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Kalima climbed up the stairs that lead to the deck above. Once on deck she could hear the crackle of thunder and see the lightening striking the surface of the waters. She had a hard time standing as the wind and rain pressed against the ship continuously. Rain storms like these always frightened her, but this was different.
This was even more frightening than watching a storm from the window of her house. She did not like the storm and so decided to go back below deck, unfortunately her path was blocked by a large wave splashing on and washing over the deck taking everything in its path and sending it into the sea.
To her the waves appeared to have hands, feet and a body or what might have been the shadows and strobe lights of the lightening. It was like a bunch of monsters were climbing up, and over the sides of the ship. They would take form and begin to walk upon the deck. Kalima looked around her and could only see water monsters approaching from all sides as if they were coming out from the deepest depths of her worst nightmare.
The lightening lit up the sky and the flashes cascaded across the water of the sea and the water sparkled like a million diamonds in the sun. One of the water monsters grabbed her foot and made her fall flat on her back and something else grabbed her hand. It felt like a tug of war between the water monsters and something else, a hand. The waves of the sea were forcing the ship to rock violently from side to side. A huge wave picked up the ship and tossed it into the air or at least she felt like that had happened.
This ship had three masts, had a cargo of two tons and was a fair merchant ship that could hold about five tons of cargo. Far up on the highest point of the wave sat the ship as it was raised up high on the wave higher than most mountains and then dropped back into the sea on its side, snapping the center mast before it bounced back into an upright position again. At the same time Kalima was thrown heavily into the door of the cabin by whomever or whatever had won the tug of war against the sea.
Kalima held fast to the railing next to the bottom of the stairs just before the cabin door, but could not hold onto the one who had saved her life as soft fingers of a woman slipped from her small hands. She did not know who had saved her life, but was thankful due to her not knowing how to swim. The ship’s deck was high above her head and out of her line of site and from her position huddled at the base of the stairs holding on for deer life, she did not know if there was anyone on deck or what had happened to her heroine because those soft hands could not have belonged to a man.
She heard waves continue to walk upon the deck in an avalanche of water that sounded like the flow of rapids. A white and blue ball of lightening could be seen striking somewhere on the deck of the ship frightening Kalima with the sounds of wood being torn apart into tiny pieces. Some of them flew over her head, and struck somewhere above but behind her.