Hello there. So, I decided I didn't want to leave it at The Feather. Sorry. Hope this is still good, though!
Don't own nothin'.
One
Arthur could see the ground coming up as Douglas desperately tried to right the plane. It didn't look very friendly. And his safety belt was stuck. This wasn't going to end well.
It was also going to hurt.
Strange, he thought, usually problems occurred on the job, not when they were on their way home. But mechanical failure had finally caught up with them, it seemed.
This was really going to hurt. Arthur frantically tried to unstick his safety belt, but it stayed stubbornly half-drawn. The realisation struck him hard.
He was going to die today. He didn't want to die. He was only thirty. He hadn't even moved out of home yet. And Mum would miss him terribly.
The plane slammed into the runway, and Arthur jolted forward – but something caught him as he curled into a ball and kept him in his seat. He heard someone call his name, but it didn't sound like Douglas. Hang on – they were the only two on board…
Then everything went dark.
Arthur could hear the wailing of the fire trucks and the shouts of the rescue team as they cut open the outside door. How had he even survived?
'Hold on, Arthur, they're almost through.'
There was that voice again. He had to be hearing things. It sounded so familiar… no it had to be. Just his own mind messing with him. A clang of metal heralded the arrival of rescue, and the voice spoke again.
'You'll be alright now, Arthur. They'll look after you.'
A cool breeze stroked his hair, and the voice didn't return. That voice that sounded so familiar. Wait – it sounded like – no. impossible.
Stop imagining things, Arthur Shappey. Heroes can't help people if they're dead.
Then he was being lifted onto a stretcher, and there was Douglas' voice, asking if he was okay, and he wanted to answer, but his head really hurt…
There was a prick in his arm, and he drifted into sleep.
Carolyn watched the rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he slept soundly in the hospital bed. The staff had told her that he only had a mild concussion and a badly sprained wrist, along with a few grazes and bruises.
It could have been so much worse. Douglas, sitting reading in the next bed, had sustained several cracked ribs – and he'd been strapped firmly in his seat. It was a miracle Arthur was alive at all, let alone expected to make a full recovery.
When Arthur had regained consciousness several hours earlier, he had been mumbling something about voices and angels; she had asked him about it, and he had told her about the mysterious force that had kept him in his seat and the voice that had helped him stay awake until rescue arrived. Carolyn had been inclined to disbelieve him, except it was a well-known fact that Arthur was always blindingly honest. Boy didn't have a storytelling bone in his body.
So what had happened in that crash?
Rain. It was raining. Wet. Soaked to the skin. Shirt and jeans not much protection from the storm.
Where was he?
Planes. Huts. Oh. The airfield.
He dragged himself to his feet – everything hurt, why was that?
Oh. Yes. Falling always hurt. Falling off a ladder, falling off a log, falling from the sky. Sky, fly, why, why was his head spinning?
Memory led him to a particular portacabin, its door unlocked during the day. Nobody was there; well, they wouldn't be, couldn't fly with their plane in that state.
Couldn't fly, couldn't fly, can't fly, can't remember how, why, when.
Head hurts, neck hurts, arms hurt, legs hurt, everything hurts.
Coughing now. Sick? Sick not a good thing. Don't want to be sick.
Room whirling. Stumbling to an armchair. Curling up. Feeling awful. Head heavy, skin too warm, aching all over.
Blackness.