Writing Prompt Wednesday #10

#4 – Due to climate change, wildfires have engulfed the large majority of living land. Your character is one of many attempting to board a ship set for a new in-ocean settlement. The problem? That settlement doesn’t actually exist.
https://self-publishingschool.com/fiction-creative-writing-prompts/

NOTE: So, I usually try to keep my writing prompts somewhere between 1-3 pages because they’re short stories. This would make a great book, but it’s very hard to elaborate on because of how short I keep these prompts. Despite that, I did what I could and I hope all of you enjoy it! :)

I was 14 when the fires hit. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, even the news didn’t do it justice. Towering, 50-ft walls of flame, threatening to char anything that it touched.
My family hadn’t made it out in time. There was nowhere to go. All of the land was being burned by this. Heck, I hardly made it out alive. I’d been carried away by Mikal-one of the boys in my village-long after I’d passed out.
I then joined a group of people making their way to the ocean. It was hard, leaving my life behind, but I knew that I didn’t have a choice. I’d heard talks, whispers, of a city on the water-where the fires couldn’t reach them. A life where they wouldn’t have to worry day-on-day about being burned to death. A life with peace.
The group-who had now begun to call themselves the Sailors-made their way to the docks. It’d taken many years to travel here on foot, and there’d been many close encounters with the fires, but we were finally here.

“I can’t believe it,” Mikal said. “I didn’t actually think it’d come but...we’re here.”
“Believe it, boy. Let’s get a move on,” Captain Sazen said, giving Mikal a good-natured shove. “We’ll be out of here in no time.”
I grinned and cheered with the rest of our rag-tag bunch of Sailors. At first I’d been slow to trust them, but now they were like family. I shot a grin at Mikal as we charged toward the dock.
Citizens started at us, wide-eyed, as we ran. I doubt they’d seen many fire-victims this close to the shore and I was sure they’d never seen any as battered as we were. I ignored them though, whooping and hollering all the way down.
While Captain Sazen talked to some of the ship’s captains, the rest of us ran around the shore, splashing each other and playing in the waves. I sat next to Mikal, beaming into the sunlight. “I love it when you smile,” he said. “It’s like the sunshine on a cloudy day. It’s so rare, but when it shows you can’t help but be joyful.”
I sent him a grin back. “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem.”
"No, thank you for everything,” I said. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. You saved my life, Mikal. I’ll never forget that.”
He blushed and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. He opened his mouth to respond, but we heard a voice call out, “Sailors! Come on board, we’re heading out!”
We cheered again and took off toward the dock. I awed at the boat-a huge wooden vessel with a gold trim and gargantuan cloth sails that billowed in the wind. I ran a hand along the edge of the boat, feeling the cool smooth gold under my fingers. “Men, women, gather round,” Captain Sazen called. We all turned to him. “Some of us have been together for many years. Some only a few months. But we’ve all been destroyed by the fires and that has brought us on this journey. We are finally here. Today we will find the ocean settlement. Today we will find glory. Today we will set sail.”

The next few months at sea were almost worse than the fires. Huge, towering waves and storms crashing on the ship’s deck. At least the fires could only burn you, the waves were so much stronger and could do so much more damage. You could hardly go for one day without being soaked to the bone.
One day, I approached Captain Sazen. “Sir, can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead, dear,” he told me.
“Why do we keep going? These storms wreak havoc on our ship and crew. We’re sailing to an island that we have no proof exists. Why do we keep going?”
Sazen sighed and turned to me, taking his eyes off of the ship for a second. “Hope.”
“Hope?”
“Yes, Acia, hope,” he said. “You’re right, we don’t know if this place we’re going to exists. We don’t know if we’ll get there safely. Heck, we don’t even know if we’ll survive through the morning. But without hope, we are nothing. So, we hope. Because it’s our only choice.”
I looked out to the sea. It was calm right now. No towering waves. No icy storms. A fish-like creature jumped out of the water in an arc. The water was the same color as Mikal’s eyes. In it, I saw hope.