Sound of waves, seagulls and a taste of salt. Wait, Salt! Seagulls! What is happening? Aarav opened his eyes amidst debris, sands, people and luggage stranded all over.

He tries to stand up. His feet wobble as he stands. He sits again and tries to think about what happened. He was on a flight to New York. Then there was some turbulence. And here he was, stranded in the middle of God knows where.

The place looked like a cliff. With the blazing sun overhead, the weather was warm and sunny, unlike the winter season of January. There was a dense forest ahead. One part of the plane was burning nearby him on the coast. The other part was in the jungle only a few metres ahead. He could see the rising smoke.

He looks around to see if there were any survivors. He checks the pulse of a nearby person, dead. Another, dead. Another one, hardly breathing. He tries to resuscitate him.

His actions were very meticulous like he had years of experience. He heard some movements coming from behind him, from the cockpit. He rushes there.

"wa_"

The pilot was hardly breathing and mumbled something under his breath. He was heavily injured and stuck on his seat. The Copilot was beyond recognition. He pulls out the pilot and gives him some water which he found near the pilot. He fishes for first aid kit from the cockpit and attends to the pilot.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot had a terrified expression. He remembered what had happened.

A few hours earlier, a white glowing object or something appeared in the sky. The white object did not look like it had any substance. It was moving like water, like a ripple in the middle of the sky.

And the flight had gone right through it.

“We have lost signals,” said a pilot who was in his 40s, in a worried tone.

“What the hell just happened?” said the surviving younger pilot, with a terrified expression. He was terrified of the white ripple-like thing in the sky that they had just crossed.

As soon as he addressed his confusion and terror, the plane started descending.

“What is happening? Do something. We are going down,”

“I am trying,” said the older pilot while grunting.

All the alarms had turned red. The engine was failing. All types of equipment were malfunctioning. And the plane was going down. The older pilot tried everything he could to save themselves.

“Make it land there," the younger pilot saw a cliff at a distance. "Look. There is an island."

The older pilot tries to take control of their downing plane by pulling the lever up and shifts their course. He detours the plane towards the island in view. His efforts finally paid off. They ascended a bit and moved towards the island. However, the pilot could not control the plane any longer.

They fell. They had missed the sea only by few inches and fell towards the land. The plane hit a few trees while descending. It broke the plane into two parts, tossing the passengers all over.

After stabilising the pilot, Aarav went to help others. Some more people had started showing movements. Some were lucky to survive with barely any scratches.

Others… Not so much.

With more people waking up, more panic and chaos started. Some were crying and yelling, asking for help. Some calm people were attending to the injured. Looking for supplies or thinking about how to get rescued.

Gaining consciousness, Kiara found herself strapped with seatbelts oxygen masks hanging over. A massive pain, striking her lower body, ready to take her life apart. With blurry vision, she tries to figure out what tragedy befell on her.

Fiona was next to her, alive, but not in good condition. Her breathing was irregular, and her head was oozing blood. She was not sure how grave her injury was. Fortunately, she did not bash her head. Un-strapping herself, she tries to push the front seat, which was crushing her lower body.

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"Ahh, come on damn it"

"Help"

"helppppppp"

Kiara yelled a few more times but to no avail.

She tries to wake up Fiona. She pulls out her handkerchief and presses on her head.

"Hey! You need to wake up." Kiara shrieked. "We both are not going to die here. Not here in some shitty place. Come on wake up."

Kiara was grieving, how unjust her life was. With tears were flowing down her cheeks, she was refusing to die, yet found herself utterly helpless.

"I don't wanna die. Wake up, Fiona. Please. Help me. Help me please."

"Hey, you alright"

Like a beam of hope, someone answered her desperate calls. Not far from her, an Asian guy came up. Japanese, average height, fair-complexioned, with a geeky appearance. With a confused expression, he extends his hand, towards her for help.

He tries to push the collapsed passenger seats and try to pull the women out of there. But to no avail.

“You wait here. I will ask for help.”

