Chapter Text
In hindsight, she should have never gotten on the damn boat.
Sybil Sherridan had been studying vertebrate biology, which normally meant sticking her feet on dry, firm, unsinkable land. But her key professor this year was a marine biologist, and when the research grant gods smiled and gave Dr. Koseman the opportunity to take a research vessel to study Humpback Whales in their winter breeding grounds off of Cape Verde, Sybil wasn’t going to pass up a chance to pad her resume and have a mostly-free trip to the tropics on the university’s dime.
And it had gone well. …Mostly well, once she’d gotten over her seasickness. At least until the storm hit. Despite the ship’s crew keeping an eye on the weather, the research vessel was suddenly caught in a fearsome Atlantic storm. Fortunately, the 250-foot Lady of the Cape was built to withstand rough water. Unfortunately, Sybil was in the 20-foot skiff that served as one of the ship’s tenders and as a spare lifeboat. She and a few of the other crewmen had been dropping underwater microphones attached to buoys when the storm began to roll in, and the warning came over the radio.
Now, she was clutching to the side for dear life as the third mate tried to bring the smaller boat alongside the Lady without being smashed into it. Waves drenched her. Rain poured down. Rain poured sideways.
A shudder crept up Sybil’s spine as for a moment, she thought she heard laughter in the howling wind.
The three crewmen with her besides the third mate were one by one, pulled up to the boat by harnesses and safety lines thrown over from the Lady. It was too dangerous to try and bring the boat close enough to get pulled up by the davit or to throw down a rope ladder, and Sybil had insisted on going second to last- partly out of courtesy, the Lady needed able hands more than another research assistant, and partly…
I am scared shitless about being towed over in a lifejacket in THIS weather.
Eventually though, the line was thrown over to the skiff again, and Sybil fumbled with icy cold fingers numb from the spray, trying to hook herself up; and then she was thrown to the ground, the skiff rocking as a rogue wave separated the boat from the lady, and sweeping the third mate over the side with a snap of the tether he’d been secured with. Sybil watched with wide eyes, knowing that the man would drown, before grabbing the end of the tether from the Lady and hurling it towards him, seeing him grab the end before another wave forced the skiff further away.
He’s safe, but I’m still fucked, She thought to herself traitorously. She double checked that her own tether was still tied to the skiff securely, and it was. The hull was reinforced and naturally buoyant, it would float even if it flipped over, though Sybil prayed that she’d never have to test that as she held on for dear life as the lights of the Lady and Cape Verde just over the horizon grew farther and farther away. All she could do was hope, and pray for a miracle.