𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃

The freezing waters of the North Atlantic relentlessly poured into the kitchen at an alarming rate. The water was quickly swallowing the room, her breaths coming in short, ragged gasps with the metallic taste of panic. It was a hellish orchestra of metal seemingly bending under the fist of God. Around her, shattered porcelain floated like bones in a graveyard, delicate gilded plates from the upper salons, now cracked and broken, spinning in the rising water. Glistening silver trays bobbed, catching the flickering light of the last failing sconces. The once-pristine kitchen, where polished brass handles and prepared tea carts, had become a tomb.

"Please!" Lily sobbed, pounding the door until her skin split to the knuckle again. "Please, someone—!" Her soaked skirts clung to her legs, heavy as lead, and the water—biting, black and endless as the ocean itself, a gaping chasm that threatened to swallow her whole.

Her hands slickened with blood that had mercilessly banged on the solid oak door, throbbed. Having clawed at the wood frame until her fingers could barely curl. The door didn't budge. Locked. Solid. Not even a piece of cutlery like a knife in sight.

It was an ever present—cruel— reminder of her grim predicament. Pain reminded her she was still alive but trapped within the steel walls of a supposed unsinkable ship that was taking its last breath.The sounds of a great beast dying within the darkness; a death knell through the waterlogged corridors.

She couldn't let her body succumb to the hypothermic grip of the icy waters, her mind her last beacon clinging to snippets of her life—laughter in the sunlit halls of the ship, whispered secrets with Trixie, and those stolen burning moments with Anakin. The very name that become branded into her soul. Such memories, once bright with color and life, threatened to be snuffed like the whisp of a flame in her encroaching fate.

God Almighty, it was so, so cold.

The air was freezing, sweat crusting to her skin like crystalized salt. Her hair had long come unraveled from a low chignon, the strawberry-blonde strands plastered to her forehead. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, her teeth starting to chatter but it was her lungs—her lungs that betrayed her most. Reminding her of her mortality once more. Each breath came too frantic. Too shallow. Pulled from the deepest recesses that screamed to survive.

She was going to die here.

"P-please, oh please," her lips trembled, a solemn plea of desperation, cracking through the last of her words on the edge of reason. That fate would take favor upon her one last time.

No one knew she was in this room. No one except—

"Lily!"

Her head snapped up in a rush of disbelief. Could it really be?

Anakin.

"A-Anakin?" her voice shook, scraped raw from her screams.

"Lily Sillarone, answer me!"

The rich deep tenor of his voice, raw and ragged, cut through the blood pounding in her skull like a blade. Her breath hitched and choosing to take a last leap of faith, she slammed her palms against the door with every ounce of strength she had left, bloody and breathless. "Anakin!" she shrieked, with a slight shrill on the last note. "I'm inside! I'm trapped!"

"Lily! Back away from the door!"

The water surged higher, skimming the edge of her collarbone. Oh no. She knew she had not even minutes now. Her bloodied fingers trembled as she stumbled backward, her foot catching.

CRACK.

The door jolted in its frame. Something—no, someone—slammed into it from the other side. She heard the splinter of wood, the scrape of metal, the sound of his shoulder or maybe a makeshift battering ram hammering again and again and again.

"Hold on!" Anakin's voice was a snarl, fierce and commanding. She could hear him cursing under his breath and the unrelenting fury in every blow. He wasn't begging the door to open. He was tearing at the door with every brutal strike.

The water was climbing up her neck now.

No, no!

Lily's head tilted back, her chin straining above the waterline as her pocket of oxygen thinned. Her teeth were chattering so violently now it felt as if her jaw would fracture. Her lips were blue. She knew it, had slowly lost feeling. Her body was screaming at her to let go.

"I, I can't feel my legs... Anakin..." she gasped, the tears welling behind her eyes with the last trace of warmth.

Another slam. Another roar.

Then—his voice again. Closer. Louder. Desperate.

"Lily!"

The lights above her flickered once.

Twice.

Then darkness swallowed her...

𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃

Authors Note:

For the Lost

To those who set sail with hope in their hearts and never saw land
your names echo across the deep,
your stories carved in the cold silence beneath the sea.

This is for the mothers who held their children close,
the crew who stood fast,
the lovers parted by fate.

May your memory endure
like the stars above the Atlantic that night.

To those who helped the living like Molly Brown,
who refused silence and despair
you carried more than survivors.
You carried hope .