Dishevelled, half in shock, half in panic, this guy, himself regained consciousness from the cry of help from this girl. He was not sure what happened. He was not sure if others were even alive. As far as his eyes could see, there were collapsed seats, broken cabinets; luggage sprawled everywhere, with their owners mostly dead. There was a scent of burning, wire burning, bodies burning, and smoke slowly emanating everywhere. He has to do something otherwise, those women would most probably die.

He saw that their plane was cut off in the middle, leaving a huge opening. He went towards the opening and saw the other part was also burning not far away. Panicking people were everywhere.

“Help! There are people in here”

Injured people were everywhere. He could not see a fit person who could help him pull those women out. A tall Indian guy came to him and gestured him to show him the way.

They both went in, and after putting a bit of effort, they could pull them out of there.

Kiara was close to losing her senses again when the help came. She was in a constant battle in her mind, with her pessimistic nature catching up to her stubbornness, convincing her to give up.

When the weight, was lifted off her, there came another massive bolt of pain, giving her a sense, that she was worse off than dying. Her left leg had been dislocated with multiple fractures here and there. Fortunately, or in this case, a bit of luck, she was not cut anywhere, with no apparent blood loss.

Seeing her condition, Aarav quickly tied her leg with a piece of cloth. With that sudden movement, Kiara could only grit her teeth and bear what comes.

“Let’s get you out of here first,” said Aarav in a solemn tone.

After a few hours, panic settled a bit. The two hundred and fifty-two passengers were on-board; now, no more than 80 people were on that goddamned place. Around them were a dense forest and a cliff which was some 2000 metre above the sea level. Down the cliff, were rocks all over and sea waves beating the coast harshly. If their plane had even missed an inch, they would have been in the sea bed.

Few people were wielding their phones towards the sky, trying to find signals and ask for help. The pilot was, trying to operate the radio, to figure out their location.

Kiara was seating under a temporary shelter. Her left leg was strapped and fixed with two big sticks and bandages were all over her legs. She had never felt this amount of pain in her entire life. She hardly ever got a paper cut, now she has got an entire deal of fractures. She could not even wimp in agony seeing the situation around her. So many people died, some died during the crash, some died after the crash. Some good people were trying their best to help them. Unfortunately, few could be saved. She wanted to help, but her help in her condition would only be bothersome. There were at least 20 who were still in critical condition or similar to her immobile condition.

“How are you feeling now?” asked the doctor who fixed her leg.

“Alive. But not kicking”, Kiara responded to lighten the mood.

“You will be fine. I have a few orthopaedist colleagues in the US. They can fix you up and you can be kicking as well.”

“Sure. Will do”.

“By the way what is that in the sky? It is too big to be the moon and it is daytime.” Kiara queried pointing fingers towards a celestial object in the sky.

“I am not good with planets,” the doctor looked up in the sky to find the moon-like object. “But that is strange. Never seen something like that. Maybe it is visible from this part”.

“That’s…. “

'Also, we should be somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Right? I thought it would be cold. It is fairly warm.' Kiara thought to herself, and not telling what probabilities came to her mind.

“How is your wife doing?”

“Tamara is well. She is suffering slight amnesia, but she will be fine after some while." Samuel sighed and continued, "I am glad my family is safe. Both kids are shocked but better than most people here. You rest here and stay hydrated, I will check up on Aarav if he needs my help.”

Aarav is the Indian guy who rescued Kiara and Fiona. He is ex-Army personnel which can be seen from his calibre in rescuing and helping people. If not for him, the rest of them might have been pulling their hair out.

Samuel is a surgeon who helped her. Lucky to have a doctor on board. Asahi is the guy who had helped her. There are around 40 others who she has no idea who they are (including those who are no help but adding to woes).

There were few Korean kids or teenagers with astonishing looks and stature. Too bad, they were totally out of it. After their panicked state, they were clueless.

There was a group of another young people comprising of most British. They were crying over a corner, hoping for help to come.

They had no idea how to help others or themselves.

Kiara was no better herself with her leg done for. She was on the tail part of the plane. Apart from her, Asahi and Fiona, nobody survived around her.

Few people who were running to make heads out tail were only Aarav, Dr Samuel, pilot, the surviving crew, and few able-bodied people who could move around.