Beyond Tears

""Karina, wake up. There's water everywhere!" Cindy's panicked voice echoed through the dream, pulling her back to current history--to being lost in the Amazon, separated from Joe and the rest of her friends, lost and alone except for a young child who now depended on her to make life-preserving choices. Water splashed in Karina's face, reinforcing the urgency of the situation. Acting responsibly had always been a problem for fourteen-year-old Karina. Even though she had become a talented ultralight airplane pilot and had been chosen for a special school project in the Amazon, Karina seemed adept at finding ways for getting into trouble. Quick to anger, she often reacted emotionally without fully considering the consequences for her actions. Now an unauthorized flight had stranded Karina deep within the rainforest on an island in a wildly flooding river. Turbulent water crashed against the improvised shelter; she had only seconds to make her most responsible decision ever--a life-or-death decision. Karina grabbed seven-year-old Cindy and made her choice, hoping it was the right one and praying it wouldn't be her last.