The Island

[Butch]

Kwame Uhuru

Kwame wasn't even sure if it had been for real or not. He had been looking through the window and enjoying the view when suddenly it had shifted some kind of tornado-like storm. The plane shook as if they'd hit something. the woman beside him had started to cry, scream and flail. He tied hid hardest to calm her down but she wouldn't listen. She was about to run off and create havoc when he finally caught up to her and almost forced her down into her seat. He strapped here and tried to get her calm. The problem was that he was certain they were all crashing to a sure death and it felt sacreligious to lie that they were going to be okay.

 

[Lady_Kit]

Kit Duvall

“Its’ beautiful, isn’t it” His voice was almost a whisper and she turned to him. Looking intently at her face, he added “The same color as your eyes. Kit Duvall” Then he laughed as if he’d discovered something that nobody else knew.

She felt a little like that herself, and Kit smiled in response to his laughter. No one had ever commented on the color of her eyes, at least not in such eloquent terms. The vacation was looking up already, she thought to herself. Pleasant, clean, very attractive and smooth…the man was textbook holiday affair. The next thought was lost as the plane lurched violently.

Kit wasn’t a pilot or an engineer, but she didn’t have to be to know that their plane was in trouble. If the explosion hadn’t been proof enough of that, the fact that the shaking craft seemed to be heading straight down into the roiling storm would have soon pegged her danger meter. There could be No good reason to go into the massive cloudbank.

And just when retirement was starting to get interesting.

The noise of the plane halted further conversation and intermittently drowned out whatever the stewardess was trying to announce over the PA system, but experienced travelers got the message. All around the cabin people were tightening up their seat belts, stowing their carry-on items, raising trays and locking them in place; some leaned forward in the crash position. Kit checked her belt and studied the Emergency Exit door, fixing it in her mind, just in case. One way or another they’d be landing and she was pretty sure that no one was leaving via the jet way on this trip. Fear knotted her stomach as the plane descended sharply. Kit looked at her companion, the light in the cabin dimmed so she leaned toward him to see his face as she spoke.

I know its one hell of a time to wonder, but, do you suppose these cushions really do float?

Her smile was grim, but her sense of humor was not completely gone and for the moment it kept the fear in check.

 

[Steiner]

He'd had to increase power to the wounded engine, this was a trade off - because although it consumed fuel faster (and less fuel on landing meant less fuel to blow up and kill them all) it also added extra stress to the only thing keeping them alive.

When the Brit came through the door to offer help, Robert very almost enacted company policy - no civilians on the flight deck in emergencies, because you could almost never rely on their credentials being true, but at that moment hydraulics failed and he was wrestling the control surfaces through muscle power alone.

"You had better be really fucking serious about that, mister. Because right now I DO need the help and if either one of us screw this up even slightly all those people back there are going to die. Strap in and give me a hand with these control surfaces, we need to keep roughly 5 degree positive angle of attack from the horizon (wherever THAT is in this storm!) take a second to orient yourself and then give me a hand holding her steady!"

At that moment the radio burped static before a transmission came through in the clear, wreathed in white noise.

HH -19 this is Angie Kindes with the Altima. Do you need assistance. I repeat, Do you need my assistance. I'm going to call the coast gaurd for your help."

Seizing any kind of lifeline, Robert quickly responded.

"Altima, this is HH-19. That's a roger - we will be coming down pretty hard short of the runway. Please watch convey our position to SAR, I say again, you must convey our course and final position to SAR. Our radio won't punch through this storm."

Between the two of them, they got the plane onto a relatively even path - but the situation was a losing gambit. They were simply going to run out of altitude before they ran out of distance to waikiki. They were going to come down short. The plane was now buried in the thickness of the storm, and Robert could feel the strong winds tearing at the planes control surfaces, lift surfaces and fuselage. Any damage would be significant in this situation. Lightning slammed into the plane numerous times, jangling the nerves of the two men fighting to hold her, and causing the instrumentation to fritz up still further.

Then lightning struck the plane one last time and it was the heaviest strike yet. It seemed to envelope the nose of the jet and Robert had to squint through the blazing white light as it wreathed the aircraft. From the cries in the back, he knew that it had slid all the way down the passenger compartment too. After the largest jolt yet, HH-19 broke clear of the worst of the storm and emerged at low altitude over an island landmass.

"What the hell - where are we?" Robert wondered. The land shape was similar to what he had expected - he'd done the Waikiki approach more times than he cared to relate, and some of the hills were hauntingly familiar, but none of the man made landmarks were present.

