Ruth crouched down behind the seat as they plummeted towards the ground. Around her everyone was screaming and shouting contradictory advice, but she was silent. She didn't dare look up.
Then the impact. The plane hit, skidded along the ground for a few metres and finally came to rest. The noise on its own would have been enough to frighten Ruth- the shouts and screams, the creak of metal, the crash as trees were mown down, and then, most terrifying of all, an explosion from the back of the plane and the sound of hot air whipping past her face, and of flames catching hold behind her.
She stood up, hardly noticing pain in her arm as the overwhelming heat and choking smoke caught at her throat. She tried to get out of her seat and find an exit, but the smoke was already making it hard. She heard someone screaming behind her and turning saw someone coughing, disorientated and trapped in their seat. She reached out and took their hand, helping them up and pulling them out with her.
Someone had managed to get an emergency exit open and light was flooding into the plane from outside. Ruth headed towards it, dragging the other person- she could see now that it was Stephanie- with her. She seemed to be struggling to walk, so Ruth tried to put an arm round her to support her. Most of the passengers were already thronging round the exit, coughing and panicking. By the time Ruth reached the door she was more than half carrying Stephanie, and between the smoke and the extra effort she was struggling to breathe.
Coughing, she eventually reached the exit and looked out into the clearer, cooler air. The ground was still a metre or so below them. But now she could see why Stephanie had been still in her seat, unable to move. Some flying shrapnel from the explosion must have caught her, and there was a terrible wound in one of her legs. Ruth wasn't sure she could reach the ground without falling herself, let alone get Stephanie down.
But then Patrick appeared on the ground to help, and somehow between them they managed it. Somehow they reached a safe distance from the plane, and lain Stephanie down on the ground. Other people were crowding round her and Patrick. Aside from them, alone and forgotten, Ruth leant against a tree and sank down, coughing and struggling to breathe...
Ruth woke up, her heart beating fast, confused and disorientated. She sat up and looked around. All was quiet. She could hear one or two snores and some heavy breathing coming from the shelter they had built the day before. She had volunteered (of course she had, she always volunteered for things like that) to sleep outside because there wasn't really room for everyone inside. Looking across the glowing embers of the fire she could make out the slumbering forms of Nick and Jack. Jack should have been keeping the fire going. Quietly she put some more wood on the fire and watched the flames rise.
It must have been a dream. There had been no fire, no explosion in their crash. She had helped people escape, yes, but none of them had been as badly injured as Stephanie in her dream. The dream had been more frightening than the actual event. And yet, in some way she couldn't understand, she knew that the dream had been their crash.
She jumped as whatever had made the screeching sound earlier cried out again. That must have been what woke me up, she thought. I must still be a bit in shock. She was nervous and jumpy, and very glad of the fire's protection and light. And heat too, for she was shivering a little, although it wasn't really cold, even at night.
She felt very alone. Even though the others were there, they were no comfort to her, being asleep. Beyond the firelight, everything was dark. She stared at the flames, thinking about how fire could harm as well as help.
Suddenly she saw something move, on the very edge of the firelight, out of the corner of her eye. She stiffened and moved one hand towards a long branch one end of which was in the fire. Then it moved again, closer and she could make out its' shape was human. For a moment that was equally terrifying, and visions of them all being murdered by primitive savages played in her head. Then she saw that it was Patrick.
He saw down near the fire. "I couldn't sleep," he said. "I told Jack I'd look after the fire, so he could sleep, then I saw some bats and wandered off to see if I could find out where they came from. I think there must be some caves further up the hill over there. They all came and went from that direction. And then the stars were so beautiful I stood there looking for a while." Ruth looked at him. How could he be thinking about stars and bats in this situation? And yet somehow she envied him. Perhaps that was how he coped.
"Of course I couldn't see any constellations I recognised," he said.
There was beginning to be light beyond the firelit circle. Dawn was coming, far out over the sea, and the first faint hint of it had reached the island. It grew stronger as Ruth sat there watching, in amazement at the colour and beauty.
With the growing light the fire began to seem pale and dim, it's power diminished by comparison to the infinitely greater fire raging ninety-three million miles away. The stars faded away with the coming of the new day. Ruth looked at the sun and stars differently now she had been out there. Like fire, it was frightening and yet beautiful. And yet now they were as lost, as alone, as forsaken here as they had been drifting in space a year ago.
The story continues...
This was a very beautiful chapter! The language flowed wonderfully, and it was a joy to read.
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