"Stay with me Ruby…" a panicked voice echoed, "I got you, just stay with me…"

All was hazy, dark and bewildered. Not but dim flickers of light as silver eyes struggled to open, unconsciously looking around to gather what had happened.

Helpless and weak, Ruby felt herself being pulled by someone. She struggled to breathe as ocean water splashed over her face; that and the weight of the bag that sat on her chest as she was dragged ashore.

"Ruby?" the voice rang again, heard like it was miles away, like an echo traveling down and bouncing off the walls—heard, but incoherent. The feeling of a hand slapped light across her face, pain registered and her body attempted to bring itself back to wakefulness. Ruby shook her head, and as she came to she was face to face with a pair of worried and caring lavender eyes. "Ruby?" she asked once again, now more clearly.

"Y-Yang…," Ruby moaned, a sharp pain in her chest made it hard to speak, or even breathe for that matter, "what happened?" But, by the look on Yang's face, Ruby knew all too well—and all she had to do was look back past Yang to see the roaring glow of flames rising from the water. Even while soaked in the freezing cold water, she could feel the heat pound against her face. Like embers of burning wood, the sounds of burning fuel erupted from the wrecked fuselage of the plane...but even the sounds of crackling seats and luggage couldn't compare to the yells and screams of the lives trapped inside. The sight of seeing all the passengers pounding against the windows with arms, hands, whole bodies burning trying to escape this hell they landed in was far too much for Ruby to bare. Yang would once more grow worried as her sister faded out again.

"Ruby...Ruby?!"

Everything was happening so quickly. Everyone was grabbing onto something or someone. Some were making their last prayers for deliverance or trying to find ways to escape where escape itself would most certainly mean demise. Through all of this, Ruby could only remember her sister hugging her as the plane continued to fall.

Ruby could tell the plane was beginning to point down, gravity forced the plane to fight against the Co-pilot who tried to pull up on the wheel. The whole plane began to shake and violent rattles filled the entire hull as hundreds of tons fought against the uncompromising forces of gravity.

Then, the already damaged turbines blew once again, black smoke had been replaced with roaring flames that erupted from within, it wasn't long before the inside of the wing they were attached to started to blow as well. The fuel lines had to be catching fire, and it wouldn't be long before the rest of the plane met the same fate. With the right wing out of commission, those flying on the plane had little choice but to look down as it began to descend into freefall, the threshold of the emergency marked by hundreds of oxygen masks falling from the ceiling—nobody grabbed one, though. They were already too panicked to care.

Ruby and Yang began to feel even lighter as the plane fell. All around they saw people tripping and falling as they were unable to walk in a straight line anymore. Ruby could feel Yang's grip become tighter the longer they fell, she couldn't blame Yang. Had Ruby been the older sister, she would be hugging Yang the same way.

Then the PA came on, it was the Captain. "Everyone, we are going down rapidly—strap yourselves in, it's going to get r-" the system cut itself off before the Captain could finish. That's when Ruby saw smoke coming from the front of the plane.

Time seemed to grind to a screeching halt as soon as the PA system cut of. Ruby knew it was hopeless now. With two engines blown, and the pilots unable to fly the plane, there was an not one thing to look forward to...the crash.

All went black moments after.

A painful ringing pounded its way through a void of darkness, loud and never ending. Like a wind chime stuck on a single chord for endless hours, white noise that was impossible to escape.

"Well this is just great…," a voice echoed through the void of darkness, whoever this belonged to, they were not the most pleasant person. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"Shut up, for one…," another voice said, this one mildly upset and seemed more calm.

Ruby tried opening her eyes again. She laid facing the starlit sky, the bleeding edge of sun just barely painting the sky purple. She looked for whom the voices belonged to—they had been the girl named Weiss and her sister. They both appeared ready to eat out each other's throats.

"You first, bitch," Weiss hissed. This drew and angry glare from Yang.

"Excuse me?" said Yang as she shoved Weiss hard enough to send her falling to the sand, "I just saved your ass and you're calling me the bitch!" Weiss looked up at her like she wanted to say something, but she kept her mouth shut. Yang huffed and said, "That's what I thought."

Ruby turned to look at another section of the beach. Blake came crawling from the water, bag in hand and appeared just as distraught as Weiss and Yang—if not more. She clutched the bag tightly as she crawled on her knees, a trail of red stained the sand behind her too. Blood, and a lot from the looks of it. Ruby had to figure she might've been hurt during the crash, as did anyone else who might've survived. Yang also noticed Blake's apparent injury, so she turned away from Weiss and walked over to the bleeding girl.