"Tower, Tower - this is HH-19 we are going in. Mayday, mayday. Position uncertain at this time, but over land. Try and fix our location - I'll send as long as possible."

The radio was silent. No beacons were present. SATNAV and GPRS had given up the ghost. Increasingly his electrics started to fail, so Robert used the time to shunt everything to manual or hydraulic. Picking his spot, he gritted his teeth and tried to take the plane in gently. With the stranger mimicking his own movements with great skill, acting as an extension of Roberts own strength, they managed to get the aircraft in position for its run. What they couldn't tell was that the flat land in front of them was a water meadow, and that the area was heavily waterlogged from the storm - it was the equivalent of landing in a swamp.

Instead of kissing the ground and starting to bleed off speed HH-19 dug in HARD and the co-pilot was catapulted into a bulkhead savagely, blood spinning off in all directions. Vaguely Robert was aware that he had probably just killed everyone aboard who hadn't been strapped down, but there was little time to think about such things, as the aircraft ripped itself free of the mire and ploughed a trench through the soft earth. Unfortunately a buried rock of large dimensions was in their path and this ripped the Starboard wing off, and rolled the aircraft over onto its back, killing all lights, all power and shattering the flight deck glass. As the plane shuddered to a halt, Robert felt something strike him in the head and he passed out, almost gratefully, never expecting to wake up.

 

[Cordae]

Julie Malone

Julie squeezed harder on her friend's hand and felt herself scream. Looking out the window of the plane, she could see dark clouds everywhere, and was almost certain they had been struck by lightning at least once. She could make out land far below, and it suddenly began racing towards her.

"Oh God! We're going to crash!!" Julie knew she had spoken, but the only sound she could hear was the scream of the engines. Quickly, she tucked her head between her knees and wrapped her arms around the back of her neck.

The jolt as the plane met land knocked Shawna from the seat beside Julie and she felt blood splatter across her face coming from some unknown direction. A searing pain pierced through her shoulder and ran up her neck, and down her arm.

Breathing heavily, Julie noticed the oddest thing. The plane was completely silent. Struggling to sit up, pain bit through her arm again. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and felt a hot tear slide down her nose. 'Pain is good... it means I'm still alive' Julie thought and tried to speak the words aloud. When her voice did not immediately come she opened her eyes and biting her lip, pushed the pain away to sit up. Julie took a moment to examine her arm. While the fingers still wiggled when prompted, she could not rotate her hand. 'Fuck! It must be broken....I think' Holding it steady with her other arm, she timidly stood and looked around the plane.

Gasping at the horror in front of her, Julie finally found her voice and began to scream. In the aisle next to her chair, she found Shawna, who's neck was turned at a very unnatural angle. In the seats across from her, she saw blood still dripping from Kelly's head, and the arm rest of a seat through the stomach of Mae. The same sight greeted her at every angle. 'Everyone is dead!! No! If I survived, I'm sure someone else did too!'

"Hello!" Strength ran through her veins as she stood on her toes to scan the aisle and seats. "Is anyone else alive?" Slowly, she picked her way over bodies and didn't get much farther than a seat or two in front of her own before she heard a voice. "What? Who's there? Where are you?!?"

 

[Starsailor2804]

Paul had his eyes closed as much as totally possible, it was only when lightning had hit the plane that he opened them again. What the hell? Looking out the window he saw a battlefield of pitch black clouds with bright bolts of electricity dancing throughout them. We've gone from bad to a worse situation, he thought, what luck. Keeping his eyes open from now on he felt the plane pitch, shake violent, and it continued to fall. Well, this was it.

Suddenly, he had never known it was coming, they hit a force so powerful that Paul was thrown forwards, nearly slipping out of his seatbelt. The plane was shaking violently, he had no time to look out of the window. But, what he did see was a sight that would not be forgotten anytime soon, not like he had much time to live anyways. Looking to the center of a plane he watched as a female body flew through the air and smacked against a wall nearly causing her head to explode.

With no hesitation Paul threw up, all over the floor as there was yet another jolt that threw him backwards this time. It was only an instant until suddenly the plane hit into something ahead of them, striking deep into the marshy land, that the nose of the plane dug itself and flipped the plane over. As his seatbelt was completely ruined now to provide any restraint Paul fell out of it and fell a few feet to land on the wall opposite the one the lady nearly had her head explode upon, before the plane continued to flip.

