Meg was not often the kind of girl who found herself the center of things. Not the center of attention, not the center of trouble, not even, so often, the center of her own thoughts. She was fairly average in that she was studious, athletic, and healthy. She was the only child of two doting parents, privaledged yet not spoiled. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a nurse, yet she was neither. She was a sailor; a free spirit who longed to see the world and experience an adventure, even despite the life she had always been satisfied with. She was a good friend yet not overly social, intelligent yet not a showoff, a middle-of the road, steady, calm person who could lead her peers easily, yet who often stayed in the background, unless she was needed.
It was her best friend, Piper, who was the center of attention. Beautiful and gregarious, Piper was brash and loud. She was a partier and always had a string of boys after her. She found it difficult to commit to one course of action, and and tended to attract disaster, which she invariable blew out of proportion. She liked drama and attention, and thrived when she was the life of the party. Perhaps Meg had been drawn to her due to her unfulfilled need for adventure, and Piper had been able to stick with her boring friend because, unlike people who were similar to Piper, she and Meg never fought. They had been roommates the first year of college, where Meg was studying Oceanography. After that first year, they decided it was best not to live together, but other than that, they had been inseperable. They had been best friends for three years now, although Piper did not seem to be any closer to graduating - unless she was majoring in boys. With thick, long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smattering of cinnamon freckles, Piper tended to coast through life.
Sterling was dark, brooding, and mysterious. He was that cliche which never gets old, and even though Meg never knew where she stood with him, she was always happy to have him around. He and Piper had a fling awhile back, and even though they were over, and Piper would never do anything because she knew that Meg had a crush on him, they all pretty much knew that he only hung around because of Piper.
Penny was a tomboy with orange-red hair cut short, and elfin features that nevertheless got her mistaken for a guy all the time. She was easy-going and had been Meg's roommate for two years. She was dating Dave, a hearty but plain-looking all-American type of guy who was dependable but a bit dumb. They were a somewhat strange crew to be spending their spring break together on a yachting trip, but they were a closely knit group of friends who wanted to be together and on their own.
Piper had paid for the small rented yacht with her rich parent's money, but she had the least sailing knowledge of all of them. Meg had the most nautical knowledge, and Sterling was the next best. Although he had come along to spend more time with Piper, it still felt intimate when Meg and Sterling piloted the boat together, especially when they were doing so alone. This was a common occurence, as Penny and Dave were often off making out in some corner (as they had only come with the other three to avoid going home to their controlling parents') and Piper usually just sat laid out and worked on her tan.
They had been on the water for a five days, and were making great time. Meg had the chance to have a few late night heart-to-heart conversations with Sterling, in which he talked about his feelings for Piper, and she listened supportively. Penny had told Meg she shouldn't be such a pushover, and Piper had blindly insisted that Sterling just 'didn't know what he wanted,' and 'needed to get over her and go out with Meg.' Piper was loyal and passionate, if nothing else.
The fateful event that would change all of their lives forever happened late on the night of the fifth day, not too long before the hours of dawn. They had all been asleep when a storm came up, and despite their training, they were unprepared and ill-equipped. Not all of them had even managed to get their life jackets fully on before their boat had been ripped apart on the shoals of an island that had not been on their maps. Meg and Sterling had tried to navigate the storm while Piper screamed and Penny and Dave tried to bail water out of the boat that came over their vessel in huge, crashing waves. In one such wave, Dave was washed overboard. Though they could barely see with the rain and waves in their eyes, and barely focus while they clung on to dear life, Meg thought she could see enormous fish in the water, with long hair and teeth and...Dave fell among them, and the water turned red, and Meg saw human faces, contorted in bloodlust, and Dave's shrieks were cut off and the nightmarish vision was lost in another enormous wave.
The ship broke on the rocks while Piper was still trying to fasten her lifevest, and Penny was screaming for Dave and trying in vain to get to him. Sterling shouted something and Meg went under the choking water, and a piece of the yacht slammed into her and she grabbed for it, her fingers scrabbling along the slick sides for some hold. She found something, rope perhaps, and thrust her arms through it, and a wave turned her and it under and over and suddenly she realized she was above water again, and she coughed up saltwater and hung onto the flotsam. She heard a roar that she did not know if it was water or wind, but suddenly the piece of boat she was on was flying through the air, faster than she could ever remember moving, and boughs of trees smacked against her, and she was tumbling through them and the piece of ship was gone, but she could no longer see anything and all she could feel was herself summersaulting through the air, and things hitting her. She had long since been certain that she was going to die, and then she hit her head, and she blacked out.
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