Turbulence (Part Three)

Looking back on this story, which I wrote a few weeks ago and am now posting in four parts, I realized it isn't really that great of a story. Still, I figured I'd post the rest of it just to see what you think.

I'd greatly appreciate any feedback you can give- particularly things you dislike about this story- so that I can avoid making the same mistakes in my next piece. Muchos gracias!

And now, your feature presentation...

Turbulence

When Riley’s eyes fluttered back open, the first thing she noticed was the icy, gripping cold emanating from the water she was submerged in. She almost sighed. She was halfway to Hawaii for goodness sake; you’d think the water would at least be fairly warm.

But it wasn’t.

On the bright side, the shocking cold helped jerk Riley back into focus after she blacked out. She was alert in moments and the first thing she did was thrash about wildly, looking for Luke. He was right behind her, as she soon discovered, helping her to stay afloat on a smooth white shard salvaged from the crash. Of course he was there, she thought, calming down, he had promised, hadn’t he. She smiled. They were both alive. Everything was going to be alright.

“Do you feel okay?” Luke asked anxiously. She turned to look at him and saw his brown eyes wide with worry. “You’re right, you did break a few ribs,” he rambled on, “but they’ll heal right up with proper care. You’ve only been out for a minute or two; I just got you out of the plane and found something to float on…” He trailed off, alarmed by the fact that she still hadn’t spoken, and his brow wrinkled with concern.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. What about you, did you get hurt at all?”

“No, I made it out pretty much okay,” Luke answered, “but we were lucky.” His voice cracked slightly as he continued. “Not very many people did.”

For the first time, Riley looked around, surveying the wreckage. The plane was almost completely submerged now; in a few minutes it would be lost forever beneath the surface of the waves. Fragments of the white material that had plated the outside of the plane had shattered upon impact and now littered the water. A young boy, no more than twelve, clung to one of these shards, crying out for his mother who, although he would never know, had sacrificed herself in order to save him, pushing him from the plane moments before passing out from loss of blood. Not too far away from him floated the corpse of an old man who had managed to escape from the plane but been unable to prevent his lungs from filling with water. Lying unconscious upon another white shard floating directly on top of the submerged portion of the plane was a woman in her late thirties. Tucked in the nook of her arm was a young infant, wailing inconsolably and lying dangerously close to the deep abyss of the ocean.

Three survivors. Five, counting Luke and Riley. It seemed like such an inconsequential amount compared to the hundreds of people who had boarded the plane only a few hours ago. A tear trickled down Riley’s cheek at the thought of all the lives that had been snuffed out in only a few minutes.

“Riley?” Luke said hesitantly. She turned to face him and, despite the circumstances, felt her heart stop at the sight of him. “Listen, the plane’s going to go under any minute now. I need you to swim as far away from it as you can so you don’t get pulled under when it does, okay?”

Riley considered for a moment, then frowned. “What about you?” she asked, unsettled. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

Luke turned away. He knew that if he looked at her she would try to change his mind- and probably succeed- and he couldn’t let that happen. “I’m going to get the baby,” he said. “If I don’t he’ll either fall off or get pulled under or both. Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.”

Riley’s features froze into an impeccable mask of disbelief. “You just said the plane is going to go under any minute now!”she exclaimed furiously. “You can’t swim back over there; you’ll get sucked under when it does!”

Luke began to swim away, refusing to look her in the eye. “Think about it, Riley,” he said. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”

“Luke!” she cried, more terrified of losing him than she had ever been of anything in her life, including when the plane had been spiraling downward and she had been certain she was about to die. “Please!” she begged. “Please don’t go. I love you, isn’t that enough?”

Luke didn’t continued swimming, the rhythm of his calm, steady strokes unbroken. And then, just when she thought he would ignore her completely, he replied:

“I’ll come back!” he called over his shoulder.

“I promise.”