In Time

What a beautiful sunset, Zaharah thought. Through half-hooded eyes she watched the clouds billow and twist in the orange light. Wait... outside? When did I get outside? A crackle filled the air, like someone walking over dry twigs and leaves.

She sucked in a breath, expecting the salty rank of the ocean, but what she smelled was burning. It stung her nostrils, clawed down her throat and seared her lungs. Not outside. Fire. And smoke. She coughed and tried to turn over, but her body refused.

"Zaharah!" A voice reached her through the smoke and cackle of flames, static-like, with an annoying posh accent. "Zaharah where are you? Oh god, oh god, oh god!"

Zaharah tried to speak but only a soft hiss escaped her mouth.

"No, no, no... Help! Someone help!"

"Skorpi? Zaharah?" Another voice, so sharp it pierced Zaharah's ear and lodged itself straight into her brain. This time when she groaned, a sound came out; something like a dying dog. Her vision cleared up enough to make out vague shapes and blobs of colour.

Skorpi blocked most of it with his flashes of silver and green. Waves of orange framed him, ebbing and flowing, flaring and dimming.

"Oh, shit! Z!" Quelle knelt beside her. "Jade, pass me the oxygen, quick." Zaharah opened her mouth to speak, but her sister pressed something over her nose and mouth. "Easy, just breathe. We'll get you out of here. Jade, grab Skorpi and get out of this smoke. I'll take care of Z."

Zaharah hissed in a breath as Quelle peeled her from the ground. Pain shot through her back, from shoulders to hip and she couldn't hold her head up.

"Damn, Z, when did you get so heavy?" Her sister hoisted her up and suddenly they were moving.

She hitched in shallow breaths, because that was all her body could manage. Her head bobbed and lulled against Quelle's shoulder. From her vantage point she could only see the side of her sister's face, backdropped by a cloud of smoke. Flickering firelight teased the sharp edges of Quelle's jaw and wavered in her eyes.

"Jade, get dad on the communicator," she said, and a moment later, their father's voice joined the cacophony.

"Quelle? Did you find Jade and Zaharah?"

"Yeah, they're with me. Jade's fine, but Zaharah's a little beat up. I think she got caught in the worst of it. I'll check her as soon as we get away from this fire."

"What?! Where's the nearest port, we need to get her to a doctor and—"

"Easy, dad, take a breath. She's fine. Smoke inhalation is the biggest worry, and she may have a concussion from the blast, but she's awake and conscious. We need to focus on getting everyone off the boat."

He exhaled a long breath. "You're right. You're right. Have you seen Nyah and Malaika?"

"No, but Ny said she was gonna head up to the deck to grab Mala from the pool. They can look out for themselves." She banked a corner, her boots thumping against the floor. "Any luck getting into the kitchen?"

"No, and the sprinklers haven't kicked in. I'm trying to access the emergency systems to redirect the water from the pool manually. Get down to the pods. I'll meet you there once I figure this out."

"Will do."

As they continued down the hall, the smoke thinned, and the air cooled. Quelle slowed to a stop and set Zaharah down against a wall. "Okay, Z, look at me."

She did, or tried to. Her sister's face blurred in and out of focus. Her breaths came easier now, but a stinging lingered in her throat and chest.

Jade stood off to the side, with Skorpi riding on her head and a backpack hanging from one shoulder. She looked up and down the hall, fixed her gaze on Zaharah for a second, then looked up and down the hall again.

"Jade, give me some water," Quelle said.

Zaharah didn't see the exchange, but felt the mask leave her face and the metal lip of a bottle against her lips replace it. As soon as the cool liquid touched her lips, she sucked it down as though she'd been stuck in the desert for a day. The sting in her throat eased a bit, and the fuzz cleared from her head.

And when the last bit of water slid down her throat, the reality of what was happening finally hit her like a sledgehammer to the head. The explosion, the fire, her sisters and mom missing. "What's happening?" Zaharah didn't recognise the hoarse, high-pitched voice that escaped her lips. Her body shook, and she gripped her sister's shoulders lest she fall over. "Why is everything on fire? Where's mom and dad and—"

"Easy Z." Quelle patted her hands. "Everything's going to be fine. We're gonna get to the pods and get out of here. All of us. Okay? Nod your head if you understand."

She did so, but her sister's assurances did nothing to ease her mounting dread. Mom and the twins were missing. Dad couldn't get into the kitchen, where she'd left mom less than an hour ago. Or she thought it was less than an hour ago. How long had she been laying in the hallway? She swallowed, both out of fear and to alleviate the dryness in her throat.

"All right. The pods are through this door and down the steps. Let's move." Quelle pulled Zaharah to her feet and flung an arm over her shoulder. "Skorpi, give us some light. Jade, get the door."

"Yes, ma'am." Skorpi's eyes changed from green to a bright white reminiscent of high beams.

Their younger sister pulled the handle on the hatch, revealing the dark stairwell beyond. Will the pods work if there's no power?

"The pods are on the auxiliary system, so we should be fine," Quelle said.

Skorpi's light connected with the metal walls, pipes and service wires flanking the stairwell. The sound of crackling and whooshing fire died down as they passed through the door, but a gurgling noise moved in to take its place. Their footfalls rang on the steps and bounced off the walls, undercut by the beeps of the pods.

Below them, nine wall panels glowed in the dark, marking the doors of each pod. Zaharah hadn't explored this part of the ship before, had no reason to. This was the part of the ship one went to when things went to shit. The air here was colder, unwelcoming, like a metal coffin. She'd never wanted to come here.

