Claudia's eyes snapped open. At first she assumed what she saw in front of her was some sort of explosion churning and waving in slow motion, but when she realized that didn't make any sense, she blinked and lazily swayed her head from left to right, fully taking in the area, and when she did she almost fainted. Right in front of her was a hole about 8 feet wide and nearly 100 feet deep that would send out jets of fire to a boar spinning valiantly on a spit roast above ground, and in that hole she could see something moving, something shaking the earth just slightly with every movement, something that seemed very much alive, something that put fear into the young girl's heart. To her left and right was the Asian man and her father, who other than his erratic breathing seemed in fine health. There was not even any blood on his clothes. Everyone around the fire did not seem to mind or even notice the thing inside the fire. All except a single boy who seemed to stare into what was presumably making the fire. He seemed to be calmed by whatever it was, though he did seem to have a hunt of uneasiness at whatever it was which in a way calmed her.

Past the fire, Claudia could see that everyone from the plane was sitting around the fire on perfeclty smooth stones in a perfect circle with 3 people on each of the stones. Strangely, Claudia could not find her mother, the man with frost on his mustache, or the guy who got thrown back Into her side of the plane by said man with frost on his mustache. "Your finally awake!" The Asian man said, facing Claudia, his voice almost hypnotic. She turned to face him, and tried to ask what happened, but because of her tiredness, her words came out as "whoatuts happun?" The Asian man made a confused face before talking once again. "Well, me and my buddies saw your plane crash and decided to give you guys a hand" he began, with a voice that sounded to be an amalgamation of a southern and Italian drawl. Claudia made a mental note to ask where this man was born later. "I cannot believe the Grave Guardian of all people is here. Maybe he can take us off this island."

Claudia cringed at the word 'Grave Guardian' it sounded like some dumb character from one of those old pulp comic her brother loved to always read, that avenges those killed unfairly with brutal and creative means. At least that was her first thought, but thinking it over again, her mind was filled with a sudden desire to witness such an event. Then the idea left her entirely and was replaced with disgust. "How did you get here?" Claudia asked, not that she cared. She just needed something to get her mind off her dastardly desire to see brutality. The Asian man opened his mind to speak but before he could, his eyes locked onto something behind Claudia. Claudia swiveled her head to see what he was looking at. It was the man with frost on his mustache. He carried a body around his shoulder and wore a neutral look on his face, as if everything within the last hours was as minute as going to the grocery store. As the man walked over to Claudia, she noticed a black liquid enveloping his shoes, then as he got closer she realized it was not pitch black but more of a dark red. There was only one liquid Claudia knew was dark red in color: Blood! The man was bleeding.

The man unfurled his arm and the body slammed into the ground, and the resulting quake it made washed the blood off the man's shoes. Perhaps it wasn't his blood. A feminine grunt resounded from the body. Claudia realized the voice was from her mother, and the instant she did questions began filling her skull like wine would a bottle. "What happened to my mother?" She asked, Feeling rather ashamed of herself because for some reason she felt more intrigued by what happened to her mother than worried for her safety. She was changing somewhat, and that made her stomach churn. "That idiot from the plane who tried to play hero ran off somewhere, looking for a kid allegedly. Your mom, me, and a few others set out a hunting party. We eventually tracked his footprints to a clearing where we ran into some ferocious felines. I tried my best to help the others but only your mother was able to be retrieved. I know it sounds ridiculous but the animals were just too smart. This island is quite unusual."

Claudia's mother weakly crawled up to the log, and judging from the wicked claw marks that lined her stomach what the man said was true. "I don't get why you didn't just obliterate the animals?" The Asian man said, "I mean didn't you piledrive a tank brigade?" The man with frost on his mustache let a sigh that was filled with such raw contempt it seemed to make the very air grow colder, before soflty saying: "Look. You were not out there with me. They all moved in perfect unison in one another. There were no mistakes or errors. They worked around the flaws of one another and lacked identity. They were like communist. Yes. They were communist cats! The cheetas striked first and clawed out a nice woman's throat before dashing into the trees. When we went to kill it we were ambushed by tigers that mainly aimed at our hands . I tried to gut it but its underbelly was too thick. Two more went down from being ripped apart by the tiger before I killed it, and then the diseased lions came out and bit everyone. Even me!"

