Episode 1
The Crash
The first thing he remembered was the feel of the water around him, followed by the feel of the mud underneath him. Then he heard the sounds of chaos before him; sounds of screaming and high-pitched mechanical noises. Craig opened his eyes to put a picture to the sounds he was hearing.
Craig was lying on a beach with the waves of the ocean behind him washing over top of his shock-stricken body. Ahead he saw a woman trapped under a piece of wreckage. Beyond her he saw the bulk of an airplane fuselage sticking up from the beach sands.
Craig picked himself up off of the ground and out of the water. He found that despite being shook up, he was otherwise unhurt. He ran up the beach towards the trapped woman. She was crying out for help, struggling to get the large hunk of metal off of her legs.
"I've got it!" Craig called out, bending down and grabbing the bottom of the metal, grunting as he lifted it off and tossing it away once her legs were clear.
"Oh thank you, thank you!" she responded.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
The brunette woman of about thirty years looked down at her legs, indicating a large gash on her right thigh which was covered in blood.
"Put pressure on it," he told her, placing her hands on the wound.
Craig knew a little bit of first aid from his brief stint in the Australian army, but he knew he needed to find some one who really knew what they were doing. He raised his head to look around them, seeing a panic-crazed scene of people running back and forth among flaming wreckage with smoke funneling up everywhere.
There was a young woman in pink who stood in the middle of the chaos screaming at the top of her lungs. A little further down the beach a young man was bent over an older black woman who appeared to be unconscious. Sitting near the fuselage was a young blonde girl who appeared to be pregnant. There seemed to be a lot of survivors somehow, despite the fact that their plane had broken into three pieces. He wondered if by any chance there might be a doctor among them.
"Look! Look!" the woman beside him cried out suddenly, pointing out towards the sea. Craig followed her finger to see a person out in the water trying desperately to hold onto a floating piece of metal, struggling to keep a grip.
"I've got her!" Craig cried out above the noisy engine of the plane still whirring behind them.
He kicked his shoes off of his feet and ran out into the ocean. He swan hard towards the woman who was holding on with her life so as not to drown. When he reached her and her makeshift raft, he suddenly heard a loud bang behind them. He turned his neck to see a fireball subsiding. It appeared as though an engine had just exploded. He saw that the woman with the cut-up leg was being carried away to safety by two guys about the same age as he was.
Craig turned back towards the young woman who was slipping off of the sheet metal. He scooped her up under his arm and pulled her away.
"C'mon, I've got ya," he assured her in his thick Australian accent. He began swimming back to the beach with her arm draped over his shoulder. Her long, blonde hair dripped over her frightened face as she shook herself out of her daze.
Craig pulled the woman into the beach. A young guy ran by carrying a handful of pens for some reason. She stopped shortly and called out to Craig, "Hey is she okay?!"
"She'll be fine!" Craig answered. The young guy kept running towards the black woman who was now being looked after by a man in a suit. Craig helped the woman move further inland and away from the dangerous wreckage.
People were still running in a panic, moving away from the fuselage to somewhere where they could catch their breath and their thoughts. Craig walked past a young couple he heard fighting over finding their luggage towards a group of people who were huddled near the tree line. He laid the girl down on the sand and looked her over.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
The fresh-faced girl nodded. "Thank you. You saved my life. What's your name?"
"Craig," he answered.
"I'm Jill. Thank you Craig."
He collapsed onto the beach beside her, tired from the swim and the hectic running around to safety. The crash was over now. Wherever they were, they were safe for the moment.
* * *
Craig finally reached the check-in counter of the Sydney airport. He was panting after the run he had to make from where the shuttle dropped him off in order to make his flight. He collapsed arms first onto the counter across from the airline employee in front of him.
"I've got a flight to L.A.," he handed her the tickets.
The lady at the desk looked at the tickets and shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid you're too late."
"No, you don't understand. I need to get on that flight," Craig pleaded with her.
"I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do. The plane has already left the ground."
Craig sighed in disappointment. He knew that this would probably happen. "When is the next flight I can catch to Los Angeles?" he asked.
"I can get you on a flight in the morning sir. I'm afraid that's the best I can do."
A few minutes later Craig was talking on one of the airport payphones. On the other line was the manager of his swim team who was already in California.
"Craig! Where the bloody hell are you mate?" he demanded to know.
"Sorry Ricky," Craig apologized, "I was late and missed the flight."
Missed the flight! Why were you late?" the manager tried to contain his anger.
"I… it doesn't matter. I just was."
"Well you'd bloody well better get to L.A. as soon as possible. You're already going to miss rehearsal. Let's hope you make it here in time for the first heat. This is the bloody World's here Craig!"
