Titanic 2

The Surface

A Titanic Sequel by Dramamaster829

Based on the spoof trailer by Derek Johnson

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't own anything from Titanic, not even the ship itself or I'd be rich right now

Prologue

April 15th, 1912 2:30 Am The Aftermath of the sinking Titanic

Fifth Officer Lowe, the impetuous young Welshman, has gotten Boats 10, 12 and Collapsible D together with his own Boat 14. A demon of energy, he's had everyone hold the boats together and is transferring passengers from 14 into the others, to empty his boat for a rescue attempt.

As the women step gingerly across the other boats, Lowe sees a shawled figure in too much of a hurry. He rips the shawl off, and finds himself staring into the face of a man. He angrily shoves the stowaway into another boat and turns to his crew of three.

"Right man the oars," Lowe orders. Then, the boat sails off, with hopes that a few survivors of the RMS Titanic still live.

The beam of an electric torch plays across the water like a searchlight as boat 14 comes toward us.

As the torch illuminates the men find a few floating debris, a poignant trail of flotsam: a violin, a child's wooden soldier, a framed photo of a steerage family, and a wooden Biograph camera from Daniel Marvin, one of the passengers of the Titanic.

Then, the torch reflects the white lifebelts bobbing in the darkness like signposts, the first bodies come into the torch's beam. The people are dead but not drowned, killed by the freezing water and died of a severe case of hypothermia. Some look like they could be sleeping. Others stare with frozen eyes at the stars.

Some bodies are so thick the seamen cannot row. Try as they might, they hit the oars on the heads of floating men and women... a wooden thunk. One seamen throws up. Lowe sees a mother floating with her arms frozen around her lifeless baby.

"We waited too long," Lowe mourned, it was the worst moment of his life. Tears blurred Lowe's vision and he tried to look away, but the dead faces held his attention. He stared at their open eyes and wondered how life could have left them so easily. What does our existence mean when it can end like this? But Lowe urged his men to keep searching, hoping, praying that someone was still alive.

Hovering above the open sea, we see the bodies of the young lovers, Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt Bukkater, floating in the black water. The stars reflect in the mill pond surface, and the two of them seem to be floating in interstellar space. They are absolutely still. Their hands are locked together. Rose is staring upwards at the canopy of stars wheeling above her. The music is transparent floating... as the long sleep steals over Rose, and she feels peace.

Rose's face, like the faces of the dead, was pale and white as the ice around her. She seems to be floating in a void. Rose is in a semi-hallucinatory state. She knows she is dying. Her lips barely move as she sings a scrap of Jack's song:

"Come Josephine in my flying machine..."

The stars. Like you've never seen them. The Milky Way a glorious band from horizon to horizon. A shooting star flares... a line of light across the heavens.

We see that her hair is dusted with frost crystals. Her breathing is so shallow, she is almost motionless. Her eyes track down from the stars to the water.

The silhoutter of a boat crossing the stars. She sees men in it, rowing so slowly the oars lift out of the syrupy water, leaving weightless pearls floating in the air. The voices of the men sound slow and distorted.

Then the lookout flashes his torch toward her and the light flares across the water, silhouetting the bobbing corpses in between. It flicks past her motionless form and moves on. The boat is 50 feet away, and moving past her. The men look away.

Rose lifts her head to turn to Jack. We see that her hair has frozen to the wood under her.

"Jack," she whispers, her voice barely audible.

She touches his shoulder with her free hand. He doesn't respond. Rose gently turns his face toward her. It is rimed with frost.

He seems to be sleeping peacefully.

But he is not asleep.

Rose can only stare at his still face as the realization goes through her.

"Oh, Jack," Rose mourns, tears flowing slowly down her face.

All hope, will and spirit leave her. She looks at the boat. It is further away now, the voices fainter. Rose watches them go.

She closes her eyes. She is so weak, and there just seems to be no reason to even try.

And then... her eyes snap open.

She raises her head suddenly, cracking the ice as she rips her hair off the wood. She calls out, but her voice is so weak they don't hear her. The boat is invisible now, the torch light a star impossibly far away. She struggles to draw breath, calling again.

In the boat, Lowe hears nothing behind him. He points out to something ahead, turning the tiller.

Rose struggles to move. Her hand, she realizes, is actually frozen to Jack's. She breaths on it, melting the ice a little, and gently unclasps their hands, breaking away at thin tinkling film.

"I won't let go. I promise," she whispers, kissing his frozen hand.

She releases him and he sinks into the black water. He seems to fade out like a spirit returning to some immaterial plane.

Rose rolls off the floating stair case and plunges into the icy water. She swims to Chief Officer Wilde's body and grabs his whistle. She starts to blow the whistle with all the strength in her body. Its sound slaps across the still water.

In Boat 14 Lowe whips around at the sound of the whistle.

"Row back! That way! Pull!" he shouts, turning the tiller.

Rose keeps blowing as the boat comes to her. She is still blowing when Lowe takes the whistle from her mouth as they haul her into the boat. She slips into an unconsciousness and they scramble to cover her with blankets...

Little did anyone know, the sinking of the Titanic was just the beginning. As one journey ends, another would begin... 86 years from now.

That's the end of the prologue, sorry it took longer than I hoped. As a reminder, this is just a prologue, the real story begins in Chapter 1. If you have any suggestions, send me a message and I'll be sure to get back to you.