The man slowly turned around his hand to show a diseased wound as his blood began to bubble and steam a bit, before speaking once again, "And just when we were about kill the bastards, leopards arrived and drove us away. We tried fighting them off but the infections weakened us to where three others could be eviscerated before the two of us made it here." As the man finished a voice overlapped his own. It was the sound of crying. Claudia traced the voice to be coming from a woman opposite the boy she had seen moments earlier, bawling her eyes out. Perhaps she had lost someone from the story the man told. Claudia's mother applied pressure to her wound, and it could have been Claudia's imagination but the wound seemed smaller now, almost as if it was slowly shrinking, much like her sanity after all of the unusual activity that had occured so far. When Claudia's mother caught sight of her, she spontaneously jumped onto her and hugged her daughter. Or rather she attempted to.

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In reality, the pain intensified the instant her arm lightly touched Claudia's back, and she visibly recoiled, as if she had accidentally touched a burning rod instead of her own child. "Do you think there is a chance any of them followed you?" The Asian man asked. The man with frost on his Mustache shook his head. "I doubt it. We ran pretty far. However, I did create some icicles on the ground as we ran. If any of those beasts come looking for us they'll be in for a sharp surprise!" "Claudia wrinkled her nose in confusion. Did she just hear the man correctly? Did he say he made shards of ice? Claudia considered asking him just that, when he whipped his face over to everyone else sitting alongside the fire and said: "Alright. We're in a very unusual situation so I need everyone here to list their name, main type of magic, and why they chose to ride the magic airline If any of you try to lie, I will know." He pointed to a man in the group, who was wearing all white, with not a stain to be seen, in spite of the general dirtiness of the area. Even his aviators appeared white since they were reflecting the moon. His shaking hands were in his pockets "You go first, you seem quite unusual."

The man took a deep breath, and Claudia's body tensed up, and her heartbeat began rapidly increasing, only to return to its previous rhythm when he finished sucking in his breath and finally spoke. "Well my name is Chris Harper, I'm a mind mage, and I went through magic airlines to track the last of an endangered species. The legendary Thunderbird. For years they have slowly been destroyed in terms of population, either by being killed by drunk dwarves who want to test their anti air weaponry, or by the superpowers of the world, who keep killing them so that they cannot be utilized by enemies. It is utmost unfortunate." Claudia could hardly believe what she was hearing. Once again. Questions flooded her mind. What was a mind mage? What is a thunderbird? How had she never heard of national superpowers killing these thunderbirds? Everything was just too surreal to take seriously, but then Claudia remembered what she had seen weeks prior. She had seen the impossible become possible, and it horrified her. When she thought about what she had witnessed in the far past.

It certainly put some truth to the words said by Chris, even though it sounded so impossible. In fact It didn't just explain that, but also the strange cats that the man with frost on his mustache encountered, the the fact that his mere presence made Claudia feel colder, and perhaps even Everything that happened with the plane crash. It all made sense, in that it all made no sense, just as what she had witnessed weeks ago. The woman who was sobbing spoke up next. Her face was stern now, and there was hardly any sign she had been crying earlier other than her tainted mascara flowing down her cheeks. As the woman spoke the flames seemed to billow and and "I will go next then. my name is Samantha Jenkins, I'm a plasma mage, and I used magic airlines in hopes that I could go to somewhere relatively remote to-" Samantha froze briefly before continuing, as her eyes began to tear up, alongside a feeling of uneasiness that clawed all over Claudia. "For so long I've had to keep my secret from the man I love, afraid of danger reaching him, but when he witnessed me preform some small fire magic when we had a grease fire a while ago, I knew I had to come clean to my husband. I just wanted to go somewhere like the Gobi desert to show him what magic is and how it should be used. I just did not expect him to get an introduction quite like this though, as he's still missing and has no didn't been killed by those strange cats you experienced." Samantha bowed her head as the flames calmed down. The man with frost on his mustache waved his arm to the boy right next to Samantha, and motioned for him to speak. "Well I overheard my parents speaking about their trip and I felt a need to join them. I came up with this brilliant plan to sneak past security and get onto the plane. I had been recognized by the flight hostess who threatened to call my parents but by then the plane began to nosedive and she tried to kill me so I ran out of the bathroom and coincidentally right into my mother's arm-!"

"Your story has more holes than the damn plane!" Claudia accused, unaware of why he evasive being so hostile. She immediately tried to revoke her statement but instead of an apology the words that came out of her mouth were: "If you are Samantha's son then her husband is your father, but if he is your father why did he claim to have seen his child in the woods and not say on the plane. Because if you fell into Samantha's arm during the crash there's no reason for him to have not seen you as they were surely in the same seats. Whats more, I fought the hostess in first class and I didn't see you there at all. So you're lying!" Claudia put her hands over her mouth before she could say anything else, but the damage was already done. She could see the group turning their eyes to the boy, with looks of pure fear and hostility.