3...He would succeed. He was tired of failing.
He walked towards the edge of the window of the cruise ship, and stared out the window, towards the horizon with the quickly coming dawn. He had hair that was a mix of brown and red, causing it to be copper-colored. He had black eyes. His name was Terry, and he would not fail again...
One_Paradise
Nothing to be afraid of. You don't have to be afraid of anything. Not anything at all. Just close your eyes and take deep, full breaths and let the aroma of the sea wash over y-
"I think I'm going to barf," Nick said, leaning against the railing and massaging his stomach gently. His hands were large and strong, but at the time quivering and weak. His arms, now dotted here and there with tense perspiration, were taut and well muscled, his skin tanned deeply. His face was normally dark and handsome, but given the circumstances it was currently a rather unpleasant shade of green.
A girl with dark red hair leaned against him affectionately and patted him on the back a few times. "Oh sweetie, are you okay?" she said in a rather maternal tone.
"Fine, I'm fine," Nick said, hardly daring to open his mouth. He was afraid he might spew his lunch-tantalizing salmon drenched in lemon juice-all over the young woman before him, a tall, skinny one name Lily.
"Lil! Leave barf-bag alone, he's had enough!" Both Lily and Nick turned from their position on the deck to two other people: a short, hardy young man of what looked like twenty and a Hispanic girl with black hair and a large freckle in between her eyebrows. Lily sighed.
"I'm afraid he's going to fall overboard or something. He doesn't look too good."
"Let him!" said the short twenty-something with a genial smile. The girl next to him, who was several inches taller by comparison, smirked and punched him in the arm in the way that only a girly-girl can.
"Ha-ha," Nick said slowly, willing himself not to empty his stomach's contents. "You're-a-riot."
The man bent down and picked up a Coors Light on a minuscule white table next to four deck chairs. "Hey, Di. Let's get outta here."
The taller Hispanic girl sighed. "What if he's really, really sick, though?" she said. "She's right. He looks terrible."
"Like that's any different from how he normally looks," the boy said with another smirk.
"Be nice, Colby. He did invite you, didn't he?"
Colby took a series of short gulps from his beer and, upon emptying it, crushed it in his hand and threw it overboard gracefully.
"Don't do that!" Di rebuked. "You're gonna kill the fishies!"
"Probably," Colby replied nonchalantly, running a finger through his hair, which was golden-blonde and slicked back. Upon finding a hair anomaly, he licked his palm and ran his hand back over his hair. "Did I get it?"
Di sighed, but didn't answer. Instead she walked towards Nick and Lily, who were both doubled over as if they'd been recently shot in their respective guts.
"How's it goin'?" she asked gently, patting Nick on the shoulder. He retched horribly and Lily looked away, a grimace on her face.
"Gross! Oh, oh-" Lily squealed as Nick parted company with his lunch. "Away. I'm going to go over there and be-away."
Di turned her back and examined a large beetle of some kind crawling over the surface of a deck chair as Nick continued to vomit spectacularly off the side of the boat. Somewhere on the deck, a door opened and the plump face of an elderly woman poked out, looking half concerned and half irritated. A child appeared at her side and said "Cool!" at the sight of Nick spewing his breakfast.
Lily leaned up against the wall and looked at Colby with an expression of utter distaste as he sauntered toward her, a fresh can of beer opened in his right hand. He took a long gulp and watched Nick finish up his daily ritual. They'd been on the St. Jehi for two days already and around noon he always emptied his stomach over the side of the railing with particularly loud and gut-wrenching heaves. This offered a good half-hour of pitying looks from the surrounding crowd aboard the St. Jehi coupled with Lily's exclamations of repugnance and Di's simpering coos.
"Quite the sight, isn't it?" Colby remarked, looking out at sea. Lily brushed her dark red hair out of her eyes, which glinted a deep, mysterious sapphire in the sun, which was steadily climbing higher in the sky. She tried to say something but was cut off by a final gag and heave from her boyfriend a few feet away. She furrowed her eyebrows.
"It's okay," she said slowly. "I'm thinking the next time we travel anywhere with Nick, though, it's gotta be by plane."
"Hm. I kind of like being out on a ship. It sort of makes me feel like... like I'm in paradise or something. A tropical paradise that I can just relax in."
"Makes sense," Lily said, looking at Colby with a gentle smile.
He responded with a cordial smile of his own, and felt his face burning. He quickly looked away and studied the water again as Lily returned to Nick's side. He was wiping his mouth off with a white handkerchief he kept in his pocket, which was made of some sort of silk fabric. Nick's parents had scored a fortune in the computer industry, and therefore were perfectly able to afford such commodities. That was why they were on the St. Jehi in the first place, basking in the warmth of the sun and listening to the screeching echo of seagulls: it was the first day of summer, and being so wealthy, the Hawthorne family had decided to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. Nick, a nineteen-year-old trying to make it through his freshman year of college, invited his girlfriend Lily, his best friend Colby, and his old ex, Di. Along for the ride were his parents, his twin brothers Jack and Jared, and his sister, Nelly.
"You okay there, man?" Colby said, looking over at his friend with a sort of grimace.
"I'm-er-fine, I guess," Nick replied. He wobbled slightly on the spot and clutched the banister he had, not a minute ago, been gripping so hard his knuckles were white, and burped.
Di returned to Colby's side and put her arm around his shoulder, kissing him briefly on the cheek. "I'm gonna head to the pool," she said. He nodded, looked at her briefly, and smiled.
"Yeah. Maybe I'll come with."
Colby gulped down the remnants of his beer and promptly threw it overboard. Di just rolled her eyes this time and, hand in hand, they walked through a door a few feet away and disappeared from sight. Lily grasped Nick's cold, slimy one and said, "You wanna wash up maybe and join them?"
"I don't know," Nick said. "I think I might rest a bit."
"Oh, come on! We're on the St. Jehi! You've gotta have some fun sometime."
"Who says?" Nick mumbled, stalking towards the door his friends had just disappeared from.
"Come on!" she persisted, pulling at his shoulder. "This place is like... well, paradise. Don't you want to explore it?"
He didn't respond, but sighed and nodded slowly. Lily clapped her hands together and jumped in the air excitedly, grasping his hand more firmly.
"Great! Go wash up, and we'll meet you by the pool! Bye!"
And with that, she raced up the hall and out of sight, nearly knocking herself into a maid that was pushing a laundry cart. Nick wobbled on the spot again and groaned uncomfortably.
Some paradise.
A/N: Ohhh yeah! First chapter, baby. If you have spotted a noticeable difference in writing, chances are it's because Korakane wrote the previous prologue (Dreams) and I wrote this chapter (Paradise). You can expect to have different points of view in later chapters. Also, some will take place in Terry's point of view... You already know he's the Big Bad from the prologue. Okay, carrying on... This is my first cowritten story and I'm excited, especially because I'm able to write it with Korakane, whose fantasy epic "Dragonstone" has really changed how I think about that particular genre. You can read his stuff, which (duh) is on his profile, but if you want to check out mine, just go See ya in chapter three (most likely).
'Slayer