Anna woke up with her face in sand.
At first she was confused and didn't understand how sand ended up on the plane, then she remembered what had happened and quickly lifted her head spluttering and spitting out what sand managed to get inside her mouth. No matter how much she spat she could still taste the granules in her mouth, and they created a nasty crunchy feeling when she pressed her teeth together that grossed her out.
Anna did a push up to lift herself up, her whole body throbbing with aches and pains. She collapsed back to the ground again when a shooting pain shot up and down her right arm, causing her to cry out. A huge gash ran down the length of her arm, fresh blood oozing out. Sand collected on the bloody wound which made the pain even worse. She wiped her hand over the wound to brush off as much of the sand as possible and held back her whimpers.
Once she got most of the sand off she rolled onto her back and lay panting, clutching her injured arm, her mind working, trying to recall the last bit of information she remembered before she had lost consciousness. It was obvious to her that the plane had crashed. Otherwise she wouldn't be lying on a beach in soaking wet clothes. What she couldn't understand was how she managed to survive the crash. But did that matter? The point was she survived it, and for that Anna was very much thankful. She was a teenager after all, and she still had her whole life ahead of her.
Peering up at the sky, she marveled at the bright baby blue color and the light smatter of marshmallowy clouds that peppered it. It looked so beautiful and serene, and if Anna had an artistic bone in her body and wasn't currently involved in a deadly plane crash, she would have loved to paint or draw the scene. She squinted as the sun shot beams of scorching heat down on her, but with the coolness of the water on her skin and her drenched clothes she didn't experience the full effect of it. Once she was dry, however, that would be a different story.
Carefully and painstakingly slow, Anna moved so she was sitting up. She surveyed her surroundings and was taken aback at the wreckage strewn about. There was luggage haphazardly scattered all over the beach, along with large pieces of metal and other parts that had once been attached to a plane. Bodies joined the mess. Most of them were floating in the ocean, either being carried out into sea by the waves or pushed towards the beach, bumping up against rocks. It was a gruesome sight, and the longer Anna looked the more shocked she became. Her surviving the crash could only be described as a miracle.
She wondered if she was the only survivor…
She struggled to her feet and wobbled unsteadily, and for a moment she thought she was going to fall again, that maybe she had injured one of her legs as well. Anna had rips and tears in her clothes that held smaller scratches beneath them, but other than those minor injuries her legs felt perfectly fine. There was a sudden sharp little pain on the big toe of her left foot and she glanced down at the naked foot, the sock and shoe missing from it, and gasped. Kicking her foot out fast, she sent a crab that had been pinching her toe sailing claw over claw across the sand, watching as it landed feet first beside a body. The crab didn't move right away, probably getting over the shock of being hurled through the air, but once it got over the shock it moved in its lazy crabbish way and crawled up to the head of the body.
The body was on its side, scrunched up in a fetal position. The crab walked very close to the face- a face Anna remembered seeing on the plane, riddled with disgusting piercings- and lifted its claw ever so slowly, closing it and latching on to Mohawk boy's nose.
Anna heard a low moan and realized it had come from the boy. Another survivor! His body twitched and a hand reached up to touch his nose- and the crab hanging on to it. He only groaned again, scrunching himself even tighter into a ball, leaving the crab where it was. Where he had touched his nose there was a smear of blood. It was all over his hand, Anna noticed. She walked over to where the boy lay and could see very clearly how bad it was. Where the blood was coming from she couldn't tell, but she figured it centered around his stomach judging from his body language.
She knelt down and pried the crab off, being careful to avoid its deadly claws, and tossed the crustacean over her shoulder. Then she gingerly reached out to move the boy's arms away from the front of his stomach. While she did that she couldn't help but notice that the boy's mohawk was still remarkably intact. It amazed her that it hadn't been destroyed when it got wet. He must have loaded it with a lot of water proof gel, she mused. She finally got his hands out of the way, and sure enough there was a huge bloody stain in his clothes directly over his stomach. The reason behind the bleeding was a sharp piece of metal that had somehow lodged itself inside him. Almost like a piercing, she thought ironically.
