1
Panicked screams echoed all around the cabin. Oxygen masks swayed frantically as the plane thrashed with turbulence.
A flight attendant who was trying to move through the aisle to the cockpit got swept off her feet. A fast-moving service cart hit her in the middle, sending her down the aisle with a sickening thud.
A sound that got lost in all the chaos.
A boy named Oliver, who was gripping his window seat, barely noticed the pained screams that followed. A blond girl a few seats before him was erratically praying to the God for help. To him, it didn't seem like God could hear her at all through all the commotion going on.
Or maybe the God didn't want to.
It wouldn't be the first time something fell from the skies while the God just watched as the ground burned. Oliver would bet fifty bucks that the dinosaurs are still holding a grudge for that one, but he was too preoccupied with his view. The trees were getting dangerously close, and his lungs did not like that one bit. Oliver ripped the oxygen mask off his face in a weak attempt to calm his rapid breathing, his knuckles turning white around the mask.
It did not help. The view of trees now looked like he was speed driving by in a car, and his lungs hated it even more.
Oliver Jankins was going to die.
Oliver opened his eyes; his vision was blurred, his ears were ringing, and it took him a moment to realize what had happened.
His father bailing on him and choosing yet another military tour over his own son... again. Moving from London to New Jersey. His mother deciding that he needs to start bonding with his stepfather. His stepfather's version of bonding being "Come to work with me and watch me fly a private plane...". The said plane hugging the trees and meeting the ground...
He winced as he turned his head to look around. Touching the left side of his temple made him hiss in pain. He looked down at his fingers, and the sight of blood that coated them made his brows furrow with unease. The smoke hit his senses, making him cough, which made his head spin. Blindly, he reached for his seatbelt, fumbling with it until he heard a soft click.
Oliver gripped the front seat for support and stood up shakily. Ringing in his ears stopped and was replaced by distant crying and screaming. There was some grunting and yelling somewhere behind him too. "Help! Oh my God... Help! I can´t get out!" He turned to find a redheaded girl stuck between two seats.
"Shit." Oliver swore under his breath as he made his way through the aisle. That made the redhead look up at his approaching form. Panic, betrayal, fear, and anger were dancing all over her face. Betrayal? Oliver didn´t ask. Through thick clouds of smoke, his vision finally cleared enough to notice the fire. Flames were getting dangerously close to where they were, and the raging redhead was still stuck.
"Bloody hell!" He quickly leaned his weight into her seat and pushed it back. He felt flames lick his right hand painfully where he was gripping the top of the seat, but he pushed until the tension was lifted off her seatbelt and she was able to pop it open, finally slipping free from her seat. He let go of the seat and breathed hard through his nose, which only made him cough more.
"Hurry!" He heard the redhead speaking at him through the dizziness. Before he could find energy to respond, he felt her hand gripping his hoodie, and she dragged him towards the exit.
The two of them stumbled out coughing and gasping for air. They straightened and came into sight with two girls. The brown-haired one looked relieved and happy at the sight of the redhead, but the other one paled and looked as if she saw a ghost.
"Surprise." Said the redhead beside him in a clipped tone as she glared at the pale one. Interesting...
"Van." Gasped the brown-haired, her lips curling into a soft smile. I guess the redhead's name is Van then.
"Van!" Someone yelled from behind us, catching our attention, and a curly dark-haired girl pulled Van into an embrace. Yep, definitely Van.
"Ty!" Van gasped with relief and returned the hug fiercely. Might as well start learning the names. A brown-haired and pale girl walked by, among them a smaller curly one with a strange expression and an axe prepped on her shoulder. Wait... an axe?
Before Oliver could comprehend what was happening, the axe girl cut off a leg below a guy's knee. This one Oliver recognized from the plane as Coach Ben, who was having a brief chat with pilot, his stepfather. Fuck! My stepfather... Shit. He hasn't seen Steve anywhere yet.
At such a gruesome scene, there were a lot of gasps and yelps of surprise and disgust.
"What. The. Fuck." Oliver heard a blonde with a shaggy haircut. He agreed. What. The. Fuck.
Axe girl threw the axe to the side, a spray of blood all over her face as she took off her belt, adjusted her glasses, and fastened the belt over what was left of the coach's leg to slow down the bleeding.
"Help me move him!" She ordered us, looking crazy enough for Oliver and a few other girls to move him further away from the burning plane.
Oliver caught sight of the cockpit part of the plane. Shit. His stepfather and the other pilot were visibly beyond dead, their blood sprayed over the front glass. Mother is going to flip out so bad when she finds out… Fuck!
