Then the jaws did that thing again. They seemed to shoot out of the massive creature’s head, but this time, the beast snapped the chunk of metal they had been floating on in half, leaving the boy alone on his side, and his father in the teeth of the beast.
His father didn’t scream; instead, all the boy heard, because his eyes were shut so tightly he might never see again, was the crunching of his dada’s bones, and harsh, heavy grunts and gasps coming from his father’s body as the shark demolished him into pieces of meat.
The boy balled up with his bloody fists under him and his backbone pointed to the sky, fetal, wishing, hoping, praying that it would just go away.
And if it did, he swore, absolutely swore by the tears in his soul at having heard his father die such a base and terrorizing death, that he would make it to land, and he would make it his life’s goal to do what his dada wanted in his last moments. His dada had wanted it so much he forgot to keep paddling them on the debris.
The boy would make the world know. He would find a way to make sure everybody on the planet knew this thing was here, right here, in the Drake Passage, if it was the last thing he did in his life.