The cold water stunned my body at first, and for a few moments I wasn’t sure which way was up, and which way was down. Before I even knew what was happening, my body forced myself to swim back up. I had no idea what was going on until I broke the surface of the water. The pirates all cheered as they sailed off into the distance. I looked around for Michael. I wasn’t sure where he was and I called for him.

“Michael! Michael!” I called. I spun around in the water and didn’t see him. Great. This is just great. Now what am I supposed to do? As I was fighting with myself about what to do, I felt something grab onto my leg. I screamed and then Michael popped up beside me laughing.

“Oh man! I bet I scared you!” Michael laughed. I groaned and kicked water at him.

“Don’t do that! You freaked me out!” I screamed. Michael continued to laugh. “Stop laughing! You’re going to waste all of your energy and drown! It’s bad enough that we don’t have our arms at our disposal,” I told him.

“Where do we go now?” Michael asked me.

“I don’t know! How should I know?” I screamed.

“Hey, don’t waste your energy,” Michael told me. I rolled my eyes.

“Shut it!” I told him as I started swimming.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Michael asked as he followed me.

“Somewhere. I might as well swim somewhere and try to find something to float on before we die out here,”

“Why are you so negative?” Michael asked me.

“I’m not negative! I’m just... well... realistic. We were lucky that we were found the first time, but a second time? C’mon! Get real!” I told him.

“Well, I think we should remain optimistic,” Michael told me.

“Of course you do,” I said as I flipped over on my back and started swimming like that. I found that it was the easiest way without arms.

“Hey! What’s that over there?” Michael asked as he tilted his head towards the left. I stopped swimming and looked to where he was tilting his head. There seemed to be something floating along the water.

“Maybe it’s a boat!” I exclaimed excitedly as I started swimming faster with Michael right on my tail.

When we got to the thing floating in the water, we realised that it was just a log, but it would have to do. Michael and I both climbed on and straddled the log.

“Alright, get these ropes off of me,” I told him. Michael used his teeth to tear through the ropes. It took a long time, but they were eventually untied and I massaged my sore wrists for a bit before I got Michael’s off. We managed to roll the log over more than a respectable amount of times before we were both free of the bonds.

“Well, that was a nice adventure wasn’t it?” Michael asked me. I glared at him. “What?” he asked.

“It was horrible. In fact, it’s so horrible that it’s actually hard to believe,” I told him.

“Oh come on! Lighten up! At least you have something to tell your friends when you get home!” Michael told me.

“If we get home,” I mumbled. Michael nudged me lightly, causing me to lose my balance for a moment and nearly making me fall off the log, but I managed to catch myself before that happened.

“We’re going to get home Kenya, I promise,”

“You can’t promise anything. Not now. Right now it’s all up to Mother Nature,” I told him.

“I can promise whatever I want, and I’m promising you that we’ll get home,”

“Promise me that we’ll get home alive,” I told him. Michael smiled.

“We’re going to get home alive. I promise,” Michael promised me. I managed a small smile.

“I guess that makes me feel a little better, but only a little bit,” i told him. He grinned.

“I’m glad that you feel better,”

“But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck in the middle of the ocean on a log,” I continued.

“Hey, we’ll take what we can get!”

“Well I wish we could get something better,” I complained.

“Hey! Quit whining and be thankful that we’re not dead yet! They could have killed us both with what I said earlier!”

“You mean when you told them to not make me walk the plank?” I asked. He nodded.

“Yup, that’s the part. If they really wanted to, they could have just cut us into little slices and eat us for breakfast!”

“Ew, that’s cannibalism,” I said disgusted by the thought. Michael shrugged.

“Well, they are pirates. Who knows what they do!” Michael told me. I laughed at his comment and then let out a long yawn. All of the working and swimming made me tired, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew that I couldn’t. If I fell asleep I’d fall into the water and drown. I knew I had to stay awake if I wanted to stay alive. I noticed that Michael yawned too. That’s when I realised that so far we have battled injuries, thirst, hunger, jaguars, sharks, pirates and the ocean, but exhaustion hasn’t really gotten on our list yet.

I guess it’ll have to be added now since that’ll be our next challenge; staying awake long enough to –hopefully – get rescued. Or maybe we’re just going to end up staying awake to watch ourselves slowly die a long and painful death. Who knows? I guess we’ll have to wait to find out which option we’ll end up with.

I hope it’s the first one, but I can’t help but think that it’ll be the second one.

“Tired?” Michael asked me. I nodded.

“Yeah, I’m exhausted!”

“Me too, but I’m pretty sure you’ve already realised that we can’t fall asleep,” Michael said. I nodded my head.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” I replied.

“If we find a bigger raft or land or something then we’ll be able to sleep, but there’s nowhere to sleep on this log,”

“I know. You don’t have to remind me,” I told him in a grumpy tone.

“Don’t get cranky with me! Remember, we’re stuck here together and I’m tired of us fighting! We have to work together!”

“I know, I know. Sorry. The exhaustion is really just messing with my emotions,” I confessed.

“It’s alright, but I’m serious about the fights. We fought for the entire time that we were on that pirate ship and it did us no good! We need to get our act together and work as a team because if we don’t we’re going to end up dying out here!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You promised me that we wouldn’t just a minute ago!” I exclaimed.

“That’s because we’re going to fix our differences. Aren’t we?” Michael asked. I nodded slowly.

“Right,” I agreed. Michael smiled.

“Great, now, let’s keep our eyes peeled for anything that might be floating in the water that we could use,” Michael said to me as we both scanned the ocean in hopes that we’ll see something.

 Which was pretty unrealistic. I mean honestly, what are some useful things that float in the ocean? Seaweed. Yum.