Being tossed around, fortunately there wasn't all that much force anymore, Paul finally ended on the floor. But, it wasn't the floor anymore, it was the ceiling, the plane was totally upside down. Having to fight unconsciousness he heard some screaming, crying, but much of the time there was pretty much silence. And, he was silent as well, he wasn't in all that great of comfort right now, he had definately screwed up his left arm, though it surely wasn't broken.

It was then that he heard someone call out ( Cordae ) and then another, and after regaining some sort of strength to do so he replied after a few groans of pain, "Yeah, I think I'm alive, or this is just one fucking real nightmare!" Pain as much as anger struck Paul, he was in so much pain that it made his adrenaline flow and thus angry. Rolling onto his back Paul held his hands up into the air and moved them, there was no pain in the movements at all, and thus he knew his arms were definately not broken.

Rolling over again he stood slowly at first, but then quickly, his head hitting hard on the ceiling. "Damnit! Where in the fuck is the exit?" He was going to be sick again, he felt it, he had definately been much more lucky than most from the landing. Looking around the plane he saw the old lady who was across the aisle from him hanging from her seat, her neck broken obvious and just hanging as blood trailed from it. Yep, sick, he felt as he quickly turned and pucked again onto ceiling that had become the floor.

 

[Lady_Kit]

Kit Duvall

Breathe in breathe out, breathe in breathe out….one system still in tact. Kit began moving her extremities, testing muscles and joints for injury. Except for a pounding head, fingers found the source in a wet and tender gash along her hairline, and some painful bruises she thought she was ok. Her body hung awkwardly in the seat belt; she thought it odd until she looked around and realized that the plane lay on its roof. Her seat was below the overhead bins so she didn’t have far to fall when belt buckle opened. Kit landed on her side with a grunt and she lay for a moment fighting the nausea that suddenly attacked.

"Is anyone else alive?" Kit heard a woman call out, the voice sounded weak but more frightened than injured.

Yes...Hello…Are you injured? Can you move?

"What? Who's there? Where are you?!?" The woman called out again.

The cabin lights were out but a weak glow from the windows, and a large gap in the fuselage where the starboard wing used to be, shed enough light to see the effects of the landing. Bodies were scattered around the cabin like discarded dolls. Kit deliberately let her eyes slide past those that were clearly beyond help. Moans and loud cries told her that there were other survivors.

"Damnit! Where in the fuck is the exit?"

Good question from a male voice that sounded nearby.

Here! This way.

Kit heard her seatmate moan as she moved carefully to see if the exit door would open. Maybe the holes in the body of the plane would have made easier exits but Kit was on autopilot and in her shock-clouded mind she kept repeating the travelers refrain. “In case of emergency move to the nearest exit door.”

 

[Vikingstone]

Reggie

With the co-pilot cowering in a corner, Reggie was free to leap into his chair and strap himself down. Grabbing the violently throbbing yoke in front him he quickly realized that the hydraulics on the tortured little plane had failed utterly and the Captain had been using sheer muscle to maintain the semblance of control they'd been enjoying. The man was a super-hero in Reggie's book and it would be an honor to die with him as it seemed they were most assuredly about to do.

"Get in the back, my boy, Reggie screamed at the petrified co-pilot, "bumpier still yet to come, get strapped in!" But the poor young man was paralyzed.

Reggie didn't have time to do anything further for the kid as he slammed his feet onto the elevator pedals and drew back violently on the yoke. Following the pilots' lead, they momentarily regained a more comfortable attitude but a series of monumental lightning strikes, one of which seemed to grip the plane for far longer than the normal three or four milliseconds, sealed their fate.

The last blast had left Reggie quite woozy and though he was able to continue to mimic Roberts movements at the controls, his ability to discern the finer points of reality was badly diminished. A sudden violent jolt ripped the yoke from Reggie's hands and he passed into gray with the roaring and screeching of twisting and snapping metal blotting out the rest of his senses. He vaguely registered a change in the pull of gravity from down through his ass to up through his head. Breaking glass...screaming people...and he was quite wet as well. Then the pain lashed him awake!

"Great Caesars Ghost, I'm bloody well alive!" Reggie shouted as he patted himself down checking for protruding bones and trying to find the source of the pain in his legs. There was blood everywhere but Reggie didn't think it was his. This amount of blood one does not wake up from losing.

Orienting himself, Reggie quickly realized he was indeed upside down and his pain was being caused by the weight of his own body pulling on his legs which were jammed up under the instrument panel. A moment of maneuvering and he was free to pop his restraints and put his feet down onto the ceiling.