"I know Ricky, I know," Craig said, "I've got a flight out first thing tomorrow morning. I'm coming in on Oceanic airlines. Fight 815."
* * *
The chaos of the crash had settled down. The wreckage was no longer flaming, there was no more immediate danger. Everyone was just waiting and trying to find something productive to do. Craig and Jill began rummaging through the scattered luggage to try and find their stuff.
Craig paused to look around the beach and see the activity going on around him. There was an Arab guy who was tending a large fire he had built, a fat guy distributing the in-flight meals he had collected, and the blonde girl who was screaming through the whole crash was actually painting her toenails. Craig could only shake his head.
Tracy, the brunette woman with the gash in her leg, was having her wound treated by the doctor who had emerged as the hero of the crash, whose name Craig had already heard was Jack. Jack had a lot of injuries to treat, the most crucial of which was a man who had a jagged piece of metal lodged in his chest.
"Hey, can I see that bag?" some one called out to Craig, who didn't even notice he had a bag in his hand.
"Oh yeah, sure thing mate," he tossed the bag to the guy in the ripped up yellow shirt.
"Ah, you found my bag! Thanks man. I'm Steve. This is Scott," he introduced himself and his friend who was standing near and looked somewhat similar, "We can help you look for yours if you want."
As they rummaged through the luggage, Jack had just finished patching up Tracy's leg and was moving on to the other injured. Another woman about Tracy's age came to sit down by her. She had red, curly hair and looked frazzled.
"I can't believe this," she said in an awe-stricken voice, "I mean, how did we survive? So many of us?"
"Forty-eight," Tracy said.
"What?"
"Forty-eight of us survived. The doctor just told me. He had someone do a head count."
"There has to be some meaning to it…" the woman pondered and appeared to Tracy to drift off.
"I'm Tracy," she introduced herself, tying to bring the woman back.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Joanna."
Just then they were approached by a really big guy with curly hair.
"Hey, want some grub?" he asked them as he handed out the foil-wrapped dinners from the plane.
"Thanks," Joanna responded.
"So how long till the rescue crew gets here, do you think?" Tracy asked as the fat guy continued on his way delivering the food.
"I don't know. If they even come at all…" Joanna muttered as she tore off the foil wrapping of the dinner tray, staring despondently at the food.
"Why do you say that? Of course they're coming," Tracy said, trying to convince herself more than anything else.
"What is the purpose of us crashing here if we're just going to be rescued again?" Joanna pondered with an absent gaze out towards the wreckage.
Tracy didn't know how to respond to such a ridiculous comment. She simply stared at Joanna with an incredulous look.
* * *
The evening crept in over the island and people gathered around the various fires which had popped up around the beach. Craig sat with Scott, Steve, Tracy and Jill. Tracy had limped over to thank the three men who had helped her out during the crash; Craig who had lifted the metal off of her and Scott and Steve who got her to safety.
Tracy also met a few other people who were sitting close. There was Jerome, a stocky guy with glass who seemed really nice, Lance, a skinny, younger guy with red hair, and Arzt, a middle-aged man who said he was a teacher. Joanna was sitting with them also.
"This reminds me of summer camp," Tracy said with a laugh, "Sitting around campfire, meeting new people."
"I don't remember a fuselage full of dead bodies at any camp I went to," Arzt replied sardonically.
"I'm just trying to lighten the mood…" Tracy defended herself.
"What I want to know is, where's the rest of the plane?" Scott asked.
"The tail just- just broke off," Jill remembered with a hint of trauma in her voice, "Suddenly it was just gone."
"And who knows where the cockpit it," Craig added.
All of the sudden, a noise in the jungle put an abrupt end to their conversation. They heard a roaring bellow come from the inland. It sounded hollow in a way, and haunting.
Suddenly everyone on the beach was standing up and looking toward the trees. The tops of the trees were moving! The sound continued, like some giant monster making its way through the jungle. Craig ran up ahead to see if he could catch a glimpse of something, but the other stayed back, wary of getting anywhere near the tree line.
Tracy couldn't believe what she was hearing. First a plane crash and now this. It was all too much for her. She began to shake her head, back away from the other.
"I shouldn't be here, I shouldn't be here," she chanted as she looked on in horror.
* * *
Tracy looked around the waiting area of Sydney airport to find a phone. She saw a man just hang up the phone and then walk off with his son and she ran to claim the phone before anyone else did. She knew she needed to phone her husband. The flight to Los Angeles would be too long to wait before she could talk to him. The guilt was simply too much.
She dialed her number back home. Her daughter Vanessa answered.
