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again.
    Lucy
grins, hoping she doesn’t wake up for a really long time.  “Hi, caveman.  Wanna
make out?”
    Lucy
and Rhawn’s Dream- Fourteen Years Ago
     
    When
Lucy opened her eyes, she realized she wasn’t dead.  For a second, she wasn’t
sure whether to be happy about that or not.
    She
was lying on her stomach, generally feeling like hell.  Powdery white sand
clung to every bit of her body, from her eyelashes to her shoelaces.  Pushing
herself up onto her elbows, she swiped grit from her face and tried to swallow
down the taste of seawater in her mouth.  Her lower half was still partway in
the very cold water.  It took her a second to find the energy to pull
herself fully onto the shore, although that wasn’t so toasty warm, either.
    As
far as Lucy could tell, she was on a beach.
    Some
kind of bizarre genetic mishmash of evergreens and palm trees swayed overhead,
growing right up to the edge of the icy grey ocean.  Growing in the
ocean, in fact.  As if the dark water was swallowing them, inch by inch. 
Wherever the hell she was, it sure didn’t look like tropical blue waves of the
Caribbean.  These seemed like the kind of dark and dangerous seas Vikings had
sailed on, carving dragons on their ships to protect them from the monsters
beneath the murky surface.  This ocean was menacing.
    …But
not as menacing as the volcano.
    The
damn thing loomed up from a jagged line of mountains, spewing smoke into the
overcast sky.  Lucy had never seen a volcano before.  Well, she’d seen that
movie with Pierce Brosnan and the mom from Terminator , but she’d never
seen an actual volcano.  It was --she was absolutely positive-- not part of the cruise’s scheduled sightseeing tour.
    Where was the cruise?
    The
last thing Lucy remembered was the final deadly roll of the hull and plunging
overboard.  She’d hit the water like it was a brick wall.  Everything after
that was a blank.  Lucy didn’t even know what day it was.  How had she gotten
here?  Did she swim?  Float?  Did someone bring her to shore?  If so, where
were they?  Shouldn’t she be at a hospital or something?  She was just in a
damn boat crash!  Where were the doctors?
    Lucy
looked around.  No ship.  No people.  No helicopters searching for survivors. 
No houses or buildings.  No news trucks.  No ambulance waiting to take victims
to the hospital.  No lawyers shoving business cards at her and promising to sue
the cruise line for every last oar.
    No…
anything.
    The
chill that went through her had nothing to do with the weather.
    “Hello?!  Hello?   Is anyone there?”  A male voice called out.
    It
was a sad commentary on how scared Lucy felt that she actually breathed a huge
sigh of relief at the sound of Warren’s panicked cries.
    “I’m
here!”  She struggled to her feet and instantly doubled over in a coughing fit.
    It
felt like she’d swallowed half the ocean.  Lucy braced her hands on the knees
of her wet jeans.  There was still a strand of green Mardi Gras beads around
her neck and they swung forward.  She batted them aside.  Aside from aching all
over and the burning in her lungs, though, she seemed physically okay.  Nothing
broken or bleeding.  Apparently, she’d live long enough to be interviewed on a
very special episode of Dateline .
    Class
Reunion Castaway:  The Lucy Meadowcroft Story.
    “Moose-y! 
You’re alive!”  Warren came racing towards her.  He was waterlogged and sandy,
but otherwise unharmed.  Even his slicked down hair had survived the sinking. 
Science class had been right: Oil and water really didn’t mix.  “What
happened?”  He demanded, his blue eyes huge in his pale face.
    “We
went overboard.”  She straightened, still wiping at the grit covering her. 
“Have you seen anyone else?”
    He
shook his head.  “Just you.  Where are we?”
    “I
don’t know.”
    “What
do you mean you don’t know?  You’re supposed to have a million point
IQ!  How can you not know,