Later, Ty and a blonde, shaggy girl, whose name Oliver learned was Nat, were ripping clothes into strips for Coach's leg. Oliver sat nearby with Van while a girl named Lottie tended to their burns. Van's cheek looked flamed and Oliver's right hand wasn't looking any better.
In a moment of peace, Oliver's gaze locked with Van's. "Thanks." "Thanks," they said at the same time. They chuckled lightly, and Oliver offered her his now bandaged right hand for a handshake. "My name's Oliver, by the way."
"Well, thanks again for not letting me burn." Van shook his hand, her expression tightening momentarily as her gaze drifted behind us to the pale girl, Jackie. Oliver nodded his head in acknowledgment, and his gaze drifted up to Lottie, who was watching him.
"One of the pilots was your father, right?" She asked carefully, knowing the said pilots were dead now.
"Stepfather." He corrected automatically with a nod, not really sure how to feel about this himself. Oliver wasn't heartless, but he wasn't emotionally tied to his stepfather either. He wasn't a bad person; Oliver's mother used to say that he was the opposite of Oliver's father, and that's why, one year ago, she had married him. Still, Oliver wasn't spending much time with him, and if he was, it was usually quiet. They didn't have many things in common to bond over.
"Okay." Axe girl, Misty, grunted nearby as she crouched down next to the coach. "Alright, the bleeding is slowing down. We need to disinfect it somehow." She spoke as she inspected the wound under the bandages. "Uh, maybe something from the bar cart?" She looked around.
"There wasn't one." Said Lottie as she walked over to Mysty. "I mean, it was just soda. It's cheaper that way."
"Maybe someone brought contraband." Said Laura Lee, the girl who was praying on the plane before it crashed. She was now sitting nearby with a boy named Javi, who was a younger brother of Travis. They both were sons of the other coach, who was still not found, neither dead nor alive.
For some reason everyone turned their gazes to Nat, who was not amused. Oh… interesting.
"Okay. Wow." She scoffed, leaning against a tree.
"Well, did you?" Misty prompted tightly.
"Obviously." Nat said matter-of-factly and rolled her eyes. Cute. Wait… Whaaat? "But I stashed it in my bag, and God knows where that is now." She sighed. My bag! Shit, I should look around for mine too.
"Guys, how about this?" Asked Van, holding out some bottle she took out of one of the bags. I haven't even noticed when she moved. The cut on Oliver's temple was cleaned, but his head was still throbbing.
"Hey, that's min—uh…" Jackie objected but retracted her complaint as Van and others looked at her with disbelief. "A great idea, Van."
"Witch hazel, isopropyl alcohol." Misty took the bottle and read it out loud. "Actually, this could work. Okay." She smiled and poured it over the stump. Ouch! That has to hurt, Oliver winced. And it did. Coach sat up screaming bloody murder. "Lie back. Lie back. Lie back." Misty said through his screams as she pushed him to lie back down. "Lie back."
"Oh, Jesus!" Coach Ben grunted in pain, "Fuck, my leg! Oh, fuck! Is it bad?" He asked, but no one answered. "How bad is it?" Nobody wanted to be the messenger of bad news.
"Well, the good news is I—" Misty took the initiative but thankfully was interrupted. "You are going to be fine, Coach." Ty reassured him. "You got pretty banged up," Understandment of the year. "but Misty is doing a really good job. Right, Misty?" She looked at Misty pointedly, and then they went a little further away to argue so Coach Ben wouldn't hear.
Ben lost consciousness shortly after, and Nat crouched down next to him with new bandages she was cutting earlier. Oliver saw her reluctant expression and moved closer, kneeling on Ben's other side.
"Here, let me help you." He lifted the stump a few centimeters off the ground with one hand and removed the rest of the bloodied bandages, glancing up at the blond girl with the shaggy haircut. "Name's Oliver." He introduced himself properly as he waited for her to start placing new bandages.
"Natalie." She nodded, noticing his slight British accent, and got to work. "Thanks."
"Not a bother." After that, they worked quietly until Nat noticed a cut on Oliver's left temple that was hiding under his brown curls until now. She finished wrapping Coach's stump in fresh bandages so Oliver could stop holding it. She walked around Ben's body and sat beside Oliver, confusing him for a second. She took a piece of clean cloth and dabbed it with disinfectant.
"Cut on your head." She reasoned simply, her voice kind and raspy.
"Oh." Momentarily speechless, he grimaced as she started cleaning the cut on his temple of excess blood. He propped his elbow on his knee and lifted his hair with his hand so she could have better access to his wound. "Much appreciated!" He thanked her as he watched her work, catching himself counting her freckles. Oh, get a hold of yourself, muppet!