The blood was the co-pilots. Ghastly...poor blighter never did get to the back. Reggie closed the lads eyes and pushed his broken body off to the side. His main concern was his hero, Captain Roberto.

He checked the man over for serious injuries and aside from an ugly contusion on his forehead, he seemed to be whole. Very little of the blood on him was his own so Reggie felt comfortable with gently patting the man's face in an attempt to awaken him. It would be much easier and safer to get the Captain down if he could help a bit.

"Are you in there, my boy," Reg called loudly. "Magnificent piece of flying, Robert. By the power vested in me by Her Sublime Majesty, Empress Leilani, whom I met last night at the Horny Lu'au gentlemans' club, you are hereby promoted to Air Marshal.

Robert began to rouse and shortly they had him on his feet. Reg looked into Roberts' eyes to check for pupil dilation and said, "I don't believe you have a concussion, old man, but we'll have to watch you. In the meantime we definitely have live ones back there so if you'd care to join me..." Reggie deftly kicked open the twisted door and they stepped into the cabin to see what horrors had befallen the passengers.

 

[papillon24]

Angie Kindes

"Altima, this is HH-19. That's a roger - we will be coming down pretty hard short of the runway. Please watch convey our position to SAR, I say again, you must convey our course and final position to SAR. Our radio won't punch through this storm."

As soon as she looked up she saw the plane soar overhead of her boat. Quickly she turned back to the radio to contact the coast gaurd.

She turned the switch to the frequency."Coast gaurd, this is the Altima. There is a plane in trouble heading towards WAikiki. So you read me coast gaurd?" Nothing but static filled the airwaves on the radio. With one final attemt, the static was gone.

not even static? how strange she thought , throwing down the radio in frustration. Quickly she ran to the bow of the boat to check on the status of the plane. Something caught her attention as she rounded the tip of Diamond head. The beach seemed bare. There were no sunbathers, no resort hotels or even the fainest madern object on the beach except for the the remains of a torn plane.

She was only a few miles off the coast. Quickly she went to check her supplies. She packed up her first aid kit and set it on the table in the cabin. She grabbed the wheel and turned for the beach. Things were slow going for the wind was against her the whole way.

 

[Snow-Guy]

Sean was asleep when the trouble started, and stayed asleep for a surprising amount of the initial chaos. He'd slept through worse, you had to when living on a beach.

One of the last lurches of the plane drove his head into the seat in front, filling his head with a blinding white light. As far as he was concerned, he'd bailed on a big wave. He threw his hands up to protect his head and took a gasp of air while he still could.

The sea pulled him down again and slammed him around. He did what he could to protect his head until the beating stopped. When it stopped, the first thing he realised was that he could breathe - always an important thing. He must have been washed up on shore. The sand felt rough against his forehead and forearms.

The sand felt wrong though, more like carpet. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around. No wonder he was hurting, some bastard had dropped an airplane on top of him. That's just not on, he thought, as he tried to stand up.

After getting pulled down a couple times, he worked out that he was caught up in something round his waist. He pulled himself free and staggered towards the daylight.

Once outside, he wandered off a little because he knew that planes always exploded in the movies. Then he collapsed onto his back and lay there. His board was probably a writeoff - it might washup, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

 

[CollegeCutie]

Noelani

Noelani stood rooted to the earth, her chocolate eyes wide with shock and disbelief. The wind of the receding storm blew her long hair about her face. She could not believe what she had just seen. The largest and strangest looking bird she had ever laid eyes on had just dove down from the sky and disappeared beneath the tree canopies on the lower part of the island.

"Noelani, come in from the rain!"

But in her curiosity she did not hear the call. Instead she broke out into a full run towards the area of the island where she had seen the bird fall.

 

[Steiner]

"Oh dear God..."

Robert was alive, or at least a reasonable facsimile of said state. He wobbled on his legs and followed the Brit, Reggie, towards the cabin door. The kid he'd originally flown with was sprawled near the back of the cabin, and Robert realised there wasn't enough left of him for there to be a possibility that he was still alive.

Following Reggie over the twisted threshold of the cabin door, he stepped into a charnel house of horrors.

"Anybody injured? Don't move - just raise a hand or something to indicate your position. For gods sake don't panic - if you're mobile simply make your way to the exit and get clear of the aircraft. I'm going to see what can be done to move the wounded clear of the aircraft. Please don't think of staying to help unless you are perfectly uninjured and have medical training - or you're likely to do more harm than good."

