The tug on his life jacket came from nowhere, pulling Insoo out of his daydream and back to reality. The rocking motion of the sea was like a dangerous lullaby, trying to soothe him to sleep so it could claim his life in return. His muscles ached from the swim the night before; he had gotten as far from the crash site as possible so as to avoid being pulled under, and now his entire body felt as if he had pulled a semi truck up a mountain. Looking around him, he counted the bobbing people around him; only six others. Another glance toward one of them, though, showed him that another survivor clung to the back of someone’s life jacket, holding for dear life as they shared one float. Insoo felt a pang as he tried to recognize the faces around him; none of his friends had survived. Tears began the slide down his cheeks but he struggled to keep calm; now was not the time to break down. That could come when they were rescued.     If they were rescued. He had a serious doubt that would happen; they had been a good four or five hours into their flight when the engines blew. The chances of anyone actually finding them out here in the middle of the ocean were slim to none.     He focused again on the person floating in front of him; the one tying something to his life jacket. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he knew his reputation. He had beaten up a teacher before he transferred to their school, or so the rumors went. All Insoo could be sure of about the guy was that he finished tying the nylon rope to Insoo’s jacket and gave him a thumbs up sign. “We’re all tied together,” he said quietly, voice deeper than Insoo would have expected. “This way we won’t be separated.”     ‘So we can watch each other die slowly,’ Insoo thought, but shook his head to clear the morbid image and croaked a thank you at the guy.     They floated for several days, drifting in and out of consciousness, thirst and hunger a growing problem. Tempers flared often, and one girl would NOT stop crying (though no one could really blame her and so didn’t say a word), and by the third day in the water Insoo was wondering if drowning at the crash site wouldn’t have been a kinder fate. He was considering how to go about untying himself from the others to just end it all when a wave smacked him right in the face.     “What the…” he sputtered, spitting sea water out of his mouth and shaking his head to clear his vision. That wave had come out of nowhere; the sky was clear blue and there was no storm in sight. He went back to considering the knot on his life jacket when a cry rose from one of the girls.      “Land!”     Everyone’s heads snapped around to look at where she pointed, and sure enough, tropical trees rose above the water line, beckoning them to rest their tired limbs. The girl without a life jacket (the only one not tied to the rest) suddenly released whomever it was she was holding onto and started swimming for that blessed sight, strong cutting through the water. In