Yang looked Blake's leg over, by now she was wishing she'd paid more attention to what she learned during a field trip she had to a hospital. A long piece of metal stuck itself in Blake's thigh, and a steady stream of blood trickled down. Yang has no idea what to do, and she was terrified that if she did anything it would make the bleeding worse.

"Okay...um…," Yang began, though she couldn't quite put what she wanted to say into words. She touched the piece of metal and Blake recoiled her leg.

"Agh~don't- don't do that...it hurts too much," said Blake, trying to clutch her leg, but she too ended up only making the pain worse.

"Well, it's not coming out by itself," said Yang as she looked Blake in the eyes, "so if you have any better ideas, please tell me now—'cus what I have in mind probably won't be any better."

Blake considered this, and she realized she had no idea what to do either—and frankly, she was scared of what Yang meant by 'what I have in mind'. She took a shuddering breath after exhausting what little options she had, and said to Yang, "Do what you can."

Those words couldn't be any colder, and it horrified Yang that Blake was willing to blindly trust in what she was going to do. She too started taking deep, sharp breaths as she mentally prepared herself for the worst...but she was more worried about her own stomach being prepared. But no, she had to hold herself together no matter what happened, which was easier said than done. This much Yang said in two simple words: "Oh shit…"

Before Yang did anything, she placed her palm on Blake's shoulder and said to her, "Keep your eyes on mine—and try not to move." It took a moment for Blake to register what she meant, and then she got the picture once Yang hovered her free hand over the piece of metal. She said nothing, letting a simple but very well read nod be her only answer for Yang to continue with her plan. Here goes nothing.

Taking a few more breaths, and praying to God she doesn't screw up, Yang tore open the hole in Blake's jeans a couple inches wider so she could see just how big the piece of metal was—and it was fairly large, roughly...well, it was a long piece of metal, and it was embedded pretty deep into her leg. Once again, Yang looked into Blake's eyes as she grabbed the piece of metal. Blake winced again, but this time was less irritated than before—until Yang pulled.

"AAAAGH!"

"Keep your eyes on me," Yang said again, not slowing down a single bit. Honestly, she wanted to scream too, seeing the stream of red go down her hand as she continued to pull at the shrapnel. It wasn't before long that the piece finally came out. Yang looked at it and found it had to be at least two inches deep. "Okay, I'm gonna try to stop the bleeding—keep your hands here, I think…," said Yang to Blake, placing Blake's hands over the wound and clenching her fingers tight. Yang had heard that pressure was supposed to be applied to slow down and stop the bleeding, but all the blood running through Blake's fingers told Yang that this kind of injury needed more intense care—practices and materials she couldn't provide, so she did the next thing that came to mind and tore off a long and wide piece of her own T-shirt and wrapped it around Blake's leg, just tight enough to at least slow down the bleeding. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it was better than nothing...at least for now.

Ruby had watched her sister that entire time, she knew this was how Yang acted after something horrible happens; bending over backwards to help however she can—like a certain switch just flipped and so did she. It reminded Ruby a lot of the times she and Yang would get into a situation where either they were hurt; got in trouble for something; maybe even just preparing for something...whatever it was, Yang would be the one to take it upon herself, and that made her a very good sister to have.

After Yang finished dealing with Blake she returned to Ruby. Ruby didn't notice at first, but Yang too had a cut, a long gash on her forehead—probably cut it on something while they were escaping the plane. Yang has figured out what Ruby was looking at and said to her, "I'm fine, Ruby—right now I'm just wishing I walked away with a bruise like you did." Yang smiled as she said that, and now that she mentioned it, Ruby did feel a slight pain on her head; it hurt when she actually reached up to touch it. Then Yang asked her, "Think you can sit up?" Ruby answered her with a gentle nod.

Even sitting up felt painful, Ruby felt like her entire body had been hit with a hammer repeatedly, every muscle numb and begging her to lay back down and rest; she did no such thing, though. As she sat up she came to see the site of the plane crash more clearly—it had hit a sandbar just a quarter mile away from the beach she and Yang laid on now; the fires have quelled only by a small fraction, for there was still some fuel and other flammable materials inside. While it appeared so distant, Ruby felt she had been standing directly in front of it only mere steps away.

