Very nice. The ending seems a little rushed, but other than that I really enjoy it. I like your theme (I guess I have to, considering I helped you come up with it) and you've done a nice job carrying it out. I noticed that a few times you repeat words in the sentence right after ("...clinging to a piece of board for all he was worth. He managed to cling to life for a few days..." cling is repeated), which I think could be fixed. Just work on choosing different words. I really do like it though. You use very descriptive language that gives you a good picture of what is going on. Well, this is getting a little long, so I'll just say I enjoyed this and keep up the good .