"Hi baby! … I miss you too. But I'll see you soon okay? Is daddy there?"
When he husband came onto the other line, she tried hard to keep her voice steady and composed, yet inside she was quivering.
"Hey sweetie…. Yes, the meetings went well…Orlando is fine. It's pretty sunny here. I should be home later tonight."
As she spoke to him her trembling hands removed an enveloped letter from her pocket. She wasn't sure what it said. She was scared to know. But she wanted to read it so badly, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She hoped that hearing her husband's voice would urge her to open it, but it was only making it more afraid.
"Yes okay. That all I wanted to tell you. I love you too."
When she hung the phone up, she broke into tears, crumpling the letter in her fist.
* * *
The next morning Jack was making his rounds through all of the injured people from the day before. He walked over to where Tracy was sitting and changed the bandages on her leg.
"I have to leave this afternoon," Jack told her as he put the new bandage around her gash which he sterilized with whiskey from one of the tiny bottles from the plane, "Just leave this bandage on until I get back and I will change it again tonight."
"Where are you going?" she asked him.
"I'm going to try to find the cockpit so we can get a hold of someone," he told her.
"But, what about that thing out there, what ever it is?"
Instead of answering her, Jack just stood up and repeated, "Just remember to leave the bandage on."
As Jack went on to give instructions to a young guy named Boone on how to take care of the man who had a large chunk of metal lodged in his stomach, Scott and Steve came over to talk with Tracy.
"I don't think he's going to make it," Scott said as he sat down on the sand, referring to the dying man.
"It doesn't look hopeful," Tracy agreed.
"So what do you think that thing was last night?" Steve asked her.
"I don't know and I don't want to know," Tracy complained, "I just want the rescue teams to come and get us the hell out of here."
"You would think they would be here soon. It's been almost a whole day," Steve said.
However, no rescue crew came that day and before they knew it the sun rose on their third day on this unknown island. Scott and Steve were heating up a couple of TV trays which were still left from the plane. They were soon joined by Hurley, the fat guy who distributed the food on the first day, and Craig.
"There are still some of those left?" Hurley asked excitedly.
"They can't be any good by now, surely," Craig wondered.
"Dude, its airport food,' Hurley said, "They can last as long as Twinkies."
"Well, its all we've got left right now," Scott complained, "Unless someone knows how to fish."
"Or hunt," Hurley added.
"Oh yeah? Hunt what exactly," Steve asked.
"Didn't you guys here? They found a polar bear yesterday," Hurley began to gossip.
"Who did?"
"Kate, Sayid, Boone, Shannon, Charlie, and that Sawyer dude. They just got back this morning."
"Whatever Hurley," Scott rolled his eyes.
"I'm serious. Polar bears, dinosaurs, this is a strange place. Like the Lost World or something," Hurley muttered.
Just then they began to hear the moans and groans coming from Jack's medical tent. They all looked towards the tent, knowing what was happening.
"It's that marshal dude. I'm going to see if I can help," Hurley got up and wandered over to find Jack.
"Marshal? There was a marshal on the plane?" Scott suddenly got paranoid.
"Yeah, and we're going to have to listen to him until he ides I think. Because there's no way Jack can save him," said Steve.
"Terrific, just terrific," Scott muttered.
* * *
Scott was sitting at the check-in desk of the hostel in Brisbane reading a graphic novel version of The Stand. It was a slow day with not many backpackers coming through this week. The only one to come in that day was Steve, his best friend since high school. It was Steve's day off and he had been down at the beach.
"Good day out there?" Scott asked, looking up from his comic.
"Weather's alright. It's definitely getting warmer," his best friend replied.
Scott and Steve had been in Australia for almost a year and a half. They came to travel as backpackers, working at various hostels and ranches along the way. Before Australia, they were in Europe and even spent a little but of time in Africa. When all was said and done, they had been away from their home in northern California for almost three years.
"Well, it's been a slow day here. I may as well just have gone with you."
"You know what Scott? I think I'm done here," Steve suddenly broke into a new topic of conversation, "Three years has been enough traveling for a while. I'm ready to go home."
"Yeah?" Scott arched his eyebrow.
"We're thirty years old now, and still we're running around the world carefree. Don't you think its time to get back and just, I don't know, settle down for a while?"
"Thirty is not that old Steve," Scott rebuked, "And the whole reason you wanted to take off was to avoid settling down. You quit your dad's job, broke up with Carol, and asked me to travel the world with you. Why change now?"
"I have my reasons," Steve told him, "But I'm going back home. There's a flight later this week from Sydney to Los Angeles. I'm going to jump into the café there and book a ticket. I can get one or two, it's up to you."
