Marina Thorne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Marina Thorne knelt in the surf and dragged herself onto the sand. Her small boat floated upside down behind her, ruined. She had built it over three weeks to escape this island, to find a town, a doctor, anyone before her baby came. The sea had answered by flipping it in one wave. Now she lay soaked and shaking, six weeks from giving birth, further from safe than the day she washed up. She pressed a hand to her belly and felt the baby kick. Good. Still fine. But her clothes clung cold to her skin, and the sun was already low. She knew the nights here. Wet and still, they pulled the heat from your body. Her father had warned her about cold like this, back when they shaped hulls together in his shop. Cold this deep could kill. Marina stood. Her legs held. She scanned the shore for shelter and found it in the dark rock above the tide line. A cave mouth. Waves had carved it wide and deep. Water dripped down the worn stone walls, but the floor at the back looked dry. She stumbled inside and dropped to her knees on the sand. The wind stopped at once. That was not enough. Wet clothes and still air would still steal her warmth. She needed fire. Her eyes went to the cave floor. Driftwood lay scattered near the mouth, dry and pale from the sun. She crawled to it and gathered an armful. In her soaked pocket she found the flint she had carried since her first week on the island. Her hands shook so hard she dropped it twice. She built the wood into a small pile. She struck the flint against a stone. A spark jumped and died. She struck again. Nothing. Her fingers had gone stiff and clumsy. She pressed them under her arms, waited, then tried once more. The spark caught a curl of dry bark. A thin flame lifted. Marina bent close and breathed on it, slow and steady, the way her father taught her. The flame grew. It found the driftwood and climbed. She ringed the fire with stones from the cave floor, one by one, until a tight circle held the heat in place. Then she peeled off her wet outer layer and hung it on a jutting rock. She sat as close to the flame as she dared and turned her back to warm it. The shaking slowed. Warmth spread into her hands and up her arms. She looked at the walls glowing orange around her. Not a boat. Not an escape. But dry, and hers, and warm. The baby kicked again. Marina almost smiled. Then her stomach turned. The boat was gone. She could not leave the island now. Whatever came in six weeks would come here, in this cave, with no one but herself. She fed the fire another piece of wood and stared into it, and began to plan.