When the plane had been sliced in half during the crash, the torn fuselage had become sharper than razor blades. It had only been a matter of time before the sharpness of the fracture's edges combined with the cabin's humongous weight would have slashed its way through the crisp vegetation.

And so the cabin descended upon them. They helplessly watched the comforting view of the jungle being swept away by a dark grey wall of metal in front of them. Just like a human would capture small insects in an overturned glass, it felt like some giant, divine hand had deliberately sealed them in: the aluminium sank deeply into the tender soil around the two Englishmen with a loud thud, completely immuring them.

Matt and Dom were clinging to each other for dear life in the dim light of the secluded place, and since the cabin was acting like a sounding box, their ragged, heavy breathing resonated in their ears.

Fortunately for them, the cabin had settled unevenly into the ground. And being seen from outside, it strangely shared some eerie resemblance with the leaning tower of Pisa. But of course they couldn't know that yet. So when an almighty grinding cut through the air, it terrorised them: Dom's blood ran cold and Matt's heart thumped against his ribcage as if it wanted to get out.

Ever so slowly, their prison started to shift. The wall off to their left- which used to be the cabin's ceiling- slid upwards, millimetre by millimetre it rose in the ground where it had previously sank, dragging a fine layer of dark mud along during its ascent. On the other hand, the wall to their right- the cabin's 'floor'- was plunging deeper in the soil at an angle. The whole movement was being accompanied by noises you would more likely expect from a boat sinking...not a plane.

Eventually, the edge of the cabin's fractured ceiling broke free of the fertile, charred soil that was so typical of the rain forest, and the gray light coming from outside oozed through the growing space between the metal and the ground. That sudden gleam caught Dom's eye, and when he looked down at it, he understood what was happening. He retreated toward that small- but widening- opening, bringing a teetering Matt along with him, and crouched down near it since he guessed that the aluminium edge would swing over their head sooner or later.

And it did. The speed of the cabin's pivoting increased exponentially. So much so that when the opening became large enough for them to pass through, Dom bolted across it, forcing Matt to quicken his pace out, since the cabin's entrance was now charging them at the same time that the tail kept on falling down.

Finally, it hit the ground with a last deafening rumble, splashing mud several feet away.

And then everything was quiet and steady again. The two musicians were safe from any immediate threat.

Head throbbing from the adrenalin rush, Dom carelessly let go of Matt and faced the open mouth of the cabin, which was now partly congested by heaps of earth. Those had been gathered when the cabin had scraped the soil, churning it up like an oversized ice cream spoon.

The drummer posted himself in front of it, striking a sort of 'Peter Pan pose', with his arms right-angled and his fists resting against his hips.

"Holy shit!... That was close!" he exclaimed victoriously, a satisfied grin spreading on his face.

Perhaps his brain had a flash of remembrance, or perhaps he just possessed a sixth sense...be that as it may he suddenly whirled on his heels, feeling extremely worried about Matt. And that was a fortunate decision, for it enabled him to catch the frontman before he could collapse on the ground.

"Woa... I've got you." Dom held his friend tightly, both arms propped under the latter's armpits.

Matthew had experienced his own kick of adrenalin when the plane's tail had fallen down on them like a hungry shark, and the burning hormone had stifled a great deal of the pain he'd been undergoing before; that blinding, maddening pain when his foot had hit the ground. But the rush had past, sucking Matt's energy out with it. The weight of utter exhaustion was now held up only by the thinnest sliver of his will...and by Dom's supporting form.

Understanding that his friend's last glimmer of vigour was being entirely dedicated to keeping him from passing out, Dominic swept Matt's body up against him. Matthew's 120 lbs of soaking wet weight wouldn't cause the drummer any problem.

Under normal circumstances, Matt would probably have grumbled about being carried around like a girl, but right now, the only thing he felt was the unqualified relief of having his body weight lifted off of his left leg.

Dominic gently laid him down a few metres away, against one of the plane's torn off wings that was planted in the ground with a nice angle, acting as a good makeshift backrest.

Dom's heart clenched when he pulled away from Matt and took in his livid face, shiny with a thin coat of sweat. Lengthy laboured breaths were coming out of Matt's lips- which had turned slightly mauve- and under heavy eyelids, his eyes seemed to be staring into the void around the ground.

"God, Matt..." Dom began, but his voice broke. He swallowed and tried to sound a little bit less worried sick. "You look awful, mate."

As lost as he was in his ocean of numbing pain, Matthew had still caught that and tried to chuckle in return. But the only sound that came out of his mouth was a breathless gasp. "I feel awful," he whispered before his head fell back against the hard metal of the wing and he gazed at his friend.

