“Stop being a jackass! I CAUGHT you cheating… Why is it so hard for you to admit it? Fess up now or I am going to beat it out of you!”

Sean backed away laughing, swatting away the fake punches as they came in. “Its not even real money dude, it’s poker chips!”

Jack started bobbing and weaving throwing out jabs. “That is not the point and you know it! I was raking it in and you get caught cheating and everyone else quit the game for Pete’s sake!”

Jack suddenly stopped talking and his mouth opened up wide in a shocked look of surprise.

Sean said, “What is...” He noticed Jack’s stare and turned around.

The sky started to darken, but with a weird color. It was a purplish silver that he had never seen before. Clouds started to close in at impossible speeds forming a surreal foreign landscape in the sky. Deep rumbles of thunder could be heard and felt. The ship seemed to bounce from it. In an instant huge waves started pounding the sides of the ship.

Someone shouted from across the deck “If you’re near a hatch, get below and batten the cabins down. If your up here with me clip your harness to a rope fast!”

Instincts took over and Jack reached down to the clip attached to his life jacket. He had barely attached it when a huge swell pounded right next to him into the ship and he was thrown from his feet to a rough landing on the deck. Everything had gone from peaceful to panic in the blink of an eye.

Jack turned to see his friend tumbling head over heels away from him to the left. “SEAN!” Jack propelled himself in a dive at his crew mate and managed to snag his jacket by his shoulder. “Hey! You OK?”

Jack flopped him over and saw a heavily bleeding wound on his head. Sean was unconscious, but breathing. He quickly tore the bandana off that he was wearing and twirled it into a long bandage that he wrapped around Sean’s head.

A huge crash was felt throughout the entire vessel and Jack and Sean were both lifted about three feet in the air off of the deck and violently smashed back down onto it. Jack saw stars and was laying flat on his back dazed. All he could see was straight up and he sucked in a huge lungful of air and reached over towards the rail to grab onto something because he was terrified of what he was looking at.

The clouds had formed a huge vertical wall that was coming straight down to the water. They were pulsing with a bright red light just behind them. It reminded Jack of video he had seen of a volcano eruption. The thunder was now one constant roar and the ship was vibrating non-stop from the water assaulting it. The world had gone mad! Jack made it to his knees and could just barely see over the taffrail.

Purple lightning was coming out between tiny breaks in the clouds seeming to strike the boat and the huge vertical rocks that were appearing out of the water. “Wait a second! Rocks?” Jack said out loud to himself. “We are in the middle of open ocean! There shouldn’t be rocks!”

Jack frantically looked over the decks to see if he could find someone to ask what the hell was going on. A heavy fog descended onto the ship as the cloud wall reached them and he could barely see four foot out from himself. The only person he could see was Sean who was lashed to the rail unconscious. He scrambled over on his knees to Sean and pulled him up from under his arms. “I gotta get you below deck buddy.”

Jack spotted a rope attached to the rail a few feet away and dragged Sean over to it. The deck was bouncing up and down now and he managed to snag the rope and hastily loop it around himself under a shoulder and across his chest. He knotted it and did the same to Sean and started dragging him towards the nearest door which was about 50 yards away. After what seemed like an hour but was really only a minute Jack reached the door. He pushed his way in and pulled Sean in behind him and smashed it shut.

“We made it buddy, hang in there I’ll get ya down to the doc in a minute. I just need to grab my breathe!” Jack leaned back against the wall and took a deep breathe. He was going to rest for just a moment and then carry his friend down to the med room.

Just as Jack stood with enough energy to pick up Sean a deafening CRACK sounded throughout the ship. The hallway pitched straight up causing Jack to tumble down the hallway. The world flipped and he was sitting on the wall. Water started to pour in sweeping Sean into him in a tumble. Jack grabbed him in a bear hug and ducked his head into his friends shoulder as he saw a beam falling on top of them.

Then came nothing but darkness…