Wobbling on his feet, he pushed the heartache and his grief to the back of his mind. Dismayingly few of the huddled shapes in the seats and the aisles were raising hands.

 

[Cordae]

Julie Malone

Listening again, Julie heard that there were two voices responding to her calls. 'Great! If there's two alive, there has to be more!' Moving carefully, she went towards the sound of the first voice. It belonged to a young man who Julie assumed had been vomiting (based on what she could smell). He turned towards her, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt.

"I haven't found an exit yet. Do you think you can look for one while I find other survivors?" Julie assessed the man to be relatively unharmed and quickly stepped away towards the other voice.

She found the voice to belong to the woman who Julie had previously thought strange for wearing boots. 'Smart woman after all...' Julie thought of the irony as she bent down to assist the woman to her feet.

"Hey! Over here!" Julie shouted to the young man. "There are a couple holes in the plane's body! If you can kick them open a bit more, we can get out over here!"

She heard groaning from beside the woman and found that the person who had been sitting beside her was also alive.

"You ok? Are you hurt?"

Just then, Julie's head darted up as she saw the form of the captain come through the door and ask for survivors. She attempted to raise her left arm and pain shot through her. 'Fuck! Forgot about that....' She raised her right arm and signaled to the pilot.

 

[Butch]

Kwame Uhuru

Kwame watched in shock as the the woman sit next got crushed, along with her seat, like an egg.
"NO!!!" he screamed but it was inaudible over the loud crashing noices.

"Anybody injured? Don't move - just raise a hand or something to indicate your position. For gods sake don't panic - if you're mobile simply make your way to the exit and get clear of the aircraft. I'm going to see what can be done to move the wounded clear of the aircraft. Please don't think of staying to help unless you are perfectly uninjured and have medical training - or you're likely to do more harm than good."

The man talking felt reasuring. Kwame hadn't thought about his condition till know but noticed that was bleeding quite a bit through a wound in his forehead. There were definetly people worse off than him though so he didn't say anything. He was going to rise from his seat and head to the exit when he noticed that the belt was stuck and he couldn't move anywhere.
He raised his hand and tried to catch the man's attention.
"Over here. I'm stuck."

 

[Steiner]

g in s

Ah, a good easy one first.

Robert picked his way down the aisle to the gentleman stuck in his seat and leaned over him, slipping the work knife out of his jacket pocket.

"Please relax and don't move, sir. I'm going to cut the belt."

And almost before he'd finished the sentence he cut.

"Sir, please could you help the lady there get clear? If you feel up to it, could you make sure she's comfortable and resting?"

He indicated the piteous form of Julie, staring in shock at her injured arm.

 

[Starsailor2804]

Paul did exactly what the captain said, he didn't have to be told twice, and once he saw others going out the exit he followed. Rubbing the back of his head he ducked at places and stepped over luggage and bodies. Finally, as he reached the exit of the plane he stumbled out and walked through the marshiness of the area they had landed. Walking away from the ocean, he walked more towards the woods as he reached in his pocket and pulled out a mint to get the taste of puke out of his mouth.

"I am never getting in a plane again!" Rubbing his eyes he had to focus them to see everything correctly. Looking away from the ocean he looked upon a lush forest. It smelled very clean here as well, where exactly was everyone? He figured that emergency crews from the island surely would have been arriving by now, at least tourists. But, there was no one, all he could hear was the screaming and crying from those he had been with on the plane.

Where exactly were they?

 

[CollegeCutie]

Noelani

Noelani slowed her pace to a fast walk when she began to near the place where the bird had descended. The storm had almost completely passed now and there was only a slight wind in the air which helped to dry her dampened raven locks. There was a freshness to the air that only came after a hard cleansing rain.

"I am never getting in a plane again!"

The young woman froze in place like a startled doe when she heard the nearby voice. It spoke in a strange language that she was not familiar with, yet the sound was distinctly masculine. Crouching low in the brush she decided to investigate further. Like a jungle cat she crept silently in the direction which the voice had come.

Peering through the thick leaves of a fern she spotted him. He was like no man she had ever seen. He was slightly taller than the men of her people, and his skin was noticeably lighter, but it was his eyes that held her interest.. the color of deep water. She was so fascinated by them that while leaning forward to get a better view she accidentally knelt down on a twig, the sharp cracking sound revealing her location.

