Hello fans and readers! This is my first LOST fan fiction, and well, the only one so far that I truly have high hopes for. I've probably written about fifteen fan fictions, and only one was successful - a Hunger Games fic, but that was a whole different story . . . pardon the pun . . . anyway.

Sorry, I get so carried away sometimes.

So, I know that the LOST fanbase is dwindling. It makes me feel sad. Nevertheless, I'm writing this story and I truly hope it gets readers. That's all I ask for. Readers, reviewers, followers - all my book needs is a CHANCE!

I'll shout out to a reader if they ask a question in the comments, or if they say something I particularly like, or if I notice their loyalty to my book. I like giving shout-outs!

DAILY QUESTION: were all the survivors Candidates in the beginning and got crossed off over time?

Put answers in the comments below.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own LOST stuff. I do, however, own my lovely OCs, and some other things.

RATING: T for swearing, violence, and some mild sexual stuff.

Don't forget to review, follow, favorite, whatever :)

Keep calm and LOST on.

Here's to the numbers references and randomly mentioning LOST stuff.

Here's to long author's notes.

Book title: "Paradise" by Coldplay.

Thanks and happy writing!

Coree

I wake to the sounds of a cacophony. Screaming. Screeching metal. Roaring engines.

My right arm hurts. Really hurts. What it really feels like is someone tore a chunk out of my skin and didn't use painkillers, and that's hardly an exaggeration. I lift my arm to my eyes so I can see it. My fingers and forearm are covered in wet, sticky blood, and I can tell that washing it off will be no easy task.

Just breathe.

My headphones hang around my hang loosely, either turned off or not working after the crash. Someone in a suit and tie runs by, kicking up sand behind him. I stand up, pressing my hand against the side of my head to stop the world from spinning.

The hazy smoke and the sand floating in the air makes my eyes water and my throat hurt. My plane has crashed and it's all real, so why doesn't it feel that way? I look around - on my right side is an endless blue ocean, and on the left is an endless green jungle. Far behind the jungle, the ground rises to tall, jagged mountains. This place is so ridiculously stunning that I'd almost want to come here for vacation.

And then, down the beach, I see it. The plane itself sits in the sand, like a dying beast, but still very much alive. Both ends of it, the cockpit and tail, have both been ripped off. One wing juts into the sky and looms above the wreckage below. From the way it looks, it's only a matter of time before that thing will break and fall.

My dance team. Where is my dance team?

It's this, the thought of my team, that makes the reality around me hit me like a boulder. I was on this plane because of my team. How did I not think of them until now? How?

I feel tears of frustration spring to my eyes. What am I supposed to do, anyway? I don't see a single member of my team anywhere. I turn in circles, looking for something, anything, to give me even just an idea of where to look or what to do. Nothing.

The plane - the fuselage. That seems like the first place to look here. My feet subconsciously burst into a run and take me to the opening in the side of the fuselage. Usually I'd be too afraid to go inside a place like this, but this is my dance team. I'd do anything for them.

Before I go inside, however, I see Suit Guy, the one that ran by me earlier, calling to me and waving me over.

Dammit, I think angrily. I don't have time for this. I need to get to my team. But how can I refuse?

I run over, skidding to a halt. Suit Guy looks me directly in the eye. "What's your name?" he asks, hand on my arm.

"Ummm . . . Coree." I feel unfocused. Get to your team, dammit.

"Good, Coree. I need your help with something." He looks over his shoulder, and I catch a glimpse of the man lying in the sand behind him, unconscious. A piece of shrapnel juts out of his stomach.

Suddenly, the image of having a piece of shrapnel stuck in my gut pops into my head and won't go away. All I can think about is blood and shrapnel. Bloody, jagged shrapnel -

I think I'm going to puke. I need to stop.

"Yeah, I'll help," I squeak.

"That's fantastic. I need you to watch this man right here, just until I get back. Can you do that?"

I survive a plane crash and this guy doesn't think I'm capable of just watching over a guy who probably dead already -

I say, "Yeah."

He nods and, turning away, he runs back into the heart of the wreckage. I watch his dirty black suit disappear, wondering if that's really the last time I'll ever see him again.

I sit down in the sand, staring at the man I'm supposed to be keeping watch over. As selfish as I sound, I really wish I could ditch him at the moment. It's not like he's going anywhere.

Note to self: find out Suit Guy's real name.

Something in my gut tells me that I won't find my dance team anywhere on this beach. Alive, at least. My stomach plummets like a rock, and I forget about the crash. If my team had survived the crash and was here now, then I'd see them already.

I exhale a breath I had been holding, and I notice my eyes are wet.

The groan of metal above me makes me look up. My heart leaps in my throat when I realize I'm sitting right underneath the wing, the one that's sticking out. The one that's about to fall.

