Chapter 1
Screams and smoke filled the air. The people who were flung from the plane into the water are fighting to stay afloat and make their way towards the shore. People calling out for their loved one's, tripping over the luggage and metal scraps that are scattered across the beach.
A small group has gathered around a man, pinned in the sand by a broken piece of the plane.
"You're alright, okay? We're gonna get you out of there." A tall man kneeling down tries comforting him. His brown hair is plastered on his forehead, and there is a large gash on his arm, but he doesn't seem focused on it at all. "What's your name?"
The man groans, trying to push the frame of the plane off of him, but the others hold him still. "I'm Frank," the man says to him, investigating the fragment that is lodged in the other's abdomen.
"P- Peter," he croaks out, gasping as he talked.
"Hi, Peter. It's looking like this is going to be a pain to get out, but it's small and we'll be as gentle as we can." The woman and man holding Peter down nod, trying to provide some comfort, even if it's not much.
"Just get it off..." he strains, his eyes fluttering.
"He's going to lose a lot of blood when we move this." Frank explains to the two others."What are your names?"
"Amelia."
"Caradoc."
"Great Caradoc," he points to the man, "go find some cloth, and something to tie around his abdomen. And Amelia, go see if you can find a sewing kit. We don't want to keep this wound open for long."
"Wait aren't you supposed to leave it in? That's what they do in the movies," Caradoc asks him.
"Yes, normally I would, but the metal is too heavy and it's crushing him. We have to get it off and I don't exactly have a saw to cut the shard with. Now go!" Frank instructs. They nod before rushing off in opposite directions.
"Don't worry, Peter, you're going to be okay." Peter gives a soft smile, before his head falls back into the sand, losing consciousness.
Wake up...
Come on, wake up, please!
God damn it, WAKE UP!
Two fists slam down onto the man's chest and he coughs furiously, sitting up.
"Oh, thank fuck, are you okay?" the woman asks him, patting his back with a raised eyebrow.
His leg is bleeding, but it isn't too bad. The adrenaline is pumping so it doesn't really hurt.
"Yea, I-" he stops, looking around. The tall trees surrounding them seem to go on for miles. "Where the hell are we?"
"I don't know, I just woke up like five minutes ago, and I've spent that time trying to wake your ass up." the woman responds, standing and moving her hair out of her face. "Can you stand?"
The man pulls himself up, gripping his thigh in the process.
He takes a moment to look around, taking in exactly what just happened.
"I'm Remus," he offers his bloody hand, and a grimace pulls across her face.
She pushes his arm down. "Dorcas." She turns, and her braids fling behind her. "I guess we should go that way," she says, pointing to the sky where a large smoke plume is accumulating.
Remus limps over. "After you," he remarks, holding out an arm. Dorcas rolls her eyes and they start to make they way through the foliage.
"Hey!" Amelia rushes up to a woman rummaging through the luggage, "Is there a sewing kit in there?"
The woman looks up at her, her eyes squinting in the sun. "Not in this one, but the green rucksack over there has one."
"Thanks!" Amelia rushes over and rips the bag open. Sure enough there's a clear bag filled with needles and a variety of colored threads.
"Wait, do you need help?" The woman calls out from behind her.
She turns, the bag in her hand. "Yea, we probably will, come on," Amelia explains before rushing back down the beach. The woman grabs some more items from the trunk she was snooping around in before taking off after her.
"Frank! I found one!" Amelia calls out to him, once they come into view. Caradoc is already back and they are tying a rope around Peter's abdomen, between the wound and his heart.
Amelia kneels down on the sand, as does the other woman. She fishes through the bag to find a needle, which she sterilizes with an antiseptic solution from a first aid kit she found earlier.
Frank pulls the rope tight and checks his work before looking up at Caradoc and the other woman. "Okay, you two help me lift this now. We have to go straight up, or we'll tear the would wider. Do you understand?"
"Yea, we got this, right, uh-?" Caradoc hesitates, looking at the woman, who looks a little green in the face.
"Marlene. And yea. I can do this." She shakes her arms and places her hands under the metal.
Amelia focuses on threading the needle when they all get situated.
"Okay, on three," Frank says, steadying himself.