"Don't touch him," a voice said from behind her, startling her. Anna whipped her head around fast, and regretted it immediately from the pain that suddenly filled her head.
Pressing her hand against the top of her head, Anna watched unhappily as the same girl who had stepped on her shoe before the plane took off walked towards her, her backpack making wet slapping sounds against her back. Some of her blond hair had freed from the braid she wore and was now disheveled and wild, but in a good way. The look was admittedly incredibly sexy, and if Anna didn't know better she would never have guessed the blond had been involved in a disastrous plane crash.
Involuntarily, Anna felt her own hair, wondering how hers looked. Definitely not sexy, she thought as she struggled to free her fingers after they got tangled in wild strands. Once she freed her hand she said sourly, turning her back on the girl, "I thought you died."
Elsa tossed down her bag and swiftly undid her braid, squeezing some water from her hair. "Sorry to disappoint you," she said sarcastically.
Anna studied her and couldn't detect any injuries on her. She watched as Elsa knelt down beside the boy and opened her backpack, removing a first aid kit from it. Using a pair of scissors inside the first aid kit, she cut Mohawk boy's shirt so she could get at his stomach wound easily.
"I thought you said not to touch him," Anna said snidely. "There you are doing exactly that!"
Elsa looked at her expressionlessly. "I'm helping him," she said, putting great emphasis on the word "help". "I have the right materials to help him with and you don't. You'd only manage to make things worse for him." She pulled the shard of metal out and quickly used the shirt to press over the wound. "And besides, I know what I'm doing because my mother is a nurse and my father is a doctor."
"Oh, so that makes you Dr. Knowitall then, I presume?"
Elsa scowled and worked silently on Mohawk boy for the next few minutes. After she patched his wound she straightened him out so he lay on his back and his arms were at his sides, and then she used a few shirts she had in her backpack as a pillow for him, placing them underneath his head. She stood, slapping her hands together, and looked around. There were several bodies sprawled in unnatural angles on the beach and she doubted any of them were living. Still, she wanted to be sure, so she told Anna she was going to check the bodies out.
"Okay," Anna replied. And when Elsa was out of ear shot she muttered, "And when you're done with that go throw your shoe-wrecking self into the ocean."
"Jeez, are you still going on about that?" a male's voice said weakly. Mohawk boy coughed and groaned.
She spun to face him. "Uh yeah! You're a boy so what do you know about shoes?"
He grimaced, made a move to sit up and changed his mind, falling back down, the hot sand warming his bare back. He rested his hands on his chest and breathed deeply but that hurt too much so he started to breathe more shallowly. "I-I think I know when they're unimportant. Like now, for instance. We were just in a plane crash and all you can think about is a stupid shoe. Survival is currently the important issue. Not whether your useless shoe is smudge free." His eyes drifted to her feet. "Speaking of smudged shoes, it looks like you misplaced one of yours."
Anna glared at him menacingly and wondered if he and Elsa were related. She didn't know either of them and yet they had some kind of mutiny against her, so she guessed they had to be related in some way. Maybe siblings. Siblings with a different father or mother since they didn't look anything alike.
When Elsa returned she said to Anna, "Thanks for helping me."
The red-head was busy examining and cleaning the sand from under her nails. "No problem." She looked up briefly, saw the annoyed look Elsa was giving her and stuck her tongue out at her before continuing with what she was doing. Last thing she was going to do was gawk at dead bodies to see if they were alive. Yuck!
Elsa stared at her and exchanged a look with Mohawk boy. She opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and closed it again, settling on just rolling her eyes to convey her feelings. She put her hands on her hips and released her breath. "Well, it appears we are the only survivors. All the bodies I was able to examine were in bad sha-"
"What about me?" Anna interrupted huffily.
"What about you?" Elsa inquired, a bored look on her face.
Anna extended her arm, winced at the pain, and said, "Hello! My arm? Look at it. Look at this gash here. It needs to be taken care of before it gets infected or something." When Elsa didn't move she said, "Helloooo? Help me."
"Help yourself," Elsa said calmly.