 

[Starsailor2804]

Stretching and breathing in the air Paul slowly began to calm himself, if that was even possible considering all that he had just been through. Actually, he was just glad he was survived, and being unhurt he really felt like a million bucks. His buddies would never believe his story totally, how he had actually become unbuckled and had fell onto the roof of a crashed plane. That sounded totally crazy every time he thought about it. Looking around Paul didn't look back at the plane again, he couldn't yet, he just didn't want to go back there.

Suddenly, there was a twig snap. Back home in Virginia he had hunted since he was fourteen with his father and thus knew the woods quite well. No animal usually broke a branch or twig, besides a bear. But, one snap was too impossible for the only sound a bear walking through the woods would make. Thus, he slowly walked over to check. Looking back and forth he tried to see what or who it was. "Umm... hello?" He knew it couldn't be the rescue team cause they would be making much more noise than that.

Maybe it was a child that had stumbled upon the plane. Creeping closer to the woods he finally laid eyes on what had made the sound. A girl....a native? Did the natives of Hawaii still dress like that? She looked young, but not too young. He couldn't really tell by the way she was crouched and hidden in the shadows of the trees. Whatever the case he looked at her and knelt down as she was, he didn't want to frighten her. "Hello, our plane crashed, you probably saw and heard it, can you get help?" She looked at him oddly, she didn't seem to speak English.

Turning around to look back at the plane he noticed people were being too frantic and panicky to get their attention. Looking back at her he bounced alittle as he knelt, what could he do to get her to understand...

 

[Steiner]

So very few people had moved or responded. The fire at the rear of the plane was slowly spreading forward, and the smell of burning flesh was getting harder and harder to ignore.

The few qualified people pulled together, and passed the wounded down to those who were strong enough to carry them, but the combination of impact and roll had inflicted dreadful casualties. Robert paused by the trio of young girls who had been Julies good friends - less than an hour ago, they'd been hanging off him and joking with him. Now they would never laugh again - he gently closed Mae's eyes with two fingers, and arranged her more neatly in a nearby seat, trying to find some dignity for her, feeling so useless that he couldn't do anything less cosmetic.

Finally the fire drove them out, although they grabbed the remaining survival kits from the the wreckage first, and he found a flarepistol with 5 flares that might be handy. Tucking it into the waist band of his uniform trousers, he followed the others out of the plane and went to join the people on the assembly point.

 

[Butch]

Kwame Uhuru

When the man who Kwame presumed was the pilot had helped him out of his seat he headed for the door with calm yet decisive steps. He wanted to get of here as fast as the next man but knew the value of staying calm in these situations. The rest of the survivors seemed to have set up some kind of check point close to the crash site. He headed over and saw that the plane had caught fire. He hadn't noticed that before. Though you would never expect it, Kwame was in deep shock. He'd turned his back at the others, not primerly to alienate them but to be alone with his thoughts.

 

[Vikingstone]

Reggie

Dead soldiers after mission, his professional victims, Reggie could compartmentalize that sort of death. But just plain folks on their way to a vacation destination who were now hanging upside down dripping gore, this was some fresh hell that no amount of alcohol would wipe from his mind. And most of them were indeed dead or would be shortly. Reggie lowered as many as he could to the ground in a vain attempt to make their last moments more comfrortable.

Halfway down the cabin he found their flight attendant. She had been cradling the fatally lascerated head of another passenger when she expired from her own injuries. Reggie knelt and carressed her cheek for a moment, "Brave girl." Reggie whispered as he closed her pretty green eyes.

It was then that Reggie began to notice wisps of smoke floating about the cabin. The damn thing had somehow continued to burn even with all this water. Good ol' jet fuel. Time was suddenly of the essence and Reggie slid by the Captain as he stood looking at the damnable tableau of Mae, Shawna and Kelly. The Pussycats had not made it.

"Fuck all, Robert," Reggie said as he gripped the mans' shoulder for a moment. Robert was giving Mae a more diginified position for her final repose. Then together they placed Kelly and Shawna in each others arms, closing their eyes as well. Turning back he saw poor Julie, covered in her friends' blood, trembling and cradling her left arm. "I'm so dreadfully sorry Julie, so very sorry." Reggie couldn't look at the girl anymore and for a moment thought he might disintegrate under the weight of the ovewhelming impotence he felt.

Then Reggie was shaken from his melancholy by a droning female voice.

"In case of emergency, move to the nearest exit door." "In case of emergency, move to the nearest exit door."

It was Blues Eyes in Boots! She was in deep shock and had gone into survival mode, struggling with the badly bent emergency door on the buried side of the aircraft.