I'm sitting under an airplane wing that is about to fall.

Terror seizes my heart. I turn to run away and make for a safer part of the beach, but then I remember Shrapnel Dude. I can't leave him. I don't want to be a coward. I told Suit Guy that I'd watch over him, and that means keeping him safe.

If I'm going to die today, I want to die a hero, right?

Chewing on my lip furiously, I run back, putting my hands under the man's armpits and pulling him as hard as I can. Not even a budge. I hear a familiar voice shouting over all the sound and whip my head around, eyes scanning my surroundings. Suit Guy runs towards a fat dude and a pregnant blonde lady, who sit not fifteen feet from me, yelling at them with his arms waving frantically. I can't hear what he's saying, but I get the gist: move it or you'll both be squashed into jelly!

Before he reaches them, he and I make eye contact for a fleeting moment. I'm not strong enough to pull Shrapnel Dude out of the way of a falling airplane wing, and he knows it.

In that split second, as the wing is about to fall and time is at a stand-still, I make a decision. All valor forgotten, I choose to ditch Shrapnel Dude and save myself.

I turn to run, to get out from under the wing. But before I can take one step, I see someone approaching me from the side.

Suit Guy is beside me in an instant. Without a word, he pushes me aside and takes Shrapnel Dude's arms, pulling him up. "Grab his legs!" he shouts at me.

I do as he says and lift Shrapnel Dude up from under the knees. The wing creaks loudly and, as me and Suit Guy carry away Shrapnel Dude as fast as we can, I see it starting to buckle.

"Move! Keeping moving!" Suit Guy yells, but his voice is drowned out.

It feels like my heartbeat is louder than the airplane, synchronized with the words resounding in my head: move faster - move faster - move faster - move faster - move fast-

I don't see the wing hit the ground. All I hear is a deafening shriek of metal followed by an explosion.

A moment later, I'm lying face-first in the sand. Sand and smoke flies up around me, and I can feel the heat from the explosion on the back of my legs. Suit Guy, seemingly unaffected by the blast, continues to tend to Shrapnel Dude by taking off his tie and using it to clean the man's wound.

"The pregnant girl - that man -" I start, but my sentence is cut off by a coughing fit.

He doesn't say anything; just continues his task.

I look around to see the damage. Down the beach, on the other side of the fallen wing, I see a familiar man and woman and realize it's the pregnant girl and the fat guy. I suppose they made it after all.

"Are you a doctor?" I ask Suit Guy.

He nods, doesn't speak.

My eyes wander to the fuselage. I think of my dance team.

How will I help them? I think, because if they're in the fuselage, then it's probably too late to save them.

Just stick with the doctor and things will be terrific.

My instinct has always been strong, and it's a good thing to rely on in tough situations. The voice in my head is the only thing I trust completely. So I listen to it.

"We should get him away from the fumes," Suit Guy says.

I grab Shrapnel Dude's legs and help the doctor carry him to the safer part of the beach.

Ryan

The funny thing about planes is that they never seem to crash in inhabited places. Only in deserted, dangerous, completely isolated locations that hold about ten percent chance of survival or rescue. It's just the way things are - kind of like how stepdads always seem to be jerks.

Today, my plane has crashed on a tropical island. A deserted tropical island.

The airplane is now nothing more than a simple shell. With all the engines dead and no more falling wings, the beach has gotten uncomfortably quiet in contrast to what it was like a less than an hour ago.

It's already five o'clock. The sun is still high in the sky, burning the skin on the back of my neck and making the sand too hot to walk on with bare feet. Rescue should be coming soon.

My right side is bleeding from a small gash, no bigger than a golf ball, but still painful. I must have scraped it during the crash. It seems small, so I try to pretend it isn't there and carry on.

I lie in the shade of a tree at the far end of the beach, watching people mill around the camp. As time passes and the sunlight starts to fade, the other survivors start building signal fires. The dim sky is lit with sparks and heavy smoke. It reminds me of the bonfires I would have with my mom and my real dad Kyle before they were divorced.

This makes me think of my step-dad, Ray Newton. My mother met him while we were living in Liverpool - he was an American, too. Five months later, they married. Three months after that, we moved to Sydney.

Let me tell you something about Ray: he's a self-centered son of a bitch. And he hates me.

He was with my on the plane, and I haven't seen him since the crash. I'm surprised to find myself somewhat . . . relieved. Every second I had to spend with that man was misery. I blame him for turning my own mother against me, and for making us move from Manhattan to Sydney, and for making me board Oceanic Flight 815. I don't care if he's dead. I just can't.

Down near the fuselage, I see the fat guy stacking the airplane meals. I stand up, wince, and head down the beach so I'm one of the first ones to receive a meal.

