Die Young

The sun burned my face, there was no cloud cover as all the clouds were underneath us. I got tired of the sun in my face and closed the barrier to keep the sun out of my face. I looked around the plane and saw no faces that I recognized, sadly. I was hoping possibly somebody I know would also be traveling to Alaska with me, but I guess it was a long shot.

The flight attendant came by and asked what I wanted to drink, I said Sprite. As she looked for a bottle of Sprite, she asked what I wanted to eat, “Peanuts, pretzels or cookies” I wanted the cookies but decided that they were going to be too sweet so I got the pretzels instead. She was handing me my drink when a violent shudder went through the plane, spilling my drink all over me.

“Oh dear, I’m very sorry” she said.

“Its alright” I said “but can I have some paper towels?”

“Yes, I’ll be right back”

She went back to grab some paper towels when another violent shudder went through the plane.

The intercom came on and the co-pilot started to say

“Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to experiencing some turbulence so please sit back and buckle up.”

I turned on the monitor and checked what the temperature was outside the plane, the thermometer said -74˚ outside. That was cold. Another shudder went through the plane and the co-pilots voice came on again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that there is more turbulence than we expected and that it will last for the remainder of the flight, so please sit back and...safe...the...down...”

Static filled the radio then the radio cut out. People started to stand up and walk to the front of the plane, the flight attendant came out and said

“Please, everybody return to your seats!” She said in a frantic voice “I will check what...” She never finished her sentence as another violent shudder went through the plane, bigger that the others, a crack appeared in the wall behind the flight attendant causing a loud noise. The flight attendant flew backwards being pulled towards the crack, then entire plane suddenly turned to the right and sent the food cart rolling toward the flight attendant. The food cart fell into range of the vacuum of the crack and picked up speed rolling toward the crack. The flight attendant screamed as the cart hit her with such force that it widened the crack and then both the flight attendant and the cart fell through. People screamed as the people who had stood up were pulled towards the crack and out into the sky.

The plane began to dip through the clouds and all anyone saw was forest, forest for miles. Some people were trying to help the people who had stood up by grabbing them, not all succeeded in helping and were pulled out as well.

I thought that maybe that if I recited important stuff about myself amnesia wouldn’t be so hard. I quietly whispered to myself,

“My name is Felix, I am 15 years old, my name is Felix, I am 15 years old, my name is Felix, I am 15 years old.”

I looked out the window and saw that we were close to the ground, the crack widened and split the plane in half, I saw that underneath the front half of the plane was the gas area and realized that I was lucky.

The front half was falling much faster than the back half of the plane, then the front half of the plane hit the ground and blew up part of the plane, the fire rushed toward our part of the plane.

The fire reached up and up as we went down and down, the fire reached our part of the plane and consumed the front two seats before sending us sideways. The fire extinguished itself from the air after burning the third row of seats. We spun wildly and I caught glimpses of the other part of the plane burning. Darkness crept in at the edge of my vision, and I blacked out.

I woke up disoriented and hanging from the straps of my seat, I kick a little and pain shoots through my right leg. I look down and see a piece of shrapnel impaled in my leg, its about the size of a postcard. I unhook myself from the harness and land on the seat in front of me, I climb down with pain in my leg the whole time. When I reach the ground I look up and see many people, dead, and hanging from their own harnesses, their cages.

A few of the harnesses are off, and I look around in the snow and see some people laying about, probably all dead. I look around once again and see that there are several track’s of humans leading away from the crash, most of them left in a group. The plane suddenly make a loud screeching sound and I jump away scared. The plane tilts, and falls over, it makes a screaming sound as it does. It hits the ground sending up a spray of snow, I watch and realize that the snow is headed towards me. I turn as it hits me pushing me over and sending jolts of pain through me. I dig my way up, thinking that I can’t die now, not to snow after all I’ve been through.

I start to feel sick, and almost throw up. I’m beginning to become claustrophobic, I think I’m about to faint when my hand shoots through the snow into fresh air. I pull myself up and take some deep breaths, vomit rises in my throat and I throw up.

The stench that rises up from the vomit is overwhelming and I stumble away from it. I look at the plane and see that now its on its side instead of upright. I walk into the plane, trying to ignore the dead bodies on either side of me. I look around and find the red case, first aid what I needed. I walk outside of the plane and sit down.

I swab my leg with alcohol and anesthetics until my leg goes numb then grab the shrapnel, and pull. Still sharp pain goes through my leg and I shout, loud and I grab my mouth hoping that nothing dangerous might’ve heard it. It starts to bleed and I put the gauze over it and wrap it, tightly and make sure it stays shut. I start to think about where I might be able to sleep for the night and suddenly it occurs to me where might I get my food.

I look to my right and see the fires burning from the other half of the plane. If I go over there, survivors could be over there and the fires will provide warmth and scare away creatures. I decide to go over to the other half of the plane and begin walking over there, pain goes through my right leg and fall to the ground screaming. This may not be as easy as I thought.

By the time I reach the other half of the plane it is getting dark, it probably was less than half a mile but took over an hour. I reach a clearing where trees have either been burnt down or blown over. I see a some people milling around and I yell out

“Hey! Over here!” A few people look over and a young man comes over, he has a nasty scrape on his face.

“Where did you come from?” He asks

“The other part of the plane, it crashed over there” I point in the direction of the plane.

“Some people from over there come over hours ago, we thought that nobody else made it”

“I passed out during the crash, and didn’t wake up for a long time.” I say

“What happened to your leg?” He asks just noticing the bloody bandage

“Shrapnel impaled my leg, it wasn’t deep but it hurt.”

“Where is the shrapnel now?” He asks

“I pulled it out, I didn’t want an infection and I found a first aid kit inside the plane.”

