Margo never turned back to see if Kent was following her or what.  All she knew was that she wasn't going to be like one of those people on the Titanic, left behind in the lower decks to die.  Sure, there weren't icebergs around, and there was probably no real problem going on, but she was at the lifeboat meeting point with a first onrush of other passengers.<br/><br/>In her experience, most people facing a crisis became babbling idiots unable to think clearly and barely able to do what it takes to stay alive.  Some people managed to hold their own and get past a crisis by "keeping it together."  There was a trick her father had taught her when she was a little girl and prone to panic attacks.  She had honed it into a useful like skill that she pulled out only when something big was happening, like now.  She grabbed a life jacket for herself out of the newly opened box and tightened as they had instructed when they had embarked.<br/><br/>The twenty-something purser who was supposed to be in charge was running around in his short uniform like a scared school-girl without a clue what to do.  She grasped him by the shoulders with a very firm grip and ordered him to get a grip.  The kid seemed about ready to comply when the ship literally hit rock.  The screeching of the metal against rock was painfully loud and Margo put her hands against her ears in simple self defense.<br/><br/>Then the ship lurched to the side, and Margo reached out for the railing as people seemed to just fly past her and into the water.  She swung there, with her fingers wrapped around the pole, a sickening version of the childish playground nightmare where you are stuck on the monkey bars without your underwear on and everyone is underneath you looking up at your naked parts.  The danger here, was much more real and scary than the childhood fear.  Something told Margo that if she got out of this situation alive, that particular nightmare would be forever morphed into something different.<br/><br/>She scrambled and swung until her feet caught on another part of the railing.  The relief from the weight of her body on her arms was immediate and welcome, but the railing was continuing to get closer and closer to the water.  People were now jumping into the water, not even trying for the lifeboats.  She inched her way along the railing until she reached the lifeboat rope and worked at the knots until they began to fall, one by one into the water below.  One fell directly on top of a person, and Margo's stomach twisted and turned as she realized she had probably just killed him.<br/><br/>Others began to swim and climb onto the newly released boats and some began to call at her to jump now.  There must have been something she couldn't see happening below her, but then the boat tipped upward and she was lifted high into the air as the ship literally cracked into pieces and upended into the water.  There was a sudden rush of movement as the boat plunged straight down into the water, heading straight for the bottom of the ocean.<br/><br/>Margo knew if she let go, she'd simply be pulled down into the resulting sucking whirlpool that would follow the boat.  They were close to the rocks, so they couldn't be far from land. She climbed upward on the railing as much as she could and when her feet felt the first cool rush of water she took the biggest deepest breath she could possibly take and prayed for the first time in ten years.