This particular story, I wrote for a friend of mine as a bit of fun. It's obviously on the ridiculous side, but I think that's the charm of it. It's over-the-top because I wrote it based on an exaggerated tale this friend of mine told.
So without further ado, I give you:
(The Completely True Tale of) Courtney's River Adventure
The girl ahead of the kayak splashed along, moving backwards and pulling the innocently floating boat behind her. Courtney was following, pushing through the murky waters of the sandbar. The water was up to the base of her ribcage, and the shallows seemed to go on forever. They waded in silence for a while, Courtney lost in her own thoughts about life and what was for dinner, when suddenly was a cry from the front of the kayak and it was thrust backwards. The point at the end of the boat dug into Courtney's arm and blood gushed from the wound as she grabbed her arm, the sudden pain throwing her into a daze. Tears squeezed themselves out of her eyes. Courtney dived underneath the water, looking for anything that would stop the blood flow. A little ways away she saw a cluster of seaweed and moved through the water towards it. Still beneath the surface, Courtney wrapped her arm in the seaweed. She knew that this would quickly heal the wound. She rose through the blood-filled water and gulped in huge lungfuls of air, searching around for her kayak. She spied it in the distance, far off the sandbar and heading towards the shore. Her friend had deserted her – left her for dead. Courtney began to swim in the direction of the boat, thinking of what she would scream at the girl she had thought of as a friend. Although Courtney was strong, swimming with her wounded arm wasn’t easy, and she had to stop halfway to the shore, floating on her back in the middle of the river.
An ominous-looking fin caught Courtney’s eye over at the sandbar and she knew she had to get to shore, having attracted the dangerous creature with all of her blood. Courtney now began to swim for her life, moving faster in the water than she ever had before. She wondered where the shark was behind her, but didn’t turn around to look. The dock was closer than the rocks on the shore and Courtney thought she may have an easier time jumping up there. Trying not to think of the shark, she pulled herself up from the water carefully, the oysters underneath the high tide line cutting into her thighs and spilling more blood into the water. Courtney dragged herself onto the dock and lay there in the fading sunlight, panting heavily. She still couldn’t see the shark and couldn’t really bring herself to sit up due to the strain in her lungs and the stinging of her legs. She wondered where her friend was now, and for all her anger earlier, Courtney found herself wishing she would show up to give Courtney some help.
Courtney lay on the dock until the sun had almost set. She didn’t have the energy to cry, but somehow mustered the ability to get into a sitting position and examine her shredded legs. She unwrapped the strands of seaweed from her arm and pressed them against the various gashes on her legs. The seaweed had completely stopped the bleeding in her arm, so it would have no problem with the cuts on her legs. She had survived to tell the tale of her epic adventure.
