "We still have enough and as long as we are alive, we can find more later."

"Do we?"

He didn’t answer immediately because even he knew that their supplies were lowering by the minute and what’s left would sustain two people for a long time.

Sarah stared at him. "Dylan?"

"We have some."

"Some isn’t enough, Dylan," she cried into his arms.

"We’ll ration."

"We’re already rationing."

Dylan looked away. Sarah knew what that meant. Their supplies were disappearing far faster than they had expected.

They had bought enough food to last a long time, but they had never planned for this. They had expected the ship to be relatively stable. They had expected to be able to sleep, cook, and organize their supplies. They had expected the apocalypse to follow the predictions they had heard.

They had not expected the ocean to become a monster. They had not expected wave after wave to keep coming. They had not expected hurricanes to surround them from every direction. And they definitely hadn’t expected to spend the entire first day of the apocalypse fighting desperately to stop their food from being swallowed by the sea.

Sarah hugged herself, shivering violently. "When will it stop?"

Dylan stared into the darkness and gave one tired response. "I don’t know."

"Tomorrow?"

"I don’t know..." He truly didn’t. Infact, he was tempted to remind Sarah that she was the one who was reborn and should tell him when the storms would let up.

"In the morning maybe...?"

"I said I don’t know!"

Sarah flinched as though he had struck her. Dylan immediately looked guilty. "I’m sorry."

She shook her head, fighting back tears. "It’s fine."