Yang could see her pain, so she sat beside Ruby and watched the burning plane with her. For the next countless number of minutes—which felt like an eternity—the sisters looked to the bleeding edge of the horizon as the sun rose over...well, wherever in the Pacific Ocean they were. Both of them had countless questions and nearly infinite ways of asking them, and they knew no single answer would be good enough to satisfy either of them.

Just for the sake of it, Ruby asked Yang, "How did this happen?" She knew it was a pointless question, but what else was she supposed to ask? Of the entire list of questions she would ask, this was the only one she could bring herself to say?

"I don't know," said Yang; that was all she said, and Ruby couldn't blame her.

Much further down on another section of the beach, a girl with bright red hair crawled out of the water. She had been tired after fighting the currents trying to get to safety, so she laid facing the sky for a moment to rest. Like Ruby and Yang, she too had a list of questions; unlike them, no one was there to answer them.

...Or so she thought.

"Help!"

The girl sat up to find where the distressed voice was coming from, if there was someone from the plane who survived they were probably in no condition to be swimming to shore. As she scanned the water around the crash site she caught a glimpse of a blonde boy, and he was struggling to keep his head above water.

The girl didn't take a moment to think, there wasn't time, if he got caught in an undertow then he would be as good as dead. "Hold on! I'm coming!" she yelled back, and the soonest moment after, she ran back into the water and swam out to the boy.

Once she was out into open waters it was all fair game for nature to do as it would, and the girl had to fight with every inch of it as she cut through the waters with impressive speed, but she was also fighting her own body as she was still worn out from the first swim. Thoughts of turning back had begun to cross her mind, she wasn't to far out.

No, she had to fight the urge to turn back, she had to push on even if her lungs burst. This was the feeling she was taught to expect, and that all she had to do was keep going. Besides, a life was on the line, and she wasn't about to let fatigue dictate what she could and could not do. So she swam; she swam, and she did not let her fleeting strength stop her from doing what she had to do. With each stroke her arms cut into the water; with each kick she pushed herself along; with each breath she took, she gave her body strength to keep going—and that's just what she did.

The blonde had struggled to keep himself from being pulled into the currents. More than once he had gone under; more than once he had choked on ocean water as he fought for air. He would find a foothold off a broken piece of the plane to push against whenever he did get pulled under, but he was beginning to feel his body give into tiredness and struggled to find the strength in his legs to keep pushing. He tried to push himself forward, but only little by little—and simply no ground could be covered in his endeavor to live.

Soon his yells for help gave way to tired lungs, both from his fruitless kicking and his screams. His kicks became less pronounced; his breaths grew shorter; he began to feel like all of his systems meant to keep him alive were shutting down; giving up the fight-or-flight instinct in favor of what his body deemed a well deserved rest. It was, however, against his own wishes—and he didn't want to go under, but nature had other plans.

One more wave slammed into him—and just like that, he was finally swept under. The blonde lost his footing, his strength, and soon he would lose his last breath of air he took before being taken by the sea. Then he felt the current take him and felt almost certain that this would be the end of his life—dying a suffocating death in the cold blue of the ocean, never to be seen again if the forces at sea had their way. Ironic, he thought, I barely existed in life—now nobody will ever know if I died. He wished this wasn't as true as he believed it was; that even the forces of nature simply felt the need to push him down into the depths to be drowned, sucked away, and never to be seen again. As he felt himself being dragged down all he could see was his vision fading into a blue blur. He found some strength to turn himself, but that was all his tired legs would allow, and he wished he'd turned the other way—now he was looking at a handful of other passengers who might've met the same fate he would. As if it were some cruel joke, at least he wouldn't have died alone.

With those last, depressing thoughts in mind, and when all his hope had lost its grip on his soul, he let the small smidgen of air he had left escape his lungs; he had unburdened himself from the grasp of air that he knew would kill him if he held it too long, and so he let it go—and he let his body fall further into the current, uninhibited by his buoyancy. He shut his eyes, and submitted himself to being taken wherever he would go after this life.

In the short life he had, he never thought he'd find peace after something so tragic. Acceptance of something that everyone both feared as much as they respected it. The tranquil feeling of numbness that enshrouded his body felt better than any bed he could have ever slept in, like sleeping in a cloud. Where maybe half of the passengers on the plane had died violent or horrible deaths, he thought maybe, just maybe, his would end in peace. He never felt the hand that reached down to grab his wrist.

