The waves crashed against the massive boat. As the sun set, the night approached upon them. The sheets of cold rain pounded in the face of anyone who dared to stand above the ship’s deck like speeding bullets. Slowly, the lights faded, and all activities had gradually stopped. After a long day, a mother and her two children returned to their sleeping quarters,  longing to jump right into the retreats of their soft bed. It was most unfortunate, then, that they did not receive the sleep they so desired.

Merely hours after the lights turned off, they turned back on again. Streaks of harsh red light flooded the hallways and sliced through the barred windows in thin beams. The mother flung herself out of bed and held tightly onto her two kids. The screams and cries of children and mothers grew more present as they scurried to the deck. Stinging cold water frothed slowly above their feet as the boat sank ever so tantalizingly slow. The mother fastened her hands to those of her kids tighter as the sea of people ebbed and flowed toward the lifeboats. She squeezed through the crowd, just as the last lifeboat was being filled with its passengers. Just as her grip loosened, she could feel her children being taken away from her.

“Please! Take me instead,” the mother screamed to the strange man who was now gripping her children by the arm. 

“Sorry ma’am, only children allowed,” he shouted back over the sound of the waves and screaming of the ones damned to a watery grave as the last lifeboat set adrift.