This is the second installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
All they could see was the blue water surrounding their sailboat. Land had to be somewhere, Jackson reasoned. Lake Riford boasted a diameter of only 25 miles—they’d read that in the book their father had given them—and that sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t really that big. Last summer, Jackson had sailed a lake twice that size for his 18th birthday.
He didn’t know how the current had gotten the better of him, but he knew he could get them back if he just had enough time—and quiet. Eric hadn’t stopped humming since the moment they realized they’d gotten lost. He now moved on to “Staying Alive,” and Jackson’s annoyance kept him from finding it as morbid as he should’ve.
“We’ll be fine,” he said as he rummaged through his backpack. The compass wasn’t where he’d left it, and it took him several minutes to notice it on the sailboat floor.
He’d salvage their “Brother Bonding Trip.” He wouldn’t let the current or the wind or whatever make him a liar; he’d take care of Eric.
The horizon swallowed half of the sun as Jackson tapped on his compass again and again. A spiderweb of cracks marred the glass, and the needle twitched like a fly caught in the silk. One of them must’ve stepped on it, but Jackson had no clue how it’d slipped out of the zippered pocket in the first place.
Lake Riford’s stagnant water smelled like his towel that one year at summer camp—stale and rotten and earthy. Jackson felt sick; he tried not to think about vomit mixing with the algae.
“I’ll be fine,” Eric said after a long silence.
Jackson turned toward him.
The blade glinted in the retreating sunlight, and so did Eric’s teeth as his lip curled. “I’ll tell Mom and Dad you drowned.”
Jackson dove into the water just as Eric lunged.
Miles Away 