Death & Back

Chapter 1

1

The sky was dark. The wind relentless. The black dinghy shook under the assault of every wave. Water slapped in over the sides. Ice cold, invading the inflated rubber floor.

Amira huddled with her elbows tucked to her ribs. Her hands on her knees. Her shins wedged against the large African man in front. The toes of someone's trainers digging into the small of her back.

All around her, she saw trembling bodies in cheap orange lifejackets.

The whites of eyes wide with fear and minds wired in spite of exhaustion. Amira willed the minutes, the seconds, the waves away. She breathed heavy through an open mouth. Attempted to quell the gathering squall inside her stomach.

It was no use. The rise and fall over each wave was unbearable. And they seemed to come at the dinghy from all sides.

Someone had already vomited. The smell unbearable.

The only reason Amira could think she hadn't been sick, was down to her stomach being empty of food. Two days without a bite to eat. And very little to drink.

On-board the dinghy, not an inch of rubber went spare. Which meant Amira couldn't see anything of the sea, or the land. Only the soulless sky.

She wondered if the unseen person steering the dinghy was off course. Or even worse—lost.

Amira would have asked him had she been able to move or make herself heard over the cross-chatter of languages. She didn't understand much. But she heard a few words in Arabic from two men sat on the far right edge of the dinghy. One man terrified of falling over the side—he couldn't swim. His friend reassuring him—the sea was warm, they had lifejackets, it couldn't be much longer.

The friend sounded as if he was trying to convince himself.

So she hung on, her mouth drier than the Hamad desert. Her mind in a sleep-deprived fog.

Until a glimmer of hope appeared. The sky was no longer black, but grey. It transitioned into a blue haze, casting light onto the faces of her near neighbours. The first she'd been able to see since departing the shores of Izmir.

To her left, she noticed a small girl. No more than seven. An angelic face. A shivering body swallowed up by her life jacket. She leaned into an ageing woman who looked too old to be her mother. They both appeared Arab.

From somewhere in the crowd, Amira heard a mention of land, spoken in her own tongue.

Cries from the bow of the dinghy confirmed it.

Everyone seemed to get the message. Amira saw smiles on faces. Felt her own mouth crease, the sickness in her stomach suspended for a precious moment. A man at the front yelled something about a beach. It was close. Less than a mile, another said.

Less than a mile. The waves would grow smaller. The dinghy would run ashore with the gentle, fizzing surf. Amira would step into the turtle-blue shallows. Dust her feet with the golden sands of whichever beach they landed on.

She would feel her stomach settle on solid ground. Her energy return. Then would come food, water, sunny skies . . . Amira snapped awake from her daydream.

A large wave hit with shuddering force. Seawater rained ice-cold over her head. She felt the wave roll underneath the dinghy. The bow rising steep to the left.

The first passengers fell off the side. Legs and feet disappearing into the water. The dinghy tipped steeper, almost ninety degrees. People panicked and screamed.

Another wave pounded the small craft. Amira slid to her left, swamped in a giant tangle of scrambling bodies.

She couldn't hold on. No one could. There was nothing—and no one—left to hold onto.