Anna puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and plopped herself into the sand. She grabbed the kit and dabbed at the cut with an antiseptic napkin. Elsa watched what she was doing, and when she was satisfied Anna had everything under control she said, "Since we could be here for a while, I think we should all introduce ourselves so we know what to call each other. My name is Elsa."
"No way! Really? I would have never guessed! I figured you just liked carrying around someone else's backpack," Anna said with a snort.
The other two ignored her and Mohawk boy introduced himself next. "My name is Hans."
"Hands? What kind of name is that?"
"It's Hans, not hands," Hans corrected in irritation.
Elsa crossed her arms over her chest. "Alright then, what's your name?"
"Anna," Anna said proudly while at the same time struggling to wrap a bandage around her cut.
"No way! You're kidding?" Elsa said, imitating Anna's voice. "How incredibly boring!" Anna frowned and flipped her off. Elsa returned the gesture and then focused her attention on Hans. Without looking at Anna she said, "Help me move him under those trees over there." She nodded to where she meant and positioned herself behind his head. When the other girl didn't make a move to assist her she sighed. "Today would be nice, thanks."
Anna stayed rooted where she was. Her arm was bandaged now, but it was done horribly. "Why aren't you hurt? Hm? I find that very strange. I bet you sabotaged the plane somehow! So of course you were prepared when it started to crash. I bet that's it. Yeah, that's exactly it. You have a first aid kit. How convenient. You knew what was going to happen because you made it happen and brought the kit just in case you got hurt!" she flared.
Tired of playing games and wishing she had been stuck with someone different than Anna, preferably someone more likable, Elsa let her hands hang off the top of her knees as she balanced on her feet, legs pressed together, and said, "I was sitting by the window, which shattered before the plane crashed and I fell through it and landed in the water. Then I grew mermaid fins and swam to shore. Happy? Great. Now help me. We don't want him laying out in the sun like this."
After several more minutes, Anna finally gave in and together they helped bring Hans underneath the shade of two trees.
Once they had Hans settled in comfortably, Elsa went scavenging for luggage that had been thrown from the plane. The clothes and whatever else she found in them could prove to be very useful to them. She didn't bother asking Anna for help knowing she would likely receive a nasty attitude or a dirty remark, so she curtly informed her and Hans she would be right back and got up. She didn't really want to leave the guy all alone anyway, and at least Anna would be company, though not very pleasant company. But right then she was better than nothing. None of them knew what to expect from the seemingly deserted island they landed on. As far as she could tell the area was untouched and devoid of human life. When they went searching for materials they would be needing to live off of they would soon find out whether it truly was deserted or not.
She found a few bags that were somewhat undamaged, most of them filled with clothes that probably wouldn't fit any of them. One bag had its contents spilled out along the beach: magazines, books, electronics. The books and magazines she decided could serve a purpose once they dried, but the electronics were dead and useless. She stuffed everything back into what remained of the torn bag and then hauled it all back to where Hans and Anna waited. She dropped the bags, piling them into one spot in the shade, then she set to work and started spreading things out in the sunlight so they could dry fast.
She sat down in the shade, leaning her head forward, allowing drops of sweat to drip off her face into the sand below. Elsa was hot and thirsty. She wondered if there was any fresh water around and hoped when she went to go search she would come across some. She laid down in the cool sand and looked up at the trees, imagining coconuts or bananas hanging above her. The trees were bare.
"I'm hungry," Anna complained to her left. All three of them heard the obnoxiously loud gurgle her stomach made.
The growling got Elsa thinking about her own stomach and she discovered she too was hungry. "We need to go find food. Hold on a second..." She reached for her bag and set it in her lap and then dug through all the junk in it as she searched for a survival book she had buried beneath everything. Half of the stuff she found in her bag she didn't even remember putting in, like the stuffed reindeer for example; she was pretty sure she didn't put that in her bag, which meant her little brother had done it. It was his favorite toy and for him to part with it meant a lot. She took the reindeer out and hugged it before placing it gently in the sand.