"One,
two,
three!"
They all lift the metal off, but at the same moment, Peter shoots back into consciousness, screaming in pain. Amelia, rushes to hold him still, but he just pushes her away.
The three holding the metal, try their best to keep it from causing more damage, but he keeps thrashing around, grasping at their legs.
Two men run up behind Amelia who is searching the sand for the needle she dropped.
They grab Peter's shoulders and shove him down firmly, while the others lift the metal off him completely, the shard that stabbed Peter, dripping with blood.
Like Frank said, the blood started pooling faster than the cloth could absorb it. Amelia finally sees the needle and thread and grabs it. She douses it in the solution again before handing it to Frank who is waiting for Caradoc to remove the cloth.
They work quickly. Marlene and the two men holding Peter down, while Caradoc and Amelia hold pressure on the wound and sanitize it the best they can. Frank works the needle through the skin effortlessly, regardless of Peter's struggling. It takes less than 15 minutes to get the whole thing sewed shut and the bleeding stopped.
Amelia digs through the first aid kit and finds some gauze packs which Frank situates over his stitch work to try and prevent an infection from catching.
Peter relaxes a bit, allowing the men to let go and sit back. "What happened to him?" The shorter one asks. His skin is dark, compared to his companion, who looks like he's already getting sunburnt.
"He got pinned down. He's insanely lucky it didn't puncture anything important." Frank explains, wiping the blood off his hands with a clean shirt.
"My abdomen isn't important?" Peter groans, his eyes closed to block the sun.
The paler man laughs and stands, brushing the dirt off his pants. "Mate, I think he's right, you're lucky."
"I'm James," The shorter man says, also standing, and moving some of the bloody clothes away. "That's Fabian," he points to the man who is now pulling his hair into a bun.
"Pleasure," Caradoc chimed in, from his position on his back in the sand. "Blasted heat's going to make me faint." He stands and makes his way over to the treeline, Fabian and Marlene right behind him.
James, Frank, and Amelia help prop Peter up onto the side of the plane.
"Y'alright?" James asks him and Peter gives a lazy thumbs-up.
"Alice!!" A woman screams out behind them. The turn to find a red-headed woman calling out, running around and looking through the wreckage.
"Alice!" She cries out again and they walk over to her.
"Ali-" Amelia grabs her arm.
"What's going on?" James asks her.
The woman begins rambling, "It's my friend Alice, she was just two rows ahead of me, I told her I could get us seats together but she said it was fine, and now I can't find her! Please you have to help me, she's pregnant!"
"Okay! Okay, look we'll split up and look for her okay? I'll stay with you and James and Frank can go together," Amelia offers but the woman is running her hands through her hair. "We'll find her."
The woman nods. "Alright, let's go," she says before turning and heading off again. Amelia gives a soft smile to the others before following.
"We've got to be getting close, yea?" Dorcas asks Remus as they duck under a fallen branch.
"I guess, but it still looks just as far away as it did five minutes ago when you asked last time," Remus snarks, stopping to rest his leg.
"Well, I'm not a damn trekker, Remus, I don't know." She squats down, wiping the sweat off the back of her neck. "It's so humid, I swear, I could drink the air if I tried." Remus nods, pulling his shirt up and wiping the sweat from under his nose.
"Yea, I know. It doesn't make any sense though, we were flying over the northern half of the Pacific. It shouldn't be this climate up here." Remus wondered.
Behind them, a twig snaps and they both stand, Remus wincing and clutching his leg during the process.
"You heard that too right?" Remus asks her quietly.
"Obviously, I stood up too," she remarks before they hear it again. "What animals would live in this climate even if it's not supposed to be here?" She inquired, slowly backing up.
"Not sure, but probably nothing friendly." Remus uttered, looking around to try and find the source.
After a while, they don't hear anything until suddenly, a man bursts through the bushes in front of them, and they sigh.
"God, you scared the shit out of me!" Dorcas snapped, throwing her hands up at the stranger.
"Sorry, I just heard you guys talking. I wasn't sure if anyone else was out here." He explains himself. He has a large cut across his cheek, but otherwise looks unharmed. His hair is pitch black and he has a black jacket tied around his waist. "Poor wardrobe planning on my part, huh?" He jokes, gesturing to his dark clothing.
