`` THE CRASH

[Dorian St. Pierre]

DAY ONE - AFTERNOON - RIGHT AFTER THE CRASH

It seemed as though the entire beach had erupted in crimson flame. Although the nearly cloudless sky above was a stunning shade of baby blue, it was completely hidden by a massive layer of thick, black smoke. The remnants of the airplane were scarred haphazardly around the shoreline, most of which were burning in the inferno. The fuselage had broken into two segments; the larger of the two, which contained the cockpit, rested on the beach, ablaze. The latter had broken off during the plane’s descent, crashing into the blue ocean, about a mile offshore. One of the twin jet engines had exploded upon impact, while the other, which had not been completely destroyed, continued to spin, churning the blanket of smog.

The scene was tremendously loud, which could be attributed to not only the roar of the surviving jet engine, or the crackling of the burning wreckage, but the screaming and the crying of the individuals who had not been killed in the crash. Nearly thirty of the original sixty travelers, all teenagers bound for a summer oceanography camp off the coast of Australia, populated the smoldering beach. The majority of which had sustained injuries and, at present, it seemed as though nobody had any background in first aid.

Dorian St. Pierre lay unconscious at the epicenter of the inferno, which had once been the plane’s fuselage. Dorian had sustained a deep gash above his right eyebrow when he had been thrown out of his seat upon impact. But besides this laceration, Dorian had, miraculously, no other visible injuries. Feeling a strange heat on his cheek, Dorian woke and instantly began chocking, due to the unbearable amount of smoke inside the fuselage. The twenty-three year old's head pounded, as if he had been hit over the head by some unknown object. Still coughing and gagging, Dorian peered through the smoke, looking for an exit. His salvation came by way of a broken window, which had obviously been broken by another survivor for a similar purpose. Getting to his feet, Dorian felt his way towards the exit, his eye useless and watering due to the smoke.

Coughing profusely, Dorian finally found the makeshift exit and made his way outside, which was just as saturated with smoke as the interior of the fuselage.

The entire beach was ablaze. People were scattering away from the wreck, some finding their way out of the inferno and some coming up out of the waters offshore. Most were injured, some with minor scrapes and some with life threatening injuries. The skyline was obscure with smoke and nearly everyone was screaming or coughing profusely. It was terrible. The entire scene was heart wrenching.

Coughing roughly, Dorian made his way up the beach, away from the burning wreck. He grabbed his head. He had a splitting headache, probably because a suitcase had bashed into his head on impact. Dorian turned to look at the inferno, taking it all in. Gasping, for the first time Dorian truly appreciated the magnitude of the disaster. The very fact that some of them had survived was a miracle. Students continued trickling out of the plane and all of them appeared to be badly burnt. “Some people could still be trapped inside…” Dorian thought to himself.

Suddenly, instinct kicked in. He ran to the ocean, took off his shirt, and soaked it in the warm salt water. Dorian tore the shirt into pieces, making sure each section was thoroughly drenched. He took two of the pieces and wrapped them around his hands, and tied the third around his face, in a pathetic attempt to protect him from the smoke and fire. “I’ve got be out of my mind!” Dorian said aloud, as he ran towards the wreck. By now most of the students who could walk had emerged from the plane, and there wasn’t anyone trying to get out as Dorian made his way through the makeshift exit. Coughing terribly, Dorian entered the blaze.

The entire fuselage smelled like death. There were burning bodies everywhere; it seemed like no one still inside the fuselage was left alive. “Is anybody in here!?” Dorian screamed, barely audible over the roar of the fire. Then Dorian heard it. Someone moaned out from the front of the plane, towards the cockpit. Pushing a cart out of his way, Dorian fought his way towards the cockpit. “Hey!” Dorian called out. “Can anybody hear me!?”.

“In here…” Someone moaned. Pushing in the door, Dorian found himself in the cockpit. The entire room smelled like gasoline and Dorian spotted the pilot pinned down, with a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his side. “Please….. Help Me!” The man called out, barely conscious.

“Hold on!” Dorian yelled. Dorian pulled the piece of metal away, nearing burning his hands, freeing the man’s leg. “Can you walk?” Dorian yelled out. The man shook his head. “Ok. Hold on!” Dorian struggled to pick the pilot up over his shoulder and struggled to carry the man out of the cockpit, wondering the whole time if the fuselage would explode. Coughing profusely, Dorian made his way back out to the beach, and collapsed, near a blond girl. Everyone that could be saved was out of the plane…

[jessica]

”...they’re making us turn off our phones now. Ugh, it’s so annoying you can’t be on your phone on planes. Like, what else is there to do for a billion hours? Anyway, whatever. this bitchy flight chick is bitching at me, I’ll text you later Liv. Kiss kiss!”

