15 HAND IN HAND (ZARA)

Little Zara had started to feel calmer after because she was already in the hands of her father. The place that she knew, where she can get the best security in her entire life.

However, the storm was not done yet, and they are still in the water. Her father swam her way back to the boat with Zara behind him. She was holding her father's shirt as she floated with him.

Nevertheless, another unexpected set of big waves threw their wooden boat towards them, and abruptly her father pulled her over and covered her with his body.

Zara can't forget her father's hopeless yet ensuring eyes that seemed like saying goodbye. At the same time how the boat moved at a slower pace in her memories when it flew, and part of its hull landed right straight to her father's head. The very head that protected her, for, without her father, it would hit straight to her face.

She was agape with the sight of blood blurting out from the crack in his head where the hull hit. The water in that part of the sea turns red, and she was pulled down underwater as the waves were swirling them.

The next few seconds that she was pulled by her jacket back to the surface, she can only see the sight of the boat floating away from her, getting smaller and smaller and the sight of her father no more.

*****

Zara stayed in the water for days. She was hungry, scared, and lonely.

But she felt numb, physically and mentally, and emotionally.

She was ready to die… she knew. She was already in agony, though.

Her father was dead, so there's no other reason for her to live. That was the moment she knew that her father was lying to her. He always told her that she was like a warrior girl. However, right there and then, she knew she couldn't fight, and she was just waiting for the time that she would see her father again.

The little Zara just simply closed her eyes and lay on the water surface under the hot sun and cold nights waiting…

She was not waiting for someone to help her and take her out from the water, but she was waiting, thinking, dreaming of what death looked like…

The next time she opened her eyes, after the glare of the sun hit, teasing her and giving her discomfort, she also heard a sound of the motorboat coming.

Instead of being happy, she was dismayed.

Unknown people take her out from the water and send her to the hospital. She stayed there for days before nuns in an orphanage picked her up. It didn't take her long to get adopted. However, she still knew that even though she will have another family again, a complete set of family with father, mother, and relatives.

She will never be happy again.

The life she had after that was always a struggle for her. She was always scared and sad, but she had to pretend all the time. She had to pretend to be happy. She had to pretend wild, strong, and feisty.

Yes, she has to pretend everything that was not her.

From that day on, as her father died. She kept in her mind that she was someone who was already dead too, that she died with her father, and the Zara that people see now was someone else.

*****

"Zara! Zara... swim!"

"Zara! try to reach for my hand!"

"Zara, wake up!"

"Listen to us, Zara!"

Voices of her friends woke Zara back to her consciousness. She found herself pulled away from her friends as the water dragged her into a big roundabout. She felt like she was riding a mary go round. There are times that she passes near friends, then the next time she finds herself getting away from her and back again.

While slowly and slowly pulled towards the center.

She was in a whirlpool.

"Swim, Zara reach for my hand," Dennise shouted. She was at the end of the line while the girls were holding hand in hand, with Yden on top, and she was holding the root of a big rubber tree.

Zara panicked for a moment.

Although, she knew even before that she wanted to die, so she can be with her parents again. However, seeing the girls, in front of her with the worried expression on their faces, screaming for her. She suddenly remembered her father, on the boat, who was trying to save her.

She realized that these girls cared for her, wanting to help her out of that situation and wanting her saved. Then, how can she ignore them? How can she disregard the effort they made for her?

She needed to live, she needed to be alive, and from that moment on, she tried her best to take Dennise's hands. She reached the tip of her fingers when it slipped again. Zara has pulled back to a roundabout again, and they doubt if she can still reach them the next time they come near.

A risky decision that Yden made, she let go of Leira to fill the distance between her hand and Zara's.

She made it, Dennise had reached Zara's hand, and they were now holding each other when the current pulled them away from the rest of the girls. Making things more hopeless, and both of them might be dead.

However, Zara can't let it happen. She never thought that Dennise would do something risky like that for her, and she had been treating her. So, she can't let something bad happen to Dennise.

She has to do something.

Without her realizing again that she was now swimming against the tide and pulling Dennise out of the whirlpool.

Zara was swimming.

She never knew that she still could swim, and she made it happen because of wanting to save Dennise, and she never did that for herself.