“We need to get you some medicine, food and water” He said as we begin walking towards the crash site

“Whats your name?” I ask

“Dan, my name is Dan, and yours?”

“My name is Felix” The name seems to echo everywhere when I say it. Felix it chants, Felix.

I wake up the next morning to a loud growling noise and screaming. I jump up with pain shooting through my leg and I look around. The loud growling is from a giant bear that is attacking the camp, that is where the screaming is coming from. There is a woman lying on the ground with claw marks all over her. She is bleeding profusely and the snow around her is turning red. A man hits the bear with a bar from the plane and the bear suddenly turns toward him, it growls and grabs him by the legs and drags him a few feet before ripping into him. His screams quickly stop as the bear shoves its paws into the hole it made. Dan comes out of the plane with a red short stick in his hand, suddenly the stick shoots and a flare comes out of it directly at the bear. The bear growls and runs into the forest.

I walk over to Dan and ask him

“What was that?”

He laughs before saying “It was just a bear, but its big and feral. Thats why it was attacking the camp, a normal bear would’ve stayed away but that feral one came right up and started attacking us. You probably need some more medicine, but after this it should be good.” He walks into a makeshift camp and I follow him, its a big tent with a few rows of bed, some of them are occupied.

“This is the infirmary, if you’re sick or hurt come here and we might be able to find something for you. But for now its for the extremely hurt or dying. He hands me a pill and I swallow it. Suddenly the tent flap bursts open and two men carrying the hurt women come in.

“Quick, we need some help!” one of them says

A woman at the back of the tent rushes out grabbing some bandages on her way over, she tries her best to stop the bleeding but the woman is bleeding too badly. The blood stops coming out and her head falls back. The doctor stares and then takes the bandages off and puts them in a bin full of water. She then walks over to the woman and tells the men to bring her outside.

We walk outside and Dan says “That was the doctor, Kelli she been doing the best she can, but its hard without the right supplies. C’mon I’ll show you the ropes.” We walk over to a part of the plane that has all the seats cleared out and walk in

“Hey, how you doing Derek?” Dan says

“Not bad considering the conditions I have to cook under.” says the man named Derek

“Derek is our main cook, he’s really talented at taking pine cones and creating a really.. flavorful soup.”

We then walk outside where all the seats have been arranges with a part of the wing creating a really long table.

“This is our food eating area, we eat the.. flavorful soup here” We are walking over to the infirmary when suddenly my leg sprouts in pain and I collapse to the ground in agony.

A few men rush over and help Dan pick me up and hustle the last few steps to the infirmary. I hear Kelli saying

“He’s developed a slight infection in his leg. I can treat it with the medication I was bringing.” Kelli brings over a few pills and shoves them down my throat, forcing me to swallow them. I then pass out to the sound of rushing water that seems to be in my head.

I wake up feeling horrible and with a horrible headache. Kelli rushes over and asks how I’m feeling

“Horrible” I reply She smiles and says

“It will be like that for a few days, but you are fixed.” She then turns around and starts to tend to a man who seems to be in pain

“What happened?” I asked

“There was a attack the night you collapsed, from the wild animals, its been almost a full day, including the night without an attack. It was usually frequent every night.”

“Does that mean we are scaring them off or what?”

“It could mean that or that they are saving for something big...” Kelli’s voice trailed off.

Later that night I was still in the infirmary and there were howls from the wild animals. Dan came in and said

“We’ve been hearing these howls since the sun went down, I think they are preparing for something.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kelli

“Well they’ve attack every night since we crashed, and suddenly they stop. That seems suspicious to me”

“Lets really hope they don’t attack or anything” Kelli said as we heard snarling outside

“What the..” Dan said as a man burst through the flap

“Its horrible, they’re everywhere!” said the man “There’s packs of everything!”

“Quick get in here! Before they get you!” Dan said

The man starts to walk in when a fox jumps on him, he falls to the ground as more foxes jump on him and chew at his flesh. Dan picks up a bit of a pole and swings at the foxes who are chewing away at the man who is screaming. He hits a fox and it goes flying, the other foxes look at Dan but mostly turn back to killing the man.

The foxes finish and run out the flap toward the rest of the camp. Dan and I look out the flap and see that a fire has started in the kitchen and caught the rest of the camp on fire. The infirmary was placed away from the rest of the camp and is not on fire but fire is rapidly burning up the grass in the camp.

We see people go running by as packs of foxes and wolves chase them. A few bears are chewing corpses and smacking people around.

“We have to help people” says Kelli who just looked out the door

“We can’t do anything” Dan says

A pair of wolves turns to look at the infirmary and starts to run toward it

“Uh oh” says Kelli

“We need to get inside” Dan says

I get inside with Kelli right beside me, Dan turns as the pair of the wolves burst through the flap and they pull him down.

“Run” He says and starts to hit the wolves

Kelli runs the the back of the infirmary and picks up the bottom of the rag

“Through here” she says “Don’t stop and don’t look behind you, I’ll try to get with you as fast as possible”

“Where are you going?” I ask

“I have to help Dan”

I run out of the infirmary and just before I run into the woods I look behind me, Kelli is running toward Dan when another wolf jumps through the opening tackling her to the ground. There is no way she can survive now, not unless she gets a miracle.

I run into the woods as I hear a howling behind me, I sneak a glance and see a pack of wolves trailing me. They suddenly turn to the right and I see a man who is running away from them and from me.

I stumble and fall to the ground and pain goes through my leg, I pick myself up and begin running again. The ground starts to slope up and it begins to get harder to run.

I reach the top of a cliff and look into the sky, the sky is dancing with colors as a aurora borealis ripples through the sky.

I then make a promise to myself, I will either survive or die young. This thought is still in my head as I jump off the cliff in the unknown. As I jump I hear the sound of rushing water again.