With that, Jessica hung up the phone, giving the flight attendant an annoyed look. “God, it’s off! Chill out.” She rolled her eyes, shoving the phone in the attendant’s face as though to prove that the blackened screen was indeed turned off. The blonde pulled a compact mirror out of her purse after the flight attendant left (clearly ignoring the ‘please stow all carry ons’ request), checking her perfectly coifed hair before re-applying her peach-colored lip gloss. Peach was so in this season, and Jessica, personally, was a huge fan; peach just happened to go perfectly with her coloring. Final make-up check complete, Jessica tucked her Chanel purse under the seat in front of her after pulling out her oversized black sunglasses. Most people might have questioned why she had sunglasses on an airplane, but Jessica had a thing about people watching her sleep, but wasn’t about to ruin her eye makeup with an eye mask, so always flew with a pair of sunglasses. She slipped them on, reclining her seat once it was announced that they were allowed to. The guy next to her gave her an odd look, and Jessica pushed the sunglasses down her nose, giving him a ‘you got a problem, dorky?’ look over the rim of her sunglasses, “What?” She asked with a touch of irritation in her voice. He shrugged and went back to minding his own business. Jessica shook her head and muttered something under her breath before shoving the sunglasses back up her nose, leaning back against the head rest and closing her eyes.

Sand. Sand, and a searing headache. Jessica groaned as she opened her eyes to sand, and a searing headache. Wait…what? She was lying on her stomach, face-first in the sand. Everything smelled like blood and smoke, and there were screams everywhere. Having no idea how she got from the plane to where she was now—or even any idea where the plane was—Jessica moved her hands through the sand up to rest under her shoulders, using her hands to push herself up into a sitting position. What the hell? Was this just some bad dream? She knew that watching Inception with Liv had been a bad idea… Damn movie made no sense, and now she was having weird dreams about it… She looked around a little, eyes coming to rest on a burning plane not more than five feet away from her. Burning plane…That wasn’t in Inception….And wait, couldn’t you not feel pain in a dream? Or maybe you could, Jessica couldn’t remember. She put a hand up to her head to brush a trickle of water off her forehead, felt pain, and stopped. Pulling her hand away from her head cautiously, Jessica saw her hand covered in blood, and did the only logical thing to do: started screaming.

Panicking, she scrambled to stand up, starting to run away from the plane. Dizzy from standing up too fast, Jessica only got a few steps before her foot caught on a broken piece of metal, and she fell over a broken-off part of the plane’s wing, the jagged edge of the metal catching on her jeans and ripping through the denim and flesh to leave a cut partway down Jessica’s right thigh. She landed in the sand on the other side of the wing, on top of what looked more like a dead body than anything she’d ever seen before. Screaming again, Jessica scrambled off of the body, crawling a little ways through the sand before standing up and half-running-half-limping away again, still screaming, until she got to where she figured was a far enough away place, not too far from a group of trees where some guy—who was clearly alive, thank god—was. Dropping down to sit in the sand, Jessica stopped screaming as a lungful of smoke turned her screams into coughs, before she managed to stop coughing and just sit there, wide-eyed, terrified, and in pain.

[rach]

The first thing she could hear were screams. Then, crackling fire. She could smell smoke. She could...see smoke.

Well, sort of anyway.

Erkia McClain just barely opened her eyes to a scene she wished immediately she had never seen. There was scrap metal everywhere from the plane. Sections of the aircraft she had just been pleasantly flying on, sipping a ginger ale while browsing sky mall for the latest in useless merchandise, were on fire, and collapsing in on itself. She shut her eyes for a moment again, moaning with pain as she suddenly began to feel.

She must have suffered some sort of concussion. She wiggled her fingers and toes to make sure they were still ten of each. But, what was that she felt underneath her... sand...? She opened her eyes again, to the extent she could open them, which was much more of an effort than it should be, to see a perfect blue ocean spread out before her. In any other situation, she would have been ecstatic to see such a sight, but right now, right here, the ocean was the last thing she wanted to see. Ocean meant island, like all those thriller movies you paid way too much to see where a bunch of kids are stranded forever on a tiny spit of land, and end up eating each other and stuff. Erika did not particularly feel like eating anyone at the moment, or, like, ever.

She tried to get up, really, she did, but her limbs just weren’t paying any attention to what her brain was telling them to do. Desperately pushing against the sand, she ended up just sinking a little. Alright. So, she was too weak to get up, probably from being thrown out of a hurdling plane onto a beach. Maybe a few broken ribs, obviously some large sort of gash on her leg, since she looked down and saw more blood than should be there for just a little wound. Okay, she could accept that. She was training to be a nurse after all, she could probably get herself back together, if she could ever force herself to get up. Pushing against the persistently shifting sand, she rolled over onto her back, moaning again from the pain.

Immediately after closing her eyes again, they shot open, as the shouts of a man became louder and louder, until she heard, and saw, the very man dragging a wounded person towards her. So, there were other survivors. Okay, obviously there were since the first thing she heard was screams, but hey, her mind was a little slow today. She had just crash landed on an island, after all. She tried to speak to the man, who had just laid down in exhaustion beside her, but all that came out were a few coughs. Ugh. This was going to be more difficult than she imagined.

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