Dominic's brows had drawn together in disquiet, breaking his usually peaceful and happy visage.

Matt moistened his lips before adding: "right now...you don't look like you could enter a beauty pageant either you know," a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Dominic's hands flew to his face, as he immediately felt self-conscious, and his fingers lightly palpated his skin. His cheekbones did feel a bit tender, they were probably bruised...and his right eye's vision had narrowed a little, the eyelid felt puffy. Did he had a black eye? He'd probably got it when he'd smashed on the ground after having unfastened his seatbelt...

While the drummer's train of thoughts kept going, the most adorable expressions crossed his face, from pouting to blushing, it clearly showed that Matt's remark had cut him to the quick. Even if there wasn't any real reason for him to feel shy about his appearance right now... The frontman had already seen him in much, much more embarassing positions.

This time, Matthew managed to chortle properly. Dom's eyes shifted to the other's face and he understood that Matt had only been teasing him, and that he had played right into the singer's hands. Dom smiled back let his hands drop into his lap. If Matt was capable of chaffing, it meant that he was getting better.

"Huh... Well, you'd be surprised you know... Some girls like it rough," Dominic said.

Satisfied by the half smile on Dom's face that had efficiently replaced the anxious frown, Matt closed his eyes and tried to settle his head more comfortably against the aluminium. "Yeah, sure. But I don't think they mean it that way," he slurred back, still striving to keep his tone light.

Dom smiled but didn't answer; he wanted his friend to rest a bit. Instead he glanced back at the fallen plane's carcass. The water would be accessible now. Dominic turned to Matt again and he saw that the latter's eyes were open and looking at the plane as well.

"I'm gonna see what I can salvage from the rubble," Dom told him. "Do you think you can manage on your own for a few minutes?"

The singer nodded. "Of course I can. Go ahead."

Dominic hesitated for a couple of seconds more yet he eventually got up to his feet. Matt's eyes slid shut once more but he pricked up his ears to keep track of the growing distance between Dom's feet and himself. He'd tried not to sound too enthusiastic when Dominic had advanced the idea of leaving him alone, but he certainly was grateful for it. Enduring hell and not letting it show wasn't easily done at all.

It felt like his brain cells were at war with each other; slaying each other in the confined battle field that was his head.

The last time he'd experienced something close to that was when he'd crunched that worm at the bottom of the only mezcal's bottle he and his mates had ever drunk. That damned larva had been soaked with such a highly concentrated amount of alcohol that it had felt like his head was blowing up! Of course it'd been a dare. And Matt had been the only one with enough intellectual curiosity to bite into it. Well, 'intellectual curiosity'...that was Matt's term for it. 'Sheer madness' had been the others'. It had been a thousand times more brain-crushing than absinthe.

Yes...what he had felt then was close to what he was feeling now. Minus the nerve endings clawing at his left lower limb. His cerebrum was an electric green burning sun, pumping its vital energy from the pure source of suffering anchored in his leg, and its erupting solar flares slashed at his skull's walls, reducing his head's inside to pieces. If only he could make it stop...

"Matt!"

Yes, make it stop, one way or the other...

"For Christ's sake Matt, will you wake up!"

The singer's eyes snapped open.

Dominic's worried face had been hovering a few inches away from Matt's and he pulled back when he saw the frontman look back at him, blowing out of his mouth at the same time, feeling relieved again. Dom had a feeling that this switch would be turned on and off very often this day. Worried, relieved, worried, relieved...

Matt glanced at his surroundings nervously in the wake of his friend's alarmed tone, but saw nothing particularly new and therefore cast an inquisitive look at Dom.

"I don't know," Dominic tried to explain, "you were talking in your sleep and-"

"I wasn't sleeping," Matt cut him off.

"Yes you were, and you said-"

"No, I wasn't," Matt interrupted him again, sort of rudely. "If I had been sleeping, I wouldn't have been feeling the pain anymore," he added bitterly.

"Well I don't bloody know if it was sleep or delirium," Dom fired back, his voice rising, "but your eyes were closed and you weren't reacting when I tried to shake you out of it and you were saying that you were burning from the inside out and that you wanted it to stop and...and..." Dom's voice wavered and his eyes darted around, not being able to face Matt's anymore, "...and it was quite scary," he finished, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Matthew was staring back at him with clear, round eyes, a bit taken aback by his sudden outburst.

"Oh," the singer stated. He sounded like a scientist whose long-worked theory had just been logically knocked down, point-by-point, by another scholar. "Er...maybe it was delirium then," he acknowledged hesitantly while scratching his head.

