Berkley felt a tug on her scuba line which was the signal for her to come up, so she kicked her feet and made it up to the surface. She pulled her goggles and oxygen mask off, clinging onto the ladder on the side of the boat.

"What's up?" she asked, catching her breath.

"Look," her Mom said, pointing up at the sky overhead. "Those dark clouds have moved in on us. Let's go ahead and head back to the house. I'm starting to feel uneasy."

"Ok. That's fine. I couldn't find what I was looking for so I'll just have to come back out next week or something," she said, climbing up the ladder on the side of the boat and sitting down, unzipping her wetsuit and peeling it off before drying off with a towel and pulling on a hoodie and a pair of jeans over her bikini.

She heard a loud rumble of thunder and lifted her head to look at the dark clouds overhead and she felt a cool breeze blowing in. She could see lines of rain coming down from those clouds in the distance.

"I thought you were going to tug on my line at the first sight of some dark clouds? Those are practically right on us already."

"Sorry. I was laying up on the deck sunbathing and I fell asleep. I didn't mean to, it's just been a long week and I was really tired."

"It's okay Mom. I'm not mad but we better get going. That storm's really moving," she said, getting up and making her way into the control room. Her Mom followed behind her and shut the door.

Berkley turned the key over and the engine just made a gurgling, revving sound and didn't start up.

"You've gotta be frickin' kidding me. Of all the times for the engine not to start up," she said, punching the counter, and exhaling in frustration. She tried a few more times to start it but had no luck. "Here, you stay up here and start radioing the Coast Guard for help and I'll go down below and see if I can figure out what the problem is," she told her Mom.

She nodded but Berkley could sense how uneasy she felt about the whole thing.

Rain had started coming in so Berkley grabbed the fisherman's jacket off the hook behind her and pulled it on over her hoodie as she stepped out of the control room onto the deck. The rain was coming in sideways and it stung at her face as she made her way across the deck over to the engine room door. She looked out at the violent ocean waves and was shocked at how fast this storm was getting bad. She almost lost her footing as a wave crashed into the side of the boat and she looked up to see that the dark clouds were right overhead now and there was another long rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning.

Berkley was hit with a pang of guilt over the fact that she was the reason they came out in this storm in the first place and she could tell her poor Mom was freaking out. She just needed to get this engine going, she told herself as she opened the engine room door and went down the steps. When she got to the bottom she realized her legs were wet up to her mid shin and she heard gushing water.

"Shit! You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" she shouted. "Of all the days for this to happen it had to be when a massive storm is going on!"

She trudged through the water over to the engine and tried to figure out where the gushing water was coming from and she finally found it but she didn't have the tool with her to fix it. This was bad. Really bad. She looked around the room and saw a roll of duct tape and figured what the hell. It might buy them a little time.

She wrapped as much duct tape around the leak as she could but it was hard because the water pressure was too fast to get it to stick.

She flipped the switch to turn on the bilge pump that was used in emergencies to pump out water from inside the boat but she could tell as fast as it was gushing in, it wasn't going to be enough.

She felt the boat rock really hard to the side so she knew the storm was getting a lot worse and it looked like this ship was going down as fast as it was taking on water. She needed to get to her Mom and they needed to get in a life raft now.

She trudged up the stairs, holding onto the railing again as the boat tilted to the side so fast she smacked her face right into the wall.

"Owww! Shit!" she said, reaching up to the top of her head and seeing blood on her fingers.

She opened the engine room door and instantly realized that the storm was already much worse. The sky was now black as night and the waves were huge, crashing against the side of the boat and coming up onto the deck. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing so hard that she struggled to open the engine room door enough to get out of it, but she did. She made her way onto the deck and started walking towards the wheelhouse where her Mom was when another wave hit, knocking her off her feet and sliding her across the floor, slamming her hard into the railing.

It really hurt and she laid there and groaned, trying to catch her breath.

"Berkley!" she heard her Mom's voice call out.

She turned her head and saw her Mom standing on the deck outside the wheelhouse room looking at her with a worried face.