Scott sighed. "Well, we started this trip together and we may as well end it together. Get two."
* * *
The screaming was heard all along the beach. The marshal was dying a slow and painful death and the sound of it grated on the ears of all the survivors. Scott and Steve sat with Tracy, Joanna and Charlie, a shady-looking character who claimed to be a musician.
"Bloody hell, poor guy,' Charlie muttered underneath his hood.
"Some one needs to put him out of his misery," Tracy said what most others had in their heads.
"Yeah, but who?" Steve asked.
"It all seems so meaningless," Joanna shook her head, "I mean, what is he going to die for? Nothing at all. He's just going to die."
"Does that Sawyer guy really have a gun?" Scott asked Charlie.
"Yeah, but Kate has the bullets. I think there's only one anyways."
"That seems just about right to me," Tracy said.
"Perhaps, but who's going to pull he trigger?" Scott pondered, "I know I wouldn't be able to."
Then just as they were talking about it, they heard the gun shot. Some one had pulled the trigger. No one said anything. Then when the sounds of the marshal struggling for life rose up again, they all looked at each other with horror in their faces. Charlie pulled the hood over his face and hung his head down. The others couldn't speak and Joanna looked downright terrified. As she looked around for some sort of comfort, she saw a man staring back at her. It was the bald man who had barely moved since the plane crash and just sat there, hardly speaking to anyone. He looked at her with an expression which told her that he knew what she was thinking.
* * *
Joanna took a deep breath as she looked around for a cab outside of Sydney's arrival terminal. This was it; she was actually going to do this. It took her almost a month to talk herself into it, but now she was here.
She grabbed a cab and gave the driver the address. She wondered what the expression on his face would be when she arrived on his doorstep. It was very exciting. She was finally feeling alive.
When she came to the small townhouse on the outskirts of Sydney, she exited the cab and then took a moment out on the sidewalk to catch her breath. When she felt she was ready she knocked on the door.
He answered. "Yes?"
"Eric? Its… it's me. Joanna,"
"Um, Joanna?" he suddenly looked surprised and concerned, not the reaction she was expecting.
"Yes, its me. I wanted to surprise you, so I flew all the way down here."
Eric took a furtive look behind his shoulder and then came outside to meet her on the doorstep, closing the door behind him.
"Listen you shouldn't be here," he told her in a low voice.
"What? But I thought you would be happy to see me…"
"Listen Joanna, whatever you think we have, we don't. Its not real. It was just a stupid internet chat room. It doesn't mean anything."
Joanna felt tears rising up inside of her. "It meant something to me."
"Look, I'm sorry about that, I really am. But I can't actually be with you. I have a wife, a family," he confessed.
"So you were faking it?" she shrilled, "This whole time, I meant nothing to you?!"
"Please keep it down…"
"My whole life I've never meant anything to anyone, until you. I thought I was special to you!"
"I… I'm sorry Joanna. But you can't be here," Eric stated definitively, walking inside and locking the door behind him.
* * *
The next day was rather uneventful. There was still no sign of a rescue plane, and rumours were floating around that their plane had been off course and it may be a long time before anyone finds them. The Arab guy was always working on some sort of electronic thing, but he wasn't telling anyone what it was exactly. The signal fire he built on day one was still burning.
Joanna was sitting alone near the edge of the water staring out at the calm blue ocean before them in her usual pensive mood. She looked to her right to see Rose, the woman who wasn't eating or talking, further down the beach looking to be in the same sort of though trance.
Joanna was surprised when the bald man who was looking at her the night before came and sat down on her left side.
"Hello," she said with a start.
"Hi, mind if I join you?" he asked her calmly.
"It's a free island," she answered, "I'm Joanna. Joanna Miller."
"I'm John Locke," he introduced himself in return, "If you don't mind my noticing, you look troubled Joanna."
"Well, we have been in a plane crash," she chuckled a little, "I just wish I knew what to think of it."
"How do you mean?" he inquired further.
Joanna looked at this calm, composed man with a scar over his right eye and felt an almost instant connection with him, as though it was safe to tell him anything.
"All of my life I have searched for some sign that my life means something, you know? But I am probably the most useless person on the planet."
"That's an odd thing to say," Locke commented.
"My family hardly speaks to me. We haven't even had a falling out, they just don't bother with me. I can't find a man to love me to save me life, and even if I did….," she paused wondering if she was going to far, but decided to just keep going, "I'm barren. I can't have children. So I can't even make a difference there. I know it sounds bad, but when this plane crashed I wondered if this was my purpose, if I would find it here. But so far nothing. Just sitting on a beach."