Reggie moved quickly to her side as the smoke and stench of burning flesh began to become intolerable. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her toward the hole in the side of the plane. Reggie gave her a brief once over and found that she did not seem to be significantly injured.

"Come along now my darling, no good that way, let's have you out the side over here," Reggie spoke as he would to a child. "Careful now, a little mushy out here, now up onto the sand, excellent, my dear, now you just stay right here and we'll be back for you in just a tick."

Reggie began to turn away when she grabbed fiercely onto his shirt, popping a button or two, "The guy next to me, the tall man....still alive!" Blue Eyes whispered through clenched teeth.

Bloody hell.

Turning back he met the Captain coming out, his arms full of gear. Reggie explained the situation and snuck back in through the tear in the fuselage. He quickly found the gentleman. He'd released himself from his belt but was struggling to get to his feet. He'd probably about knocked himself out when he hit the ledge of the overhead compartment. Yes, the overhead...over...head...OVERHEAD?!

"MY BOOZE!!!" Reggie screamed!

Robert had just thrust his head back through the hole when the terrible realization struck Reggie like that bizarre lightning bolt had before the crash.

"HERE!" Reggie shouted, dumping the man into the pilots arms. He then rushed the few steps to the front of the plane and the bin where the heavier carry-ons were stowed. Reggie grabbed a fire extinguisher he found lying nearby and stove in the door. Ripping it off it's frame entirely, he watched as his shiny metal case fell to the ceiling along with the rest of the contents of the locker. Clutching the case and anything else he could carry, Reggie ran in a crouch for the opening as the flames licked at the seats and the poor devils above him. Splashing into the muck he jogged a few more steps and flopped onto the sand near the rest of the survivors.

 

[Steiner]

Robert struggled to the rest of the survivors, laying the man in his arms down on the sodden turf.

Hands on thighs he panted and puffed, watching the flames devour the skeletal remains of his aircraft. His pride, and shame, rolled into one.

Turning suddenly he marched ten or so strides, behind a boulder and sunk to his knees, hands buried in mud, and cried like a boy of ten. Shame and guilt and remorse and helplessness welling up and out of him, as if he were vomiting emotions.

 

[im_invisible69]

Cho

The fishing had been good for our group today. We were on our way back to our part of the island when a terrific storm just suddenly sprung up. We turned the canoes back out beyond the break water to keep safe from the wind and choppy sea.

The storm disappeared almost as fast as it came up, though it was very violent when it was active. We made landfall and stored the canoes. All tribesmen knew that the canoes were our lifes blood and took special care to ensure they maintained and safely stored.

We started to make our way back to the village through the decimated trees. A flash of color caught my eye from under one of the trees. I immediately recognized Makani, or what was left of her. I called over the other three of the fishing team and together we were able to move the tree enough to free poor Makani's body. We couldn't leave it where it was.

I shouldered my portion of today's catch and carefully picked up Makani's body and bore it back to the village. When we arrived the villagers were just returning from our safety shelter. I knelt down infront of Mako'a. His face fell to see one of his people taken. Our leader came up as we started to draw the attention of the returning villagers.

Kawaihae raised his arms to the sky crying out Makani's name and then looking at me as the leader of our fishing group and the one bearing this sad news asked me to tell her story. I looked to the other friends and family of Makani, and starting with her family we started to sing and tell Makani's story. When the story came to the present day, I took over telling of the storm and it's immediacy and violence. I told of a beautiful and innocent woman responding to Kawaihae's call, and that our God's chose that moment to call Makani back to their breast by sending an entire tree. I sang of her obvious strength since it took an entire tree to stop her life. Then as a group we bore her body under Mako's direction for his cleansing.

 

[CollegeCutie]

Noelani

Noelani's eyes widened in fear when he began to move in her direction. He had heard her!

"Umm... hello?"

She remained unmoving where she was. Maybe if she kept still he wouldn't spot her. But those hopes were soon dashed when he knelt down as she was and she realized that he was staring strait at her. She jumped slightly from surprise when he spoke again in his strange tongue.

"Hello, our plane crashed, you probably saw and heard it, can you get help?"

Noelani tilted her head to the side in confusion. She knew the words had been directed at her, but she hadn't understood a single one. He turned then to look at something behind him, and when he turned back to face her she could see the pleading look in his blue orbs. What was he trying to tell her? Slowly she rose from her crouching position so she could see what he had been looking at.