The boat groaned, louder than before, and a bang sounded over their heads, loud and metallic like a car collision. The room shook and tilted, and Quelle threw a hand out to catch the rail.

Zaharah dug in with the balls of her feet, much like she'd do to ground herself on the pocking pitch. Still. Her body teetered backward, forcing her to grab the rail lest she slip from her sister's grip. The bruises along her back screamed in protest and she gritted her teeth against the pain.

"Jade keep going." Quelle called over the noise.

Jade whipped her head around, eyes so wide her irises seemed to shrink. She clung to the rails so tight the seams of her shirt strained.

"Take a breath. It's okay. It only looks scary. Just hang onto the rail and climb down. Remember when we would climb the big gamalami tree in the old lot?"

Jade gave a jerky nod.

"It's just like that. Take it a step at a time."

From Zaharah's vantage point, it looked like half a flight separated them from the pods. But with the boat tilted, it looked more like a half-mile drop.

Jade loosened her grip on the rail and eased one foot down to the next step. Then another, and another, and another. All the while the groaning and crashing continued over their heads, but the room had stopped tilting.

"See? Easy," Quelle said when they hit the bottom. She leaned Zaharah against the wall next to pod one. Through the glass window on its door, Zaharah could see it was empty.

Her sister swore. "Jade, help me check the other pods."

They worked their way around the room, their movements made slow with the ship sitting askew. With the power out only, the light from Skorpi and the blinking control panels lit their way.

And Zaharah stood there on the sidelines, benched by her injuries. She sagged against the wall, her breaths shallow and her back aching. Watching them climb and slide around the room, made guilt settle in her stomach. She should be helping. Or something. Even after taking monster hits to the head in pocking games, she'd kept going. But now, her body refused.

Zaharah jerked her head up when a string of swears escaped Quelle's mouth. Both her sisters stood near pod five holding onto the wall.

"We have one fucking pod," Quelle said, and slammed her fist against the empty port. She whipped out her phone. "Dad, are you there? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. The mast collapsed, but I got the sprinkler system going." His voice was barely audible over the noise in the background. "Did you get to the pods?"

Quelle breathed a long exhale. "We did but all the ports are empty except number 4." A swear came through the line, an articulation of how they all felt. "What do you want me to do?"

"It's your call Quelle, you're the expert here."

"Put your survival suit on if you haven't already. I'll send Zaharah and Jade out of here and come back to help you find mom and the twins. If things go left, we need to jump off and get as far away from the boat as possible." And she hit the panel next to pod four.

The door slid aside with a hiss, and the lid of the pod popped up. "Come on, Z—"

"Wait..." Zaharah pulled away from her. "We can't just leave you guys. The ship is gonna sink and..." The next words got caught in the knot forming in her throat.

"And you want us to all sink with it?" She pointed a stern finger towards the pod's interior. "Get in. I'm not going to ask you again."

"But—"

Quelle hoisted Zaharah by the collar and dumped her into the pod. She hit the padded seating with a smack that rattled her teeth. "Jade get in." Jade settled in with no force or assistance necessary.

As the pod's lid came down Zaharah pressed her shaking hands against it. "Quelle wait!" Her pleas fell on deaf ears, as her sister was already headed for the steps. The lights in the pod came on, and her heart rate redoubled. She couldn't leave them all on a sinking ship, especially with her mother and sisters missing.

"Wait! We can help!" Zahara yelled. She punched the buttons on the pod's control panel, trying desperately to stop its launch, but it was already easing back into the water. "Shit!"

Skorpi hopped from Jade's lap onto the console. "I'm receiving a communication from his majesty."

"Zaharah, are you there?" The background was quieter now, and her father's voice clearer. Despite the tightness in her throat, Zaharah managed to choke out a yes.

"Take a breath, sweetheart. I need you level-headed right now. You remember how to steer the pod, right?"

She sniffled. "Yeah."

"Good. Once you're in the water get away from the boat. Quelle and I can handle things from here."

"Okay," was all she could say. The word was small and hoarse and almost choked her on the way out.

"We'll meet up again later, I promise. I love you both." And the call ended.

Zaharah fell back in her seat as the pod shot from port into the inky water. The ache of her bruises became an afterthought, overshadowed by the whirring of the pod's propellers and her own frantic thoughts. What if they don't make it off the boat in time? What if they never found mom or the twins? What if...?

Lights flared to life along the hood and in front of the pod, illuminating the hull of the Hurakan. A sniffle filled the cabin and Zaharah looked at Jade. She had the bag in her lap, with her face buried in it and her shoulders shaking.

Zaharah reached out with shaking hands for the controls, gripped them tight and took a breath. One of them needed to keep it together. She threw the pod into reverse before hitting the throttle. They backed away from the boat far enough to see the smoke billowing from the top and the orange glow of the fires.

It took everything within her not to throw it into drive, circle the boat until she found mom or the twin. She gripped the controls tighter and focused on the console instead of the boat, looked over the status of the pod, its battery pack, the GPS showing their coordinates. And the pod chugged along the black waters until the fires shrunk and the smoke was a column stretching into the night sky. Only then did she kill the throttle and let it bob in the water.

"We'll wait for them here," Zaharah said. She took her hands off the controls and sat on them to stop herself from doing something stupid.

"Zaharah, I'm scared," Skorpi said. He curled up on the console, his eyes dimming to a green that was almost black.

"Me too. But dad and Quelle know what they're—" Her words were cut off by a blast that tore through the night air. The pod bounced and dipped into the water, troubled by the waves, and a fiery inferno swirled up from the Hurakan, its roar drowning out Zaharah's screams.