Never, in her life, had she swam with such determination. By sheer force of will she thought she had broken some kind of record of hers, but today would've been the first time one of those records included saving a life...well, not quite yet. There was still more she needed to do.

She knew how to deal with people who are about to drown, though this was the first time she actually had to use what she was taught—then again, this morning had been a whole list for firsts; why not add another one to it? But that's besides the point, she knew what to do, and she was going to do it.

First, she turned his head, the blonde had been submerged long enough to have let some water into his system, she had to get it out before she could continue any further. Thankfully, she did see water flow out of his mouth, that was a good sign. With most of the water out of his system she took his wrist and checked for a pulse; it was difficult to gauge, but if she could feel anything she needed to so she could better understand what she had to do. When she found there had been no pulse she then checked if he was breathing—he wasn't. She knew it was time to apply chest compressions. She began pressing the heel of her palm against his sternum, enough to get his heart pumping, not enough to break a rib, so far she thought she was doing everything right.

But he still wasn't breathing. "Come on, don't die on me…" she said, still maintaining a steady pace of compressions. "Twenty-eight... twenty-nine...thirty," Once she hit the 'magic number' her coach taught her about, she tilted the blondes head back; pinched his nose closed and preformed mouth-to-mouth, two breaths of air before she returned to another thirty chest compressions. Then, before she made it to five, the blonde finally came back to consciousness.

"Wha- wha-...," he turned and coughed up the remaining water out of his throat, once she caught his breath he asked, "what happened?"

Once the girl found relief that someone didn't die in her arms, she fell from her knees and sat down on the sand, feeling totally spent and in need of a breath herself. She was so tired, she could barely even speak after the adrenaline that was fueling her before had subsided. Once she had some semblance of strength back, she finally replied to him. "You needed help, so I...uh...I helped," she said to him, and it was just now that she realized this was the same passenger that sat next to her on the plane.

The blonde didn't quite know how to respond to that—either the fact that a girl just rescued him, or why she sounded so awkward in saying she rescued him, but he figured the latter was just her being tired after carrying him back to shore; he couldn't blame her. "Well, thank you—really, you saved my life," he said, and tried to say with the utmost sincerity he could offer.

The girl said nothing more than that of an unspoken "you're welcome" given in the form of a solemn nod. There was something in this girl's emerald green eyes that was hard for him to read, the way she looked at him was unlike any way others have given him before. He decided to see if she would answer one question:

"My name's Jaune," he said to her. "What's your name?" He's asked this question many times, and each of those times the answer they would give was a laugh and a name he knew was a lie. However, there would be no point for this girl to do either of those things. Why would she? There would be no benefit of any sort that would be of importance to her if she lied.

To Jaunes surprise, the girl gave him an earnest and...a somewhat proud glance, not quite proud like she was happy she saved him, but rather something else he did not immediately catch. Before he could read too much into it she finally answered with a voice of matching sincerity to the look in her eyes. "Pyrrha—my name is Pyrrha," she told him. To Jaune, her voice as soothing as an angel; an angel with gorgeous red hair and bright eyes that were impossible not to look at. He actually had to remind himself that she wasn't an angel sent to guard d his life from the harmful elements, but quite simply a girl who saw he was in danger and did what any good person would do. But beyond that, there was something in her voice Jaune found that was truly special—and that was the fact that Jaune knew she was not lying about her name. Pyrrha looked past Jaune, and for the first time in the single hour she's been on the beach she saw more survivors from the crash. She told Jaune, "Let's go to them." Jaune nodded to her, giving no argument, and they both got up to join the others.

Much of the fires from the plane had subsided, thanks to the constant pounding of the waves quenching them. Seagulls have begun singing their carefree morning songs as they flew overhead, flying high in the sky; proud that they did not have to remain tethered to the surface of the Earth. How lucky they were, the seagulls, to be able to fly and be so completely benevolent of what was happening below. How far man has come to achieve what was naturally granted to birds, the ability to fly and the freedom that came with it. Stories like those of Icarus and Daedalus, the makings of Leonardo da Vinci such as his Aerial Screw and his even more ambitious Flying Machine, all the way to the Wright Brothers first successful airplane; for all of man's desires to rise into the heavens and travel freely from one place to another was one of the many passions of those ambitious enough to step up and make their mark. But even with all the greatest feats man has achieved over several millennia, there was still that one basic fact that man also suffered one hideous flaw above all else: hubris. A sometimes inescapable need to show that they can be greater than that which they are—and so, like Icarus on his wax-built wings had flown too close to the sun, and met his untimely demise. Of all the many minds that had the power to create, there was one thing they could all agree on; that birds may be the only ones truly free. While those who survived the plane crash did not quite meet the same fate as Icarus, there was the fact that they would not be here if the Captain were more careful.

