"Jump!" Pran shouted.
"I'm scared!" Mo shouted back.
"Don't worry. I'm here. Just jump. Trust me!"
As the spaceship was on the verge of sinking, the remaining Twenty-Four characters were already on Six lifeboats in groups of Four. Pran stood on The Seventh Boat right below the flung open door of the diagonally floating cylindrical vessel, half submerged in water. Mo was lying on the door with her hands holding on tightly to its top edge, Twenty feet above the surface of water and Thirteen feet away from Pran who stretched his arm as far as he could to break Mo's fall.
The spaceship suddenly began to rotate vertically, taking Mo further up and making her lose the grip she had at the top of the door. She slid off the curved metal door and in a reflex grabbed onto the door handle while her body got freely suspended in air after oscillating for a moment. Even higher up than before, she figured she would jump once the vessel started descending into the water, and try to time the jump right when the door was next to Pran's hand. To buy more time, she reached the frame of the door with her right leg and once she did, she tried to pull her whole body closer to it. Soon, both her legs had crossed the frame and were inside the vessel with both her hands grabbing onto the door handle while she looked at the sky above. The boat started to descend and as she plummeted along with it, she was not in the position to jump off. She pulled her body in one swift motion towards the frame of the door to be able to get ready to jump. As soon as her upper body reached the frame, the inertia threw her inside the sinking vessel, shutting the door behind her.
All Twenty Five watched in disbelief as The Twenty Second Character disappeared into the abyss. There was nothing any one of them could do. Pran still held out his arm, staring at the magenta-purplish layer above the clouds while tears trickled down his cheeks.
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"We have no more time to waste." Ragini addressed everyone. "We don't have supplies. We need to get to the coast as soon as we can. We have no time to mourn."
"I'll stay!" Pran said without taking his gaze off the sky or bringing his arm down.
Ragini started rowing her boat named 'WXYZ' along with Show, Shoes and Shoe, the only Three left from Pran's group. They were followed by the boat named 'BCDE', rowed by the other members of Ragini's group: Universe, Game, Race and Step, each of whose Four followers sat together in each of the remaining Four boats. Followers of Universe; Memory, Future, Reality and Emotion were in the boat named 'FGHI' right next to the boat 'JKLM' which had the followers of Game; Story, Dream, Duties, and Experience. Behind them were boats 'NOPQ' and 'RSTU' with the respective followers of Race; Emperor, Writer, Business and Listener, and those of Step: Friend, Character, Silence and Question.
When Ragini had seen the layer from the moon, it was only above the land areas, creating an illusion that Earth was burning. She rowed in the direction where the layer above the clouds was denser, hoping to find the coast soon. The waves weren't too huge either, giving an impression that they were not in the deeper end of the sea.
None of Show, Shoes or Shoe talked to Ragini while they rowed alongside her. They had always been emotionally attached to Pran and now that he was not with them, all three of them felt a bit empty and disconnected. There was a certain emptiness in Ragini too but she wasn't too sure of the reason behind it. She shrugged it away thinking that it was probably because of her being away from Pranshu for the first time in their thirty years of marriage.
The layer above the clouds was much denser now. All of them were thirsty and tired when they saw a white land mass at a distance. None of them were sure what it was but they approached it with more ecstasy than doubt. As they got closer they saw a black lining on top of the thick white wall that was much above the sea surface.
"Is that ice?" someone from each of the boats asked at different points of time with genuine curiosity.
"Are those penguins?" each person in all of the boats asked at the same time with absolute certainty.
Soon, hundreds of penguins were looking right below at the Six boats as the waves crashed into the ice wall.