Here's a Short Story I wrote. It's called It's my Fault. I wrote it for the Write4Fun Competition.

Simon sank into the lounge and sighed. Every day since the he had escaped, clinging onto his life, he had felt the guilt and the memories flood and overwhelm him. Every night, he had nightmares of the horrific drownings replaying in his head. Every single second, he could see the love of his life, the hope, the light at the end of the tunnel, drowning, calling for him. His life was miserable. It was his fault a hundred people were dead.

That night, he remembered the trip on the “Trumpeter” as if he were actually there again. He thrashed in his bed, he screamed and he cried, he cried for his dead fiancée whom he had loved with all his heart. Yet she had left, left without becoming his wife.

He, Simon Crawford, was a Naval Architect, one of the finest in the world at only 30. He was building his last ship before he resigned from the backbreaking work at the shipyard and started working in the office designing the ships. The “Trumpeter” was his best ship yet, built in memory of his father, a famous trumpeter.

They had sailed 4 km out to sea when it began raining. The weather had been forecasted as clear, but it became a tempest within minutes of the sun rising, and the rain was hammering so hard that the sailors couldn’t see. When this happened he, as Captain, always trusted his gut feeling. It had always been right. The guests continued partying whilst he went down to the control room. He chose to take a detour from the mapped path because the wind was pushing the boat back and it was not a good idea to argue with the will of the sea. Little did he know this was a danger zone, full of hazardous rocks.

The boat lurched forward as it hit the rock. Its peak was underwater and struck the ballroom. Eyes wide, knowing his fiancée was in the ballroom, Simon ran to the door and found he could not get out. The control room was completely water tight and sealed off and could be only opened from the outside. He watched from the window with horror as his love thrashed in the water in front of him. He had only recently been teaching her to swim, and she was no where near strong enough to swim in an ocean.

He heard her screaming his name, swallowing salt water into her lungs as she tried breathing and finally giving up and sinking into the murky depths of the Atlantic. Simon watched blankly as he lost the woman that he would shift the Earth, the Heavens and the stars for. He saw her fiery auburn hair and her green eyes surface once more, her body limp and lifeless before he went into a state of unconsciousness, his life force slowly draining out of him.

He was rescued as the only survivor in the hundred and one people on board. He had lost all meaning to life, his dearest friends, his wife-to-be that had filled his days with joy and laughter, his mother and his beloved sister. It was his fault they were dead. His gut had let him down and he had nothing left. Realising this, he raised a shot gun to his head and pulled the trigger.