Anna eyed the plush reindeer and then leaned over to see what else was in her bag. Elsa gave her an unfriendly look, silently telling her to back off. She didn't listen, so Elsa forced herself to ignore the other girl's presence, which wasn't easy because she was practically on top of her. She could feel her breath sneaking down her neck and it was making her very uncomfortable. She shifted her weight, turned her body sideways and continued her search, hoping her brother hadn't taken anything important out of the backpack.
"Did you happen to find my bag?" Anna asked as she scooted closer, leaning so far over that their heads were almost touching. A piece of Anna's hair brushed Elsa's cheek.
Elsa pulled her head back and admonished, "Have you ever heard of a thing called personal space?"
"Uh..."
"'Cause you're invading mine, okay? Yeah. So... you know. Back away a bit, alright?"
Anna moved back, muttering under her breath. Elsa felt like saying something else but remembered that they were probably going to be stuck together for a long time. None of them knew how long it would take before a rescue team came out to save them- if one even did. It wouldn't help if they became enemies, not that they were the best of friends at the moment. But there was no need to make things worse between them. So she swallowed down her nasty comment and dug around the items in her bag until she found the book she was looking for. It was in a protective plastic covering so it wouldn't get damaged by water. She took the cover off and stuffed it back in her bag, then she flipped open the book.
"What's that?" Anna asked dryly. "A Rudolph book?"
"No. It's a survival guide." Elsa skimmed the pages. "People use these to survive in the wild. It tells you what is safe to eat and what isn't so you don't eat something poisonous and die. As we explore we'll be able to identify the safe and the bad."
"And if it's not in the book?" Anna questioned.
Elsa closed the book and ran her finger over the edge of the pages to create a noise that she loved to hear as the pages slapped down one on top of another at a fast rate. She tried finding a word to use for that particular sound but she could never come up with one. "If we find something that's not in the book we could always have you test it out to see if it's safe." Without waiting for a remark from the redhead, she stood. "Anna... I need you to come with me. We need to go explore and see if we can find anything to eat."
Anna leaned back on her hands. "Someone's got to wait with... uh... um...ah... Mohawk dude," she finished.
"Hans," Elsa corrected flatly.
"Whatever." Anna dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "The point is he shouldn't be left alone. I mean, someone's got to protect him. For all we know there could be rabid animals running rampant around this place."
Elsa shouldered her backpack and tucked the book under her arm. "I think Hans would have a better chance of protecting himself than you, truthfully. Now let's go, or else when I do find something I'll only bring enough back for two people," she threatened.
"That's not fair!" Anna protested. She pouted, her bottom lip jutting out, and then with a harrumph she stood up. She passed the reindeer and spotted something hiding beneath it. She picked it up and smiled. The object was a mirror! She looked at herself in the mirror and the smile was wiped away immediately. "Ooh. My hair!" she moaned, seeing how tangled and messy it was.
"Anna!" Elsa shouted impatiently.
Anna dropped the mirror and trudged toward her unhappily and they went on their search.
They didn't travel too far into the forest of trees that Elsa figured made up most of- if not all of- the island. She would have loved to look around more, but there would be plenty of time to explore every inch of the island as the days past. She felt certain they would be there for a while. Her main concern was to find a source of food and water. If they didn't find those necessary resources survival would be slim. She wasn't worried about not finding anything though; Elsa figured there was bound to be something edible, and with all the trees around she was almost positive there was a source of water lying somewhere, otherwise the trees wouldn't thrive as they were.
It turned out she was right. There was something edible that she managed to stumble across. She literally tripped and nearly fell into a bush that was loaded with juicy ripe berries. She discovered several more around it, checked her survival book for confirmation of whether they were safe to eat or not, and nodded. "Bingo." She had Anna stay to pick them and gave the girl her backpack so she had a place to put them, then she continued on despite Anna's feeble protests of not wanting to be left all by herself.
The farther she went the more thick and dense the forest became. It was almost like a jungle. She didn't stop and turn though, especially when she heard what sounded like the trickle of water somewhere up ahead. She surged forward, moving aside branches that impeded her progress, and then she was standing in front of a small creek. She knelt down and examined the water, checking to see if it looked healthy. It appeared clean as far as she could tell. She dipped her hands into the stream and sampled some and found it tasted fresh. Elsa hurried back to where she left Anna to retrieve a canteen she had in one section of her backpack.
