Rise Of The Six (The Preston Six Book 1)

by Matt Ryan

  Her swollen tongue stuck to the dry sides of her mouth. She hadn’t drank anything in two days. How long could a body go without water? Getting up on her knees, Poly pulled back the Velcro panel protecting the screen that ran the boat. The arrow still pointed in the same direction, but what did it even mean? She’d lost all sense of direction. She blindly hoped and feared the boat wasn’t traveling in a large sweeping circle, perpetually sending her dying body on a round trip.

  Her mind played through awful scenarios. She’d be found dead, dried up and shriveled, ten years from now. They’d run finger prints, DNA samples, and dental records, before she’d be declared a mystery person who didn’t have a place on their planet. Her withered body would be dumped into a mass cremation. After spending many hours going through different scenarios, this one seemed the most likely.

  She slapped the flap closed and jerked the zipper, blocking out the sun. Poly was sick of the sun.

  Spending much of the last two nights trying to find a comfortable spot, she’d finally found it—a soft spot near the door. She lay there for the next few hours. It could have been longer, or it could have been ten minutes. Alone, with nothing but thoughts to occupy her, made time impossible to tell. She decided not to get up anymore; laying there until the mass cremators found her and disposed of her shell. The urge to open the craft and feel the salt water hit her face and the sun burn her skin, faded.

  Her chapped lips ached, but she didn’t think about that anymore. Poly wished she could say Joey and her friends consumed most of her thoughts, but she had to be honest with herself, it was water. She would push Joey to the ground to get to an ice-cold lemonade with extra sugar. She groaned thinking about it. No. Joey was in the hands of MM, probably being experimented on at that moment. She shouldn’t have such selfish thoughts.

  After Joey, her thoughts went to the plane exploding and if any of her friends were still alive. Were they waiting for her on this supposed island? Even if she lived to see it, she didn’t know what she would do there.

  Forests, grass fields, even school, seemed like a dream. Preston felt like a distant place, somewhere made up by Hollywood. Her mom had to have been an actor, and her dad was still alive, just kept away from her. Why did they take her dad away? Everything Poly loved was gone and she was stuck on some stupid boat, alone. She pulled out a knife and stabbed the tarp above her head. She kept stabbing it, her dry lips splitting as she screamed, watching the slits of light shoot through each new hole.

  Poly dropped the knife onto the floor, exhausted, letting her body fall down next to it. She couldn’t hold back the tears, but there wasn’t anything left to spill forth. She brought her knees close to her chest and hugged herself, her body wracked with tearless sobs.

  She would die here. Her body would float on forever.