Sunday, March 5, 2017

A Chance Encounter


DAILY WRITING PROMPT

Write about how you met your partner, but set it on another planet or in a different era.

A Chance Encounter 

The endless voyage of storms, salty water, and rats made me pray for death. The pirate captain, my captor, left me in the rotten, smelling cargo hold where I wallowed in vomit and human waste. Retching became normal though nothing remained in my stomach nor on my bones and feeding the rats, the bugs I’d picked from my once striking bronze locks, held no amusement. I held no hope that my father could pay the ransom much less that I’d survive the crossing.

“Miss Joyce! Miss Joyce, please don’t be dead!” the quartermaster's voice rose above the thunder and lightning. I opened an eye. The handsome face of the only kind man on this god-forsaken ship stared back at me. Today his sandy, blonde hair hung in strings, dripping with rain and seawater. Blood drooled from a gash on his forehead and seeped around his sea blue eyes. My eye closed erasing the image of the once magnificent man that brought me food and water when no one else bothered. I moaned, blacking out.

The Quartermaster’s rippled chest and muscular arms carried me to the ship's edge. With no strength to fight him, I stared into the gray clouds. “Is this it? Is this how I will die? Please don’t let me suffer. A ball to my brain… First!” I whispered.

A chuckle gurgled deep in his throat as a new set of hands hoisted me into the longboat. I watched as we floated away from the pirate ship that had caused me so much pain. Fresh water dribbled over my lips and a blanket wrapped my shoulders in warmth.

“Joyce, we may drown before we reach land, but our best chance of survival lay off the ship,” his husky voice whispered in my ear as I passed out, again.

I awoke once in the dead of night, long enough to witness the bright round moon peek out from behind a cloud. By morning, the longboat scraped against the sand.

Our struggle had only just begun, for the next thirty years we’d spend our lives together on a small deserted island. Bryce never left my side.

Get your copy of 2nd Chances: A Book of Choices or/and Magic House from my website http://www.tdcooperbooks.com/contact-us.html. By following the direct links for each book to Kindle and Nook, or get a signed copy by following the prompts on the contact page of my website.

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