First, I'd like to say thank you to xlostangelx and lezario for your feedback! I love getting comments, especially good ones!  xlostangelx, this is going to be the only long chapter. I just have to get things established.

Chapter One

Karen snapped out of her stupor. She began to panic, the crash just settling in on her. She looked around at the many people scattered on the beach. There was another person who stood out to Karen. He was wandering around in a daze near the burning fuselage. She had a feeling it was going to explode any minute.

"Hey!" Karen yelled, and she ran up to the man and tackled him, getting him just of the blast radius as the fuselage exploded.

The man had short dirty blonde hair and stubbly beard. He was dressed in a striped shirt with two different shades of brown-ish green, a dark brown zippered sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.

Karen quickly stood up again he looked at her. She knew his name; he was the famous rock star Charlie Pace. "Stay here, Charlie." she ordered him and ran off.

Karen heard a scream from her left. A young woman was standing amidst the wreckage screaming. Karen ran up to her, "What? What is it?" The woman looked at her and burst into tears and spotted a man trying to call someone on his cell phone. The woman ran up to him.

"Boone!" she sobbed, hugging him.

Karen had a very confused look on her face and she looked around once again, taking in the beach. Her look of confusion turned to a look of fear and anguish and she looked around and saw that Jack had taken care of everyone else and things were starting to calm down.

She stumbled out of the wreckage her breathing intensifying. Then she noticed the calmest survivor. He was seated on the beach, away from the chaos just gazing out over the water. His white shirt had a blue stripes in a checker board pattern and was in surprisingly good shape. His beige pants had a few rips and tears but were in good shape otherwise. He also had a scar on his left eye. Karen looked at her own clothes, which were in very bad shape. Although that was the least of her worries, her brown hair was tangled and she had a cut down cheek and her green eyes were filled with fear, and she looked like she was hiding something…

She walked up to him and sat down next to him, pulling her knees up to her chest. He looked much older than her, as Karen was 24. Karen looked at him.

"Are you ok, sir?" she asked him.

He awoke from his trance and looked at her. "Do you believe in miracles?" he asked her.

"No, sir. I'm in the army. I've been told I don't believe in miracles." Karen responded, laughing.

He laughed. "I didn't either until I woke up. Surviving this is just a miracle…" he said smiling. "My name is John Locke." he added.

"Karen McCarthy." Karen said, clutching at her arm, trying to stop the bleeding.

Locke noticed her arm. "Are you ok?" he asked, concerned.

"Just dandy." Karen replied sarcastically. "Once it falls off I won't have to worry about it anymore."

"That's good. Try to look on the bright side of things." Locke said.

Karen stood up, fed up with his cheery outlook. How the hell can be so happy? We're stranded here for God knows how long! She stormed off, thinking about her arm. Because she wasn't paying any attention to where she was going, she ran right into a man leaning against the landing gear of the plane.

His chin-length dirty blonde hair flew when she ran into him, almost knocking him over. He began cursing at her and she could tell right away that he was from the south. His grey shirt still had the imprint of her head when she backed up a few steps.

"Watch where you're going!" he yelled. "I dropped it!" he added to himself, and got down on all fours and began searching through the sand for "it".

"Dropped what?" Karen asked just as he stood up holding the "it" - a cigarette.

He scowled at her. "Just because we crashed doesn't mean you can start running into me!"

"Sorry." Karen said, giving him a look of disgust. "Prick…" she added under her breath. Then she looked at him again. Then at the cigarette.

"Do you really think you should be smoking? I mean the fuselage already exploded and…" Karen started, but trailed off as he gave her a look that said "are you stupid?".

"Yep." he said in his southern drawl.

Karen, still clutching at her arm, stormed off. Am I sure I didn't die? All these people are crazy. Between Johnny Sunshine and the Hick, I'm beginning to wish I did…