Troubling thoughts filled my head. My brain had reached its limit; I was filled to the brim with stressful thoughts about my so called “acquaintance”. If only he hadn’t erupted in anger and broken into a furious fist fight, maybe there would still be a chance we could still be friends, but certainly not after that display. It puzzled me, however, that of all the things I could be worrying about, I was worrying about this stupid kid. Why did it bother me so much? That I did not know. But what I did know was what my exhausted body needed, and that was sleep, and lots of it. Nothing was going to stop me from going to bed early tonight, not even my once good friend Maximilian.
I laid myself down in my bed. I remained face up for a while, turned here and there, but my thoughts were keeping me awake. It was like an alarm in my brain was going off and I couldn’t find the “off” button. A quick two hours rolled by, and I was losing shut eye. Finally, I thought to myself, “What a silly thing to be worrying about. We were never that good of friends anyway. I would be better off if Maximilian and I never had to talk to each other again.” Soon afterward, I was sound asleep, and felt the most content I had felt in quite a while. I slept for a while; it felt like an eternity.
I later slowly arose. However, something felt different about my bed. The warm sheets that I had so comfortably climbed into were now gone. I reached for them below my feet, and there was nothing. I quickly rubbed my eyes, trying to fix them on my bright red alarm clock on my dresser. It wasn’t there. I felt a calm light shine down on my face, but I could not force my body upward to observe what it was. Something was definitely wrong, because along with my stresses of daily life, my strength had seemed to drift away. Struggling and pushing with all my might, I tried forcing myself out of this odd trance. My efforts were futile, and I shortly fell asleep, my confused mind becoming a hostage of my own tired body.
A strong light awoke me with its piercing beams of heat. I lifted my arm to my eyes and my forehead so that I could block the sun from face. Feeling the weakness and fatigue of my arm alone, I knew something was wrong. Finally, I was able to clearly see where I was and what was going on. I looked upon in horror the small, inflatable raft I had had been sleeping in. As startled as I was, I did not move. I sat there, motionless, letting my brain absorb the circumstances that surrounded me. I then glanced down to my right, then my left, noticing two guys that had also been occupying this same raft for the night. I did not know these men, and looking down at their stationary bodies, I first assumed they were in a deep sleep. However, after studying them more carefully, I noticed that their chest did not move up and down slightly like that of a human when he/she is breathing. Hastily checking their pulse, I discovered that they were both dead.
The thought of two dead men lying motionless beside me scared me. I was unsure of what to do, looking around helplessly for some sort of answer. It was then that I noticed a third man on the raft. He looked familiar, but the glare of the hot sun on the water prevented me from seeing who it was. I forced myself upward and carefully crawled around the dead men, each movement I made becoming harder and harder due to the combined swaying of the raft on the water and the weariness of my body. When I approached the person, he was laying face down. Checking his pulse, I indicated that he was alive, but definitely unconscious. I gently turned his body over, being careful not to cause anymore problems. After studying his face, my heart seemed to feel mixed feelings of relief and anger. For the man who I had just identified was Maximilian, the same kid I had just recently swore to never talk to again.
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