"I bet they like it up there," said Yang. "Damn birds." Ruby couldn't help but laugh along with her.

"Yeah," Ruby started, "wish we had wings." It was a terrible joke, one might even give an exaggerated scoff just out of spite, but the sisters laughed anyway. What they felt they needed right now was a laugh of some kind. Weiss has overheard their laughs, and couldn't help but approach them as they sat.

Weiss asked Ruby, "You really think this is funny?" Then, out of nowhere, she forced Ruby up onto her feet and practically yelled at her. "What the hell do you think this is? We are stranded on an island, our plane is destroyed—and you're laughing at birds?"

Then Yang stood up. "Let her go!" She grabbed Weiss's wrist and used her other hand to pry her fingers off of Ruby's arm. Once she peeled Weiss off, Yang picked dragged Weiss by the arm away from Ruby and threw her on the ground again. "You touch my sister again, you'll be thrown back in the water—got it?" Yang knew Weiss wouldn't answer, her point was clear already, but that didn't stop Weiss from getting back up and walking away from them. "Hmmp."

"Thanks, Yang," said Ruby. She looked the other direction and noticed two more survivors approach; a girl and a boy, and both were familiar—especially the blonde with a cut on his head. Ruby stood up, feeling a little dizzy in doing so, and asked them, "You got out too, huh?"

Pyrrha nodded. "Yes…," she said, though her tone was somewhat blank, "I think we're the only ones who made it out alive." That sent a cold shiver down Ruby's spine. Then she told her, "My name's Pyrrha, this is Jaune."

"Ruby, and the one with the golden hair is my sister, Yang," said Ruby. She wished these introductions could be made under better circumstances, but it couldn't be helped.

Ruby took to explaining to the other two survivors what had happened. There wasn't much to tell on Ruby's part on account of her fading out half the time since she was dragged ashore—only that Blake hs been wounded and Weiss was very hostile. Pyrrha, on the other hand, had lots to tell, and Ruby felt reassured knowing they had someone who knew some forms of first aid.

"I can check on Blake," said Pyrrha. "I'm glad Yang was able to take care of the worst of it." With that, she went straight to Blake to do her work.

Jaune remained with Ruby and Yang as they sat back down on the sand. He'd noticed the bag Ruby kept next to her, a bright red bag with some very familiar lining that he's seen somewhere. "It's that one of those waterproof backpacks?" he asked Ruby. But Yang answered in her place.

"I got that bag for Ruby's sixteenth birthday," she said. "She's never gone anywhere without it...guess that includes this place."

The mention of the bag reminded Ruby of something; it was contrived, and kind of ridiculous, but she unzipped the main compartment of the bag and took out her journal. Looking at it now, she was happy she put it into her backpack; had it been put in any other bag, the journal would've been ruined—a wasted gift from her sister. In some weird way she was happy the journal made it out of the fires and water; she was thankful to God that the journal made it out with her. Ruby opened the journal and slid the pen out of the spine. Writing wasn't the first thing that came to mind, and if she had to be honest she didn't have the first idea what to write. She couldn't even put into words how to describe how she felt about everything that's happened in the past hour. Jaune had seen Ruby struggling to figure out what to write, she was twiddling the pen in her fingers.

"Here's a trick I use sometimes: breath, and focus on one thing," Jaune said to Ruby.

Ruby nodded. The trick was simple enough, two easy steps. That was all, so she closed her eyes, and breathed. One at a time things were pulling together, though the images were slow and incoherent, but the message was all the same. She wrote:

June 6th, 2018

So...we didn't make it to Fiji—neither did the plane, actually. It looks like only six of us made it out. The rest...well, I'd rather try not to think about it. It all happened so fast, like a movie that had endless scenes and too many cuts in between—it was all so maddeningly confused and horrifying. Yang seems to be taking it well, all things considered, but I'm worried about how she and Weiss will get along; it looks like they'll be butting heads a lot for the foreseeable future—I don't know. As for myself, I guess I'll just have to wait until tonight to really see how I feel about today.

For now, though, all I have to say is this: I'm not dead, Yang's not dead, and hopefully nobody else dies. I've already seen enough death for one day—and it all happened in a matter of minutes.