"Go back inside! It's not safe out here!" she shouted at her but her voice got carried away by the wind. She started walking towards her and Berkley yelled again, "Stop! Mom it's not safe!" as she sat there, clinging onto the boat railing for dear life.

Right then a massive wave crashed into the side of the boat so hard it almost felt like it was going to flip the whole thing over and she heard her Mom's piercing screams and a look of pure terror on her face as she lost balance and went over the railing head first into the ocean right in front of her.

"NOOOOOOO!!!" Berkley screamed, feeling like a dagger went through her heart. She struggled with every bit of strength she had to stand up and she looked over the side of the boat into the dark ocean and couldn't see a thing. She cried out in pain and started to sob. "MOM!!" she screamed into the wind, her tears getting washed away by the stinging rain.

"MOOOOOOOM!" she cried out, choking on her tears, looking for any movement in the choppy water but there was none. "MOOOOOOOOM!!" she screamed as loud as she could, but no matter how loud she screamed it got carried away in the wind.

Then she started hearing a thumping noise overhead in the distance and it gradually got louder and she saw a white spotlight crossing across the ocean waves in the distance and finally the light locked onto her and the boat, lighting everything up around her in a white glow. It was a Coast Guard helicopter and she knew she was being rescued but she was devastated they hadn't gotten there in time to save her Mom.

She heard a knocking sound and she looked around the ocean and the sound got louder. Why would there be a knocking sound coming from the ocean, she wondered. She blinked and closed her eyes and suddenly she sat up and looked around and realized she was in a bedroom and not on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

The knocking got louder and she looked around and heard a deep voice say, "Berkley! Are you okay?"

She was panting for air and her heart was thumping like a drum, with sweat beading on her forehead. Finally her brain caught up and realized it had been another nightmare. Dean was at the door and she got up and unlocked it.

"Are you okay?" he asked, looking worried. "I heard you screaming from all the way down the hall."

She pulled her arms tight around herself and felt the tears building up in her eyes. She just shook her head and couldn't speak as a tear ran down her cheek and she sniffled. Usually her night terrors were just little bits and pieces of what happened but this time she relived the whole thing and it felt so real.

Dean stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, rubbing her back. She sobbed against him, "It was my fault Dean. If it wasn't for me we never would've been out there that day. I was so sure we could get back before the storm hit," she cried. "It should've been me that went overboard. Not her," she sobbed, feeling the overwhelming guilt and sadness that haunted her dreams every night.

"It's not your fault Berkley. You didn't know the boat was going to have engine problems or how fast that storm was going to move in. Like you said, you thought you could make it back before the storm hit. No one blames you."

"I blame me," she sobbed. "My poor Mom died the most horrible, scary death and we can't even have a funeral for her because they never found her body," she cried.

Berkley felt her legs giving out on her and she collapsed to the floor and cried into her hands.

"It's all my fault. I just wish I could take her place," she cried, feeling an intense pain in her heart. "I made her go that day. It's all my fault," she sobbed, pulling her arms tight around herself, as she started rocking back and forth and the tears ran down her cheeks. "She didn't want to go," she repeated over and over, staring off in a daze.

Dean sat on the floor next to her and put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm so sorry Berkley," he whispered, holding her tight as she buried her face in his chest and sobbed. She cried harder than she ever had, soaking the front of his shirt and struggling for air as her chest constricted and she shook with tears.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, rocking back and forth with her. He held her for a few minutes comforting her as she cried before he finally asked, "Do you want me to sleep with you?"

She just nodded her head, too upset to speak.

He stood up and then reached down and picked her up off the floor and carried her to bed, laying her down and snuggling up next to her, pulling her into his chest.

"It's okay. I'm here now. You won't have any more nightmares," he whispered, running a finger through her hair.

She sniffled. "I think the nightmares are my punishment for being so selfish that day. I have to relive the worst day of my life over and over every night in my dreams. It's like torture but I deserve it," she whispered, as she shook with her teeth chattering from being so upset.

"No Berkley," he whispered. "You don't deserve any of this."

She really wished she could believe him.