When she found Anna and looked to see how far she'd gotten with the berry picking she was annoyed to find that there were not many berries in the bag. "What are you doing?" she asked. "You barely got anything."
Anna gingerly picked a berry off a branch, holding it between her thumb and pointer finger. She dropped it into the bag and slapped her hands together. "Well, I would have had a whole lot more by now if there hadn't been a nasty, gross, disgusting, ugly bug crawling up and down the branches as if it owned the bush... I don't know where it went. I think it's gone."
Elsa eyed a black beetle hanging out on Anna's upper arm and said, "Uh huh. I guess so." She took her eyes away from the beetle, trying to control the urge to smile, and said, "I found some water. It's fresh and good tasting, but we should boil it anyway. There's no telling what kind of organisms are living in it." She got her canteen, opened it and sniffed inside. It smelled like apple juice. She swallowed whatever was left and it was warm and gross and made her gag. She wiped her mouth. "I'll go fill this up, and when I come back there better be a lot more berries in there. Then we'll head back to where we left Hans and I'll try to get a fire going." Her eyes strayed to the beetle, and without another word she went back to the stream to fill up the canteen.
Elsa made it to the creek and first rinsed her canteen out before putting the cool water in and capping it. She rose, and a branch falling to her left made her look in that direction. She saw what looked like a stone wall with vines growing wildly all over it, and when she went to inspect it she found out it was actually a cave. It was dark inside the cave so she stayed at the lip of it, not daring to go any further in case there was something living inside it. If she had light...
She put the strap of the canteen around her neck so it hung in front of her, resting against her chest. She scavenged around for the materials she would need to make a fire. Elsa had gone on camping trips numerous times with her family, and her grandfather had showed her how to make fire when she was at a very young age. Now, as a teenager, she was an expert at it and almost never failed creating it.
Once she had everything she needed she got to work, and while she was working she heard a shriek that without a doubt belonged to Anna. She didn't panic or worry; she figured Anna had finally discovered the beetle on her. She concentrated on her task to make a flame. It took her at least a four minutes, almost five, before there was a spark and she had a small blaze going. She set the fire against a tall branch she found lying on the ground that had plenty of leaves still attached to it, and then she stuck her newly created light through the opening of the cave.
The cave was empty and it didn't go very far, ending at the end with a slab of gray. "Perfect," she announced out loud and started setting up a campfire inside it. After she had it made she went back to Anna and was pleased to see the bag was halfway full. She couldn't help but notice the crushed black bug in the dirt and felt bad for it. She said to Anna, "That's enough for now. I found a cave back there, not too far from the streambed. It'll be a perfect shelter for us." She took the backpack from her and zipped it up, then carefully put it on her back so as not to crush any of the berries. "Let's get Hans."
Anna groaned audibly. "Are you serious? He better walk on his own because there is no way I-" She cut herself short at Elsa's angry look and pursed her lips. She said nothing on their way back, and Elsa was thankful for that. Her patience with Anna was growing shorter and shorter and she was just about ready to pummel the girl, which was something new. Elsa was usually the peaceful type. She was always breaking up fights, never starting or jumping into one.
They returned and Elsa told Hans all about what she'd found, then told him they were moving into the cave. Hans seemed cool with the idea. "Let's go." He sat up and brushed the sand off his tanned back and puffed his chest out, wincing from the pain in his stomach but quickly removing that from his face before any of the girls could see it. He surreptitiously side glanced at them to see if either of them were checking him out. Anna was clenching her jaw as she looked into the mirror when she spotted a pimple on her face; Elsa was gathering everything together so they would have an easy time bringing everything back to the cave.
Hans sighed but didn't let their lack of attention bother him. He knew in time both of the girls would fall madly in love with him. It was only natural, after all. He was the only guy and there were two of them, and they were the only survivors of a plane crash.
Yes, he thought, his hand absentmindedly rubbing the bandage Elsa had created over his injury. Before long he would have two beautiful girls pining for his love.
