Alright, this is just a rough draft. I still have a lot of editing to do on every aspect of this story, but I wanted to get it up on this site just for some feedback while it's in progress. So please feel free to review! You won't hurt my feelings no matter what you say, I promise!

What do you picture in your mind when you imagine going on a cruise? I bet wherever the destination may be, it's warm and sunny. Well, my family and I were never fans of heat. We would rather be playing with snow than laying out on a beach any day. That's exactly why we took a cruise to Russia. There were so many sites to see and it was all in the type of climate we preferred. Not to mention, my mother moved to America from Russia and I was interested in learning more about where she had come from.

The first half of the trip over was altogether relaxing and fun. Our favorite activities were swimming at the enclosed pool and visiting the all-you-can-eat buffet; we all took it as a personal challenge to see who could eat the most. They were so happy, enjoying themselves so much. It seemed like my wife and I had made the right vacation choice. It was exactly the break we all needed from work and school, the perfect way to strengthen family bonds.

I remember, my 8 year old, Sophie, and my 6 year old, Mandy, were playing in the kiddie pool. They were playing some made up game in which they crawled around in the shallow water, growling and pretending to be alligators. My wife and I kept a close eye on them from the deeper pool while we tried teaching our 3 year old, Nick, how to swim without his shark floaties wrapped around his skinny arms. He was slowly progressing, but he still needed to have someone close to grab him when he would inevitably begin to sink down to the bottom.

I headed over to our chairs with our towels on them to get our waterproof camera, stopping by the kiddie pool on the way to snap a few pictures of my little alligators. While the girls were posing for their pictures, Nick shouted for me to look at him. My daughters and I looked up to see him floating on his back, unaided, my wife beaming at his accomplishment. He flipped himself over and, with my wife's help this time, swam over to the steps.

"Hey Dad, did you see me? I floated by myself! Did you see?" He jumped up and down excitedly.

"Yea, Buddy, I saw! Great job!" I praised him while his sisters ran over and smothered him with hugs and congratulations. I stayed back near the kiddie pool and told them all to smile. I snapped a picture of the four of them and, almost like the camera button set it off, the ship erupted in flames. It just exploded out of nowhere.

The next thing I know I'm flying through the air, my clothes nearly incinerated. All body hair, as well as a good amount of skin, was singed off completely. Connecting with the freezing cold water was even more of a shock than the initial explosion. Going from literally being on fire to submerged in ice cold water within a matter of seconds is not a good feeling at all. Once my head resurfaced, I unconsciously let out a scream so loud I must have burst the eardrums of anyone nearby. It was indescribably painful. I could barely get my arms and legs to move enough to keep me afloat.

I shouted out my children's names desperately, but I never got an answer no matter how loudly, or how many times I screamed. There were a few other voices I didn't recognize, but it didn't seem like many people had survived. I swam over to one of the many pieces of debris now floating where the ship had been and clung to it for dear life. It didn't feel like very long before a Russian rescue boat arrived, but I was in and out of consciousness while I was in the water. They quickly started plucking every body they found out of the water. There were only 23 people found alive out of the thousands of people that had been on the ship.

The small rescue boat was turned into a makeshift hospital. People were splayed out on the deck to have wounds treated as much as possible in an attempt to prevent even further deaths. All I wanted to do was walk around and check to see if my family had been brought aboard, but one of the crewmen was kneeling over my head, holding me in place while another man knelt at my torso. All thoughts of my family disappeared when the man removed my shirt and I realized that some of what was left of my shirt had embedded itself into my badly burned chest and back. The heat from the fire was the worst part of the explosion. More people had been burned than anything else.

Even though I had been floating in freezing cold water for a good amount of time my skin still felt like it was on fire. The two men mumbled soothing words as they cleaned and dressed my wounds to the best of their abilities. After they finished, the one man moved on to help others while the other stayed by my side in case I needed something. I layed still for a while, waiting for everything to stop hurting, but it never did. I had the man help me sit up and got a good look around at the others on the boat. I recognized the woman from the cabin next to ours, but my family was nowhere in sight.

I lay back down and sobbed openly, not caring how pathetic I probably looked. What am I supposed to do without my family? I'm nothing without them! My life has no meaning if I don't have them to share it with. I can't keep on living like this, but it's not like I can just go off myself either. My poor mother would have a heart attack from this news; I didn't need to add the death of her only son as well. So what do I do now? I just don't know how to continue on with life now. Calling my mom to tell her what happened was the most dreadful thing I've ever had to do. She'd already heard what happened on the news, it was terrible to hear the relief in her when I said it was me. She assumed we were all okay when she answered. I could almost audibly hear her heart break just as much as mine had at the news that none of my family had been found.