Diary Day 1 [Draft]

Please be honest with what you think about this, it is my draft and I am open to suggestions and please also feel free to point out any grammatical errors as well.

As I floated through the choppy waters with my leg in agony I reflected upon how I had come to be in this mess…
When we got off the bus and looked across Kawhia Harbour towards the Grumman HU-16 Albatross sea-plane I had been so excited. Going on a class trip was one of the things I always looked forward to, especially just the teacher and the students. We had been planning it for weeks. On the bus on the way there the excitement had shown on everyone’s faces. We boarded the plane and I saw Sam headed towards the pilot’s cabin. I said “Hey Sammy, I really don’t think the pilot would like to be disturbed before the flight”
“Don’t be silly”, he replied. “I am the pilot”.
A small feeling of dread formed in my stomach, but I quickly repressed it as I double-checked that I had buckled my seatbelt correctly.
* * *
I think we were a bit over halfway through our flight when it happened.
I was in the bathroom when the plane started rumbling and shaking. I now realised that we must have entered a lightning storm. Finding it hard to use the bathroom while shaking and jiggling, I came out and spotted my shoelace was undone. I bent down to do it up and was suddenly overcome with a weightless feeling and floated into the air as the plane dove and fell. I still managed to do my shoelace up, and not a moment too soon.
My mind entered Alpha State, that weird state of mind where everything moves slower and you can only think calmly and rationally. I felt, and heard, my leg crunch and crack as I came back to the floor and landed awkwardly in the aisle, all in slow-motion. The plane must have gone underwater then come back up again, because it was bobbing up and down. In the confusion that followed, someone helped me up and got me through the door and into the sea. Unfortunately I never got to thank whoever it was because I didn’t get to see them clearly. Past the red haze of pain that was glazed over my eyes, I could see the shoreline 100 metres ahead of me. I tried to swim, and almost passed out with the pain that hit me.
As I struggled to get to terms with the fact that I couldn’t swim, I was getting swept further and further away from the beach. I felt my bag on my back, and realised that it was watertight and could be used to float upon. I was heading further towards the mountain and the sharp rocks that surrounded it with every wave.

A sharp jolt knocked me out of my miserable reflection. I had arrived at the rocks, and one had just knocked the wind out of me. The second time I managed to get a grip on the rock but it was so wet that I slipped and lost my grip, instead smashing me against it again. The current was threatening to pull me under, so I tried one last time to grab on to it. The saying “third time lucky” flashed into my head as I just managed to hang on, but then pulled myself up a little further, and hung on for fear of being sucked away again and dashed against the sharp rocks.
I looked around as I was probably going to be stuck here for a while. There was not much around except rocks. Oh, wait, there IS something. I can just make out a cave further up the rocks of the mountainside. It seems to be glowing. I can now make out some weirdly coloured water flowing from it. It is glowing brighter now. The water is swirling the colours faster now. The cave is glowing really bright now; it’s beginning to hurt my eyes. I gave a short shriek of terror before I slumped over the rock as I passed out
It must have been several hours I hung there, in and out of consciousness, when I heard someone approaching on the rocks above. I yelled out to them for help.
“Help”, I yelled. “Help me. I’m stuck here and my leg has been muntified in the crash. I’m tired and hungry because I’ve been hanging of this rock here for hours”.
Grayson poked his head over the top of the rock and I croaked “Help”.
“Give me your hand and I’ll help you up” he replied.
I reached up and he grabbed my hand and tried pulling. Hard. I suddenly noticed that my shoe was feeling rather loose, and my teeth were feeling a little wobbly. Uh-oh. I had all adult teeth. This couldn’t be good. I pushed it to the back of mind, and focused on getting out of the water.
“Good thing you found me”, I said thankfully, as I was being hoisted up.
“No problem, just glad to help”, he grunted as he pulled.
My body suddenly felt achy all over, and I gave a violent shudder as my leg gave way. Grayson pointed at it and suddenly went pale and shivery. I looked down, and lo and behold, it had turned into an octopus tentacle. I would have fainted and fallen over if I hadn’t already been on the ground. I gave another shudder and my arms felt like they were burning. I lifted one up and it had suckers all up one side. I was turning into a mutant octopus thing! I turned to run, to hide, and to get away from it all, but my leg gave way under me. Those teeth that had turned wobbly were jarred with the sudden impact, and all of them fell out. I put my finger in my mouth to feel around for any remaining teeth, but all I found was one.
A big fang directly in the centre of my mouth.
Grayson looked horrified, but he steeled his resolve, and helped me up.
“I guess you are still my friend, even with your tentacle and suckers” He pronounced decidedly. “I’ll help you back to the beach, and you can stay with me, Josiah, Leon, and Sam.
* * *
When we got to the beach where everyone else had washed up, it was dark, and Josiah, Sam, and Leon had already set up camp for us, and all were feeling tired, as they had swum out to the aeroplane to recover Grayson’s lost bag, and a parachute, plus Luke’s pocket knife. No one payed much attention to me, they were all too tired to notice. I would’ve been able to tell if they had seen.
Grayson helped me cut a strong branch off one of the trees to use as a make-shift crutch/walking stick type thing.
After a “small” meal consisting of my packed lunchbox from that morning, and one of the One Square Meals from my pack (I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, remember) and some water, I went to crawl into my shelter, but before I did I looked up to see the stars in the sky, except they weren’t there. The whole sky was black, pitch black, like an endless void filled with tar. And round the edges, even more menacing, were big black clouds, smothering the horizon and looking like they were only 100 metres off shore. I could see the lightning booming and rolling inside, and I decided to count how far away they were.
I watched a flash of lightning and started counting...
“One, missisip...” BOOM.
The thunder boomed after less than a second.
That wasn’t good. If three seconds meant 1 kilometre, then less than one meant...

[thinking really hard]

Less than three hundred metres!
That couldn’t be good at all. I was too tired to give a stuff about it right now though, so I crawled into the shelter and dropped off to a troubled sleep...