The innovative T-shirt that automatically inflates when your child falls in the water!
Drowning is the second largest accident involving children in Europe, with more than 5,000 deaths per year.
Children up to the age of five pose a particular risk; A child can lose consciousness in just a few centimeters of water. After four to six minutes, a child can already suffer irreversible brain…
Imagine Cameron Diaz paying the Prime Minister a visit at 10 Downing Street in London. She arrives at ten sharp, but it’s too late.. the prime minister is dead.
Maybe you’ve heard of it: there’s a town in Germany called ‘Diez’.
Summary: They were so close to the shore, but so far away at the same time.
Note: Everything about this prompt screamed Series of Unfortunate Events. I don’t really have an explanation as to why.
Cws and Tws: Implied death, implied downing, implied child death
Words: 717
Prompt: WHAT COULD GO WRONG? | “Mayday, mayday!” | Cave In | Rusty Nail
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Chapter text (under cut):
“No no no!” Screamed Klaus, pushing his palms into the quickly widening holes in the bottom of their boat, “Not now, not now!”
Violet reached for her ribbon and began to tie up her hair. The hem of her skirt was hanging in the puddle in the bottom of the boat already. She had to think of a way to get them out of this. Sunny was now a young girl. (Violet hoped she would have the chance to grow into a bit of an older one.) But even now she looked so young as she held Rose, the two small children looked very small against the endless expanse of the ocean.
Violet quickly scanned the boat for anything that would help her patch it, but only felt more panic when the only things that she saw were apples. How?! Had the growing waves swept their other provisions aside? She whipped her head around to stare at the waves, which were beginning to tower. Sure enough, everything else had been swept away.
Violet was a very inventive girl, but there wasn’t much you could do with apples all by themselves. Even so, her mind races with ideas of things that she could invent to help save them, but nearly everything that crossed her mind used at least one extra item that was not in the boat. Apple glue? That would need some time to try and probably some extra chemicals. Apple planks? They would need nails and/or reinforcement.
Really the only thing she could think of was driving the apples into the holes in the boat, but that might damage it further and make their problems worse. (Besides, the force of the water would most likely push them out of place anyway.) Another gush of water burst through the thin wooden sides of the boat, and Klaus screamed, bringing her back to reality. (Sometimes even a thinking mind like hers couldn’t think of anything that would help a really really bad situation. And though she seemed to be an expert on getting into such situations, the practice only helped to a certain extent.)
She dove forward, pushing her palms into the newly opened hole and using her knee to block another. “Sunny!” She shouted, an idea suddenly crossing her mind, “Put Rose on my back and try and make the seat into a raft!”
Sunny understood immediately, for though she was only a small girl, she had become accustomed to the sort of volatile life that the three siblings (and now Rose) had to deal with. She wadded over, her little dress getting soaked in the water as it came up around her knees. Violet stiffened as she felt Rose being placed on her back, the poor girl was really just a baby, even now.
Sunny turned back the way she came, but Violet couldn’t turn to watch her as she began her work. (She was frozen in place as Rose squirmed and water began to push through her fingers.) Thankfully though, sounds like that of a small drill quickly filled the air, and it was clear that Sunny (and her amazingly helpful teeth) were working on getting the nails out of the seat.
“Thank you Sunny,” Klaus choked. He was laying flat in the bottom of the boat to block as many leaks as he could. (There were simply too many to bail the water out, especially as the waves grew and grew.)
Violet began to nod, but before she had the chance to thank her sister, her fingers slipped and water began to flood the boat once more. Of course it did. She would have been naive to believe that they would stay safe.
Of course it wasn’t going to end well! (Why would such an unfortunate story have a happy ending?) Why would it, after everything that had happened? They had tried to be hopeful, fought so hard for so many endless years, but it wasn’t enough.
So when the largest wave she had ever seen (and would ever see), shattered their boat into screaming splinters as the four children were split up, she was not surprised. She was not surprised even when the coast of some unknown land just barely faded into her view, a second before she dipped under the waves.
End of chapter text: Sorry this is kind of short. I'm feeling very sick today.