Remus smiles at him. "To be fair, I'm not sure any of us could have planned for what happened today."
"Fair. I'm Sirius." He extends a hand to which Remus shows his blood soaked one. "Damn, got you good, huh?" Sirius asks him, shaking Dorcas' hand.
"It's not that bad," Remus says, earning a groan out of Dorcas.
"We get it you're a tough guy," she sarcastically remarks and heads off towards the smoke. Sirius laughs quietly and matches pace with Remus.
"Have you guys seen anyone else?" Sirius asks him, looking at the ground, careful not to trip on anything.
"Nope, just you."
"Damn," Sirius runs a hand over his face.
Remus looks over at him, "what is it?"
"It's just my brother. We were on the plane together and I haven't found him yet." Remus picks up on the hint of panic in his acquaintance's voice.
"Hey," Sirius looks at him, "we'll get to the crash, and we'll find him, okay?" Remus assures him and he nods.
"We'd better, he owes me $50." Sirius shares.
"For what?" Dorcas asks over her shoulder.
"Just a stupid bet. That I won. He doesn't get to get out of losing that easily." He laughs to himself, but it almost seems like he's trying to convince himself more than the others.
"Alice?" James shouts out, his hands cupped around his mouth. Him and Frank are quite a ways down the beach from the crash, but they can still hear the whirring of the engine that's still running.
"What are the chances she survived?" James asks Frank, stepping over a large piece of driftwood.
"What? Why are you asking me?"
"Well you're a doctor right?" James asks, shielding his eyes from the sun, looking along the horizon.
"Yea, but I'm not an obygyn, I mean I work at a small clinic in Brighton." Frank explains continuing down the coast.
"What? But you just stitched up that Peter guy like it was nothing!"
"Yea, I mean, I went to medical school, same as all the other doctors, I'm just not a surgeon.
James sighs. "Well hopefully that'll be enough. I mean if other people are hurt, who knows when rescue is going to come?"
"I think I'll be able to manage," Frank advocates looking down the beach. "Look!" He points down the coast a ways to a woman sitting on a pile of large rocks.
"Alice?" James calls out again, but the woman doesn't move. They run over to her.
Her hair and clothes are wet and she's holding her stomach.
"Hey, I'm Frank, and that's James," Frank introduces, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" The woman doesn't respond, and instead just stares out to the sea.
The men share a sympathetic look. "Hey, how far along are you?" James asks, sitting next to her. Frank follows his lead, sitting on the other side.
"Frank's a doctor. He can help you, but you have to talk to us." James explains, talking with his hands.
Alice's bottom lip trembles and her eyes well with tears.
"Hey, it's okay," Frank lays his hand on hers.
She looks at him. "I haven't felt it. My baby." Tears stream down her face and James drops his head.
"How far along are you?" Frank asks again.
"Seven months. I haven't felt it since I woke up." Alice explains as she cries silently.
"How long ago would you say you woke up?"
"I don't know. My watch broke in the crash. Maybe fifteen minutes?" She fidgets with the silver watch on her arm.
"Is it-" She sobs. "Is my baby gone?" Looking up at Frank through her tears, he shakes his head.
"I don't know."
She sniffles and wipes her tears away quickly. She stands, brushing the sand off her clothes. She stumbles a bit, grabbing her head.
"Whoa, slow down," James says, grabbing her forearm as she sways.
"My friend. Lily. I have to find her." She sniffs again and pulls her arm free, walking towards the crash site. "I have to find her."
Frank catches up to her and holds his arm behind her just in case. They walk in silence, James picking the hangnails on his fingers and Alice stopping every now and again to stretch her back.
They approach the groups of people consoling each other. Running for the water bottles from the service trolleys, laying wet cloths on their loved one's heads, and helping others away from the fumes.
Just then, a man shouts. "No, stop! Get away from there!"
A loud screech comes from the plane and an explosion erupts from the engine. The shock sends people flying as fire shoots into the air.
Frank throws himself over Alice just before they hit the ground. James flies backwards and the last thing he sees before he knocks his head on one of the plane seats is three people emerging from the treeline.