It was then that she saw what she had originally come in search of, the strange bird she had seen fall from the sky earlier. It seemed even bigger now that she was near it, and...it was on fire! All around it where strange, light skinned people like the man before her, and some of them appeared to be bleeding.

The sight both confused and scared Noelani, causing her to turn quickly around and run as fast as she could away from the beast.

 

[Lady_Kit]

Kit Duvall

The guy next to me, the tall man....still alive!

The Brit that pulled Kit from the plane turned back toward the smoking fuselage. He conferred briefly with the Captain, who was on his way out of the plane with an armload of gear, and ducked inside. Moments later Kit saw the Brit thrust her seatmate out of the makeshift exit before making another trip into what was left of their aircraft. The Captain half carried the man to the group of frightened survivors, lowered him to the soggy ground a few yards from where Kit sat and staggered away.

Kits’ head ached but the fear receded some now that she was out of the crumpled plane. The shock of the crash and a still bleeding wound to her temple left her feeling dazed and confused. Fresh air helped her come to her senses a little and she began to take stock of her environment. She looked at what was left of her fellow travelers, noting that far fewer came off the plane than had boarded. As flames began to lick at the plane in earnest and Kit watched her rescuer emerge from the wreckage a final time she realized no one else would be coming out. The small group sprawled on the ground was all that remained of Flight 19.

A moan drew her attention to the wounded. She started to rise but dizziness slammed her back to the wet ground and she sat for another moment letting the world stop spinning before she tried again. The second time she moved slowly, crawling over the rough grass and damp sand until she came close one of the injured. It was one of the “giggly co-eds” as Kit had named them. Well, the poor girl wasn’t giggling anymore and Kit realized that of the group this was the only one of them to survive. Now she sat swaying, cradling an injured arm and crying softly.

Hey…Sweetie, its gonna be ok. I expect half the islands rescues teams will be here any second now. You just hang on.

Eyes that brimmed over with tears raise to meet Kits concerned look and the older woman thought she’d never seen such sadness. This poor kid who not so long ago was laughing and happily contemplating a sunny vacation now would mark this as one of the worst days of her life. Kit patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, not knowing what else to say or do in the awful situation.

She turned toward the man who’d earlier complimented her on her eyes. He lay where the pilot placed him, though Kit noticed he’d started to move around a little now. When she reached his side she settled onto the damp ground, exhausted from the small exertion.

It seemed that everyone who’d exited the plane bore some injury, some more severe than others and a few didn’t look like they would make it at all if help didn’t arrive soon. Help should have already arrived, shouldn’t it? Kit wondered if her sense of time was off. Surely by now someone would have noticed the black smoke rising from the burning wreck. Maybe they’d gone off course during the storm and landed on a less populated area of the island but even so…

Help would arrive soon. Wouldn’t it?

 

[Vikingstone]

Reggie

The crumpled plane had become a funeral pyre for those left. Reggie watched as the acrid black smoke poured into the air. As jaded a secular humanist as he was, even Reggie took a moment to offer a plea to The Great Spirit or God or Athena or whomever to take the poor blighters who didn't make it unto their breast.

Then Reggie began to absent-mindedly pick through the armload of stuff that he'd brought with him on the last trip. Frankly, he didn't know what else to do at the moment. Robert had wandered, the survivors were doing their best to care for one another and Reggie was simply exhausted. He was a full decade past his prime and though still in good shape, the exertions of the past few minutes had left him quite spent.

The items in his little cache were of the normal assortment...a satchel with some documents, personal effects, a music case (saxophone, trumpet?), a few blankets and of course his booze. Booze...just thinking the word warmed Reggies' heart.

Some vigor returning, Reggie grabbed his case and walked in a meandering path behind a large boulder that protruded from the mire. There he found the intrepid Captain sobbing bitterly. The man was obviously crushed by the loss of the passengers and his plane. Reggie sat down a few steps away from the distraught Robert and snapped open his portable liquor cabinet. The first bottle he unwrapped proved to be Wild Turkey a mid-range, smoky mash that was just what was bloody well called for. Easing out the cork, Reggie to a long thirsty pull of the bourbon. The burn down into his trembling gut centered him nicely.

"Here, old man," Reggie said to the Captain, "steady your nerves." Reggie stretched his arm across the distance between them, waggling the bottle in invitation.

"This was not your fault, Robert, I was there, I saw everything, those of us who still breathe, owe that fact entirely to you." Reggie did his best to reassure the pilot. "We should be floating in the water and feeding the orcas, were it not for your superb flying."