After Joanna poured her heart out, Locke couldn't help but chuckle a little. "I probably understand more than you know. But I think that both you and I will find our purpose here. I believe we all have a destiny, we just have to recognize it when it finds us."
"I don't have a destiny," she muttered, "Destiny is for greater people than I."
"Everyone has a destiny, even if it is only to aid in the bigger picture, the greater good," Locke continued.
They sat in silence for a while as Joanna thought about what he said. Perhaps this John Locke was right; perhaps she would find her destiny here.
* * *
That night, the survivors of Oceanic 815 found their beds on the sandy beach floor sheltered by the pieces of the wreckage the same as they had done the three nights previous. Joanna had found a place alone near the end of the beach. Tracy had decided to sleep near Steve and Scott. Craig, Jill and Jerome were also close by.
In the middle of the night, everyone began to wake up to grunting sounds coming from inside the fuselage. The monstrous sounds from the first night were what had popped into everyone's minds.
Jack, Sawyer, Kate and Charlie crept up to the plane with a couple of flashlights to see what was making the noise. Suddenly, a barrage of wild boar began charging out towards the makeshift camp on the beach.
"Move! Move!" Craig cried out, lifting Jill away from the line of charging beasts. Tracy screamed as she scrambled to her feet, Scott and Steve grabbing sheets of metal to use as a shield.
The commotion was over as soon as it started though as the boars had run back into the jungle. However, it was hard to get any more sleep after that.
The next morning a fight broke out between Sawyer and Hurley. It appeared that Sawyer had all that was left of the airplane food. As everyone gathered around the confrontation, fear began to take hold of their thoughts. Their food was almost out.
Joanna stood by Tracy as they listened. Locke was explaining to everyone that the boar from the night before could be hunted. He showed everyone from the camp the suitcase of knives he had taken on the plane.
"What the hell…" Tracy muttered under her breath.
"Joanna looked at the man whom she had spilled everything to the night before with a sigh. It seemed that John Locke was finding his destiny.
* * *
The decision had been made that morning by Jack and a couple of the others to burn the fuselage that night. When word spread about this, some of the people gathered around to discuss it.
"It doesn't seem right somehow," Jill said, "Just burning all of the bodies in there. It seems crass."
"I can see why Jack wants to do it though," Craig said.
"Yeah, but who put Jack in charge, exactly?" Steve complained.
"He's worried about disease spreading if we hang around dead bodies all the time," Craig argued, "He is a doctor after all."
"Jill is right though," said Claire, a young Australian girl who was eight months pregnant, "We can't just burn them. Maybe we should hold, like, a memorial service or something."
"I like that," Jill smiled, "I think we should."
So they made the preparations to burn the fire and plan the service. Jill, Craig and Tracy helped Claire and the Arab guy Sayid rummage through the remaining luggage to find anything they could on those who didn't make it, while many of the others gathered firewood to build up around the fuselage.
That evening, the fuselage was set ablaze as Claire, Hurley, and another young guy named Boone led the service. Claire read out little tidbits of anyone she could find information on. Almost the whole camp was there to pay their respects. Joanna stared into the fire, barely aware of what was being said. She stood near the edge of the huddle, hanging back by herself.
Joanna peeked over her shoulder towards the trees and saw a man standing there. He was an older man with gray hair and distinguished look, wearing a suit. He waved her over with two fingers. Joanna didn't remember seeing him before, but after tall there were over forty of them. She also felt a strange attraction to his man. She wandered over to the tree line, away from the others at the service.
"Who are you?" she asked calmly.
"I'm the man who is going to give you your purpose," he spoke softly.
"You're not from the plane, are you?"
"Yes, and no," he answered simply.
"What do you mean you are going to give me my purpose?"
"This plane crashed for a reason, Joanna,' the man told her, "I know you have felt this. Many things are going to happen. However, you cannot be a part of them. There is a man with you, my son, who will be a part of them. However, he must be driven. So I am afraid, Joanna, that your destiny is to die."
"What? That is my purpose? To die?"
"Yes. But don't worry, its not that bad."
Joanna felt like she should be raging, however she was surprisingly calm. She remembered what Locke had told her about the greater good. Her whole life she felt as though she never made a difference. Perhaps she could make one now.
* * *
The next morning, Joanna woke up early and looked out to the sea. She took one last look at her fellow survivors. She didn't entirely understand why she was doing this, but she was decided none the less.
She walked out slowly into the ocean The water rose higher up her body as she waded out deeper. She knew that soon she would go out too deep, and she would never be back. She turned her back to the crash site of Oceanic 815 held her arms out from her body, and walked towards her destiny.
LOST