Dom still wasn't looking at Matt but he softly huffed through his nose and half-rolled his eyes. He was a bit upset that Matt had doubted his word in the first place.

"Anyway, I brought you these," Dom told his friend, wavering his hand and indicating the stuff he'd carelessly dropped next to them when he'd found Matt squirming and whimpering. "Here, that'll make you feel better," he continued as he handed Matt a bottle of water. "They aren't very fresh, but it's still...well, hydrating I guess."

The singer greedily swallowed long gulps of water, drinking the whole bottle down in a few seconds. He flung it aside and his extended arms asked for a second one. Dom had anticipated his move and he gave him another bottle that he had already picked up.

The drummer sighed. "And it's something we'll need... Hydrating," he whispered, still on the same train of thoughts. He was gazing at the sky overhead. The clouds were fading away and the glaring sun of the tropics was piercing its way through, giving back the vicinity its usual colourfulness and warmth.

He looked down again, distracted by the slurping sounds produced by Matt as he was on his way to drain the second bottle dry as well.

Dom gently squeezed the other's left upper arm. "Slow, Matt. Drink it slow. It'd be a shame if you couldn't keep it down, don't you think?"

Matthew grunted as he tore his mouth away from the bottleneck. "It's only water," he remarked, a bit out of breath.

The drummer nodded. "Maybe, but the first thing you did when you woke up back there," he tilted his head toward the cabin, "was upchucking. The crash has messed up your stomach...amongst other things. So be gentle with it."

"Yes Mommy," Matt quipped, before licking his lower lip. "It feels damn good in all cases."

Dom chuckled under his breath and took a sip of his own bottle. He was lecturing Matt now, but five minutes earlier he'd been the one assaulting water bottle after water bottle in the cabin. And yes, it did feel extremely good to have one's thirst quenched.

Dom spun the plastic lid into place on the bottle top and then rummaged through the other items he'd brought. "I also found this," he said, showing Matt what looked like a first-aid kit. "It was in the cockpit and I think it personally belonged to the pilot. So it's pretty customised. You've got things in there that you wouldn't necessarily find in a classic first-aid kit."

Then he held a particular drug blister in front of his eyes, trying to read what was on its back. "And I think... I think this one is a painkiller but-"

Dominic jumped, startled by something that had just flashed in front of him, so fast that it had been blurry. He was now staring at the void since what had been pinched between his thumb and forefinger was currently in Matthew's hands.

Matt pushed one pill out of the blister...then a second one...then a third.

"Er, Matt, you shouldn't..."

Dom's sentence faded into nothing when the singer crammed the three pills in his mouth and washed them down with another gulp of water.

"Damn it Matthew! You didn't even glance at the leaflet!" The drummer told his friend off, after a few seconds of appalled silence.

Matt's only answer was a careless shrug.

"Give me that," Dom ordered, pointing at the blister that was still in Matt's hand.

"What? Why?" the frontman asked, bringing his bottle and the drug blister up against his chest in a protective gesture.

"Because I told you that I was only thinking it were painkillers, I don't know for sure!"

"And? Why would giving it back to you change anything?"

Dom let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. He ran a hand over his face before opening them again. "Because... I need to check the drug's name on the blister so that I can read its medication information and be assured that it truly is a painkiller," he said, trying to remain calm.

Matt peeped at the blister in his hand. His stirring headache prevented him from reading anything right now. Then his eyes flicked up to Dom's face again. "I'm sure you've already read the info leaflet. If I give it to you, I know you won't hand it back!" he protested.

"For fuck's sake Matt! You could have just swallowed the most powerful laxative in the world and I wouldn't have a clue!"

That argument hit home. Matthew looked at Dom with a childishly concerned expression on his face and then slowly handed the blister out. The drummer swiftly snatched it out of Matt's fingers and stuffed it in his right front pocket with authority.

"Right. And now you can say goodbye to it for the next eight hours," Dom stated as he stood up.

Matthew stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Of course I had read the leaflet! What do you think? !" Dominic exclaimed with a look that said 'duh'. "It is a painkiller but you shouldn't take more than one or, up to the hilt, two pills at once!"

Matt gaped at him for at least a good ten seconds. Then, slowly: "you lied to me!" His voice was both accusing and astonished.

Dom sighed again and dropped his hands to his sides in a fatalist gesture. "Yes, I'm a liar. And you're a sodding irresponsible kiddy mind inhabiting a 25-year-old man's body. Where's your bloody common sense, Matt? !"

"Fuck common sense! You lied to me!" this time Matt's voice was a hundred percent accusing. "I won't talk to you ever again," he declared as he crossed his arms on his chest. "Not ever!"