Just before I get there, I'm stopped by a man wearing a Oregon sweatshirt. He looks like an Ugly Discount Marlon Brando. "Hello there," he says with a voice as annoying as nails on a chalkboard.

"Hi," I say shortly, waiting for him to move. He doesn't.

"Is something wrong? You look like you were favoring your right side." He points to right where my injury is.

I glare at him. What is his problem?

"Maybe you should let a doctor look at it," he says. "You wouldn't want it to get infected."

In any other situation I would have told him to piss off, but I'm strangely too exhausted to be my usual sarcastic self. "You a doctor or something?"

"No, no." He laughs. "I'm Ethan."

"Okay," I say, and not caring about being rude, I walk right past him before he can talk again. The sooner I get away from this creepy pedophile, the better.

I march right up to the fat guy, who was gathering up the airplane meals in his arms. "You're handing those out, right?"

"Yeah," he answers. "You want . . . chicken or lasagna?"

"Doesn't matter."

He hands me the top one, then stuffs a utensil bag in my hand. "Thanks," I say.

I take my meal back to the treeline. I think about the rescue planes.

What now?

Leo

"Hey, man."

The fat guy, the one I saw earlier, sits down next to me in front of the signal fire. He hands me an airplane meal. "You hungry?"

"Thanks," I say, taking the tray.

"Eat up." He hands me a utensil bag. "We may be here for a while."

I smirk. "What, you don't think rescue'll come?"

"Dude, I know they're gonna come. So, what's your name?"

"Leo."

"Nice meeting you, man. Hurley." He sticks a hand out. I shake it casually, and we both crack up.

I stuff the last piece of my food, a chicken meal, into my mouth. It doesn't bother me that the chicken is cold and a bit slimy. I've never been so hungry in my life.

"So were you travelling alone on the plane?" Hurley asks.

I feel my stomach drop and I nearly stop chewing. "Uh . . . no."

"Oh." Hurley suddenly looks uncomfortable, like he knows what the obvious question is.

I look at him. "I was on the plane with my sister. She was in the bathroom when we crashed."

"Oh, man . . ." Hurley looks at the ground, shamefaced. "You know, the rescue team is gonna look for the other survivors when they come. She's gonna be okay -"

"I know," I say. "They'll find her. I know they will." They have to.

There's a silence between us. I feel Hurley watching my face, like he's trying to decipher me.

"Well . . ." He stands up, brushing the sand off his pants. "I gotta go bring these meals to the others. It was nice talking to you, dude." Before he walks away, he pats my shoulder. "Don't worry, man. She'll be okay."

"I know," I respond again. He hesitates, then walks away.

I scrape my tray clean, then set it on the sand beside me. My eyes stare into the fire as I sit, brooding. The chances of my sister, Natalie, being alive are slim at best, but somehow, I know she's alive. It's a feeling I can't explain.

I have to find her.

"Hey, you there. What your name?"

I tear my gaze away from the fire. An Arab man, his face hardened, looks down at my hunched figure.

"Uh, Leo . . . ?"

"Leo, we could use some help building these signal fires. The more the smoke, the easier it is for the rescue plans to spot us."

"Okay," I say, not really wanting to get up just after I sat down. I reluctantly stand up, stretch, then start to head for the treeline. I feel people's eyes on me as I walk. I know it's because I'm a kid. I bet they're all wondering why I'm not with my parents. Or just an adult. They don't understand why a kid would be by himself after crashing on a deserted island.

I'm almost fifteen, I think angrily in my head. And I saw other kids without parents, too, so why am I the one that -

That's when I hear it.

The crash comes so suddenly I nearly jump out of my skin. My feet scramble back quickly, tripping and catching myself in time. The sound comes from the jungle, the jungle I was just about to enter, loud and eerie. It's a noise I can't describe. The best brand name that pops into my head is dangerous.

Something is out there in the jungle.

The others heard it, too. They gather around the jungle, not too close. I squint to see what it is, but in the darkness, I can only see the moving trees and branches being torn away.

The loud tck-a-tck-a-tck-a sound it makes reminds me of a . . . monster.

A chill runs down my spine. Collecting firewood looks even less appealing now.

Jess

Nobody is going to sleep tonight.

8 o'clock, and the camp is still arguing about the monster. I sit on the airplane wing eating my gummy worms, watching people sit around the fires and debate. Some people say it was monkeys. Some say it might have been a fallen bit of the plane. And, my favorite one of all, someone even thought it was a dinosaur. Of course it was a dinosaur - after all, we are on a deserted island that nobody knows about.

Just as I'm biting the head off of my last gummy worm, I hear manly voice above me. "Got any more of those?"

I glance up. It's the southern guy that was sitting in the row across from me on the plane. He gives me a charming dimply smile. "Nope," I respond, popping the last one in my mouth.

"Now, I've seen some pretty crazy stuff in my time," he says, sitting next to me, "but there ain't nothing as crazy as what I saw out in that jungle."

"You should go join the debate," I say, fiddling with the gummy worm bag. "I hear they've cooked up some real good ideas."

"Oh, yeah? What about you, sweetcheeks?"

"I was never really the social one."

"Hmm. Me, neither." He gives me another creepy smile. I give him a withering glance.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "Want one?" he asks, offering me a cigarette.

"I don't smoke."

"You got it, blondie." He opens the lighter, lighting his cigarette after a few tries. "How old are you, anyway?" I see him checking out my chest.

"Old enough to know when someone's flirting with me," I say, eyeing him. The corners of my mouth twitch but I don't give in to the temptation.

He laughs, cigarette bobbing. "Hell, girl, that went down quickly."

"I've got an eye for those things," I tell him.

"Well, I can't say I'd be surprised that you've been with a lotta men before -"

"Don't get too excited, redneck. And you're wrong."

Smirks. "Alrighty, sunshine. What do you think the monster was?"

"I told you I'm not into debates."

"What," he says while shoving the lighter back into his pocket, "you're not at all curious what it is?"

I shrug. "We'll all be off this island by tomorrow and it won't matter by then."

I look over at the fuselage. Sitting on the sand is a small girl, probably the size of an average nine-year-old, but I can tell by her body and face that she's a teenager. I nod in her direction. "Where do you think her parents are?"

"Who the hell is her?"

"That girl over there. She's alone."

"Uh-huh. So?"

"You know what?" I stood up, brushing sand off my pants. "You sit here and wait around on your ass all night. I'm actually going to do something."

I hear him sigh. "She bites."

I refuse to dignify this, so instead I walk away from him.

I drift over to the girl and sit next to her. I notice a few things I hadn't seen from afar: the puffy redness of her eyes, the dried blood on her arm, the tension in her shoulders. She looks . . . not so good.

"Hello," I say as kindly as I can. Unfortunately, being kind really isn't one of my strong suits.

I don't hear her answer, so I dive right in. "I was wondering why you were alone."

No answer. "How old are you?" I ask.

This time, she looks at me. I'm surprised to find her eyes lit with anger for a split second. Her voice is low and husky as she responds. "Fourteen."

"Ah. Ninth grade. Cool."

There's an awkward silence between us. In a desperate attempt to be friendly, I tell her, "I'm Jess."

"Coree." Neither her voice nor her face shows any hint of expression.

"So, why were you alone?" I ask.

Her face turns red and for a second I think she's mad at me, but then I see the tears threatening to spill over her eyelashes. It suddenly occurs to me that asking about her family might not be such a good idea.

In fact, I can only now think of one reason for why she's alone: her family died in the crash. And asking her about that is definitely not a good idea.

Despite this, she answers. "I was . . . on a dance team."

Again, I'm taken by surprise. Then, I know absolutely nothing about dance, or any other sport for that matter. The only sport I did was basketball in junior high. So, the only thing I manage to say is, "Oh."

"We were flying from Boston," she says, and I hear her voice crack. A single tear streams down her face. "We had this big competition in Sydney. And another one in LA." More tears. "Our parents weren't on the plane."

"Oh." I don't know what to say. "So . . . so, you're from Boston, huh? Do you . . . like the Red Sox?"

Some more tears fall, but her voice is clear. "Yes."

There's another silence. By now I know that I could never be a therapist.

"My team is gone," the girl says suddenly.

I look at her. I'm not sure why I'm shocked.

"I looked for them," she says. Her eyes are closed shut. "I looked. They weren't in the fuselage. They're not on the beach."

"Oh," I say. Again.

"I don't know where they are. They're just . . . missing." She opens her eyes. They burn with anger again. "How does that even happen? How can my whole dance team just disappear? And where the hell would they even go?"

"The tail split off in mid-air," I say, trying to be helpful. "Maybe they're somewhere else on this island." After a moment, I add, "The rescue party will find them."

"What about that monster?" she asks.

"I wouldn't worry. It's probably just some pissed-off sloth or something," I say in a lame attempt to seem funny. Funny isn't my strong suit, either.

I can tell by the look on her face that she's not in the mood for humor. "I just . . . it just doesn't make sense."

She's right. At the moment, nothing makes sense.

I don't know how to answer. I don't know how to comfort her.

So we sit in silence and wait for rescue, watching the stars appear in the night sky.

Chapter title: "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong.

So, I know that the first chapter is always a little boring. Honestly, it was extremely hard and boring for me to write, but I got through it! I promise, after this first chapter, things will get more interesting.

See y'all around! Thanks and happy writing!