Anna Jackson was a little embarrassed to admit the real reason she noticed Elizabeth was missing.
She had been helping build a signal fire when she remembered the cute girl who had helped her out during the aftermath of the crash. She had excused herself for a break and looked around the beach, but Elizabeth was nowhere to be found.
So yes, Anna noticed her disappearance because Elizabeth was cute.
She wandered back over to the signal fire, which she had been helping to build with Clementine, an older girl with blond hair. She was tall and muscular, and she looked like she could absolutely kick Anna's ass in a fight. Still, she approached Clementine and wondered aloud about the missing Elizabeth.
"So…" Anna trailed off awkwardly. "Have you seen a girl with dark hair and brown eyes? A little shorter than me?" Clementine looked up and raised her eyebrows, but Anna thought she saw a flicker of recognition in the her eyes.
"Are you talking about Elizabeth? Elizabeth Austen?"
"Yes!" Anna exclaimed loudly. She immediately regretted her shouting, but as she looked around, it seemed that no one noticed. "She, uh, helped me out during the crash and now she kind of disappeared."
"She went into the jungle to look for something useful." Clementine replied, not looking up from the wood that she was putting in the fire. Anna nodded awkwardly, and she continued to work in silence.
It hit her a few minutes later.
Elizabeth…. Austen?
Ever since she was little, Anna had always found the case of Oceanic 815 to be extremely interesting. She would spend hours reading theories online and reading about the survivors. There was the Oceanic Six of course, and then the few survivors that had been found three years later.
One of those survivors? Kate Austen. Kate Austen who had been pregnant with Jack Shephard's child when he died. A child who, now, would be Elizabeth's age.
Two Oceanic flights, both crashing on or near an island, one with Kate Austen, and one with Elizabeth Austen. It couldn't be a coincidence.
Not to mention… her friends, who she was traveling with could possibly be children of 815 survivors.
"I'll, um, be right back," She said to Clementine, who simply nodded in her direction. Anna jogged towards where the co-pilot, Nao Tanaka, and a few others had set up a medical tent. She figured she'd talk to Nao first.
She pulled the tent flap open and almost immediately wished she hadn't. The stench of sickness and death was in the air, and it made Anna want to vomit. However, she walked in and saw the exhausted-looking pilot talking to a boy with sandy colored hair.
"Excuse me?"
"Hmm?" Nao said, looking over at Anna. "Oh, do you need something for your arm?" She shook her head, looking down at the prosthetic. After years of having it, Anna hardly even noticed it was there anymore.
"No, I'm fine," Anna replied. She eyed the sandy haired boy suspiciously, knowing that he was one of Elizabeth's friends. "Can I just quickly talk to you about something? In private?" Nao glanced at her oddly, but then shrugged, and gestured for Anna to follow her outside.
"Ji Yeon, you're in charge," They called back into the tent to a dark-haired girl. Anna glanced back to see her reaction, but was cut off by Nao abruptly closing the tent flap.
"Alright, who are you and what is so important?"
"I'm Anna," She began. "Anna Jackson. Look, I'll just get to the point: I think some of the people on the plane are related to the survivors of Oceanic 815." Nao stared at her for a moment, but then their eyes widened.
"I knew I wasn't imagining things," They muttered under their breath. "The guy I was just talking to? His name's Aaron Littleton, as in Claire Littleton. I think he's Aaron Austen, but he changed his last name when those two got married."
"There was someone else on our flight with the last name Austen," Anna added. "She went into the jungle a few hours ago. And they were traveling with other people, so what if they're all related to 815 survivors? Nao, this can't be a coincidence. I'm not saying they made the plane crash but… what if they had something to do with it?"
"How could they have something to do with the crash?" They questioned. "I was in the cockpit the whole time. No one tampered with the controls, we just lost power and crashed."
Anna sighed. What was she thinking really? So what if they were related to the 815 survivors? Maybe she simply mistook coincidence for fate.
She looked up to tell Nao that she probably was assuming too many things, but she saw that the pilot was already on their way back to the medical tent.
"What are you doing?"
Nao looked back at her as if it was obvious what their goal was at the moment, but Anna simply shrugged.
"I'm confronting them about it," They explained. "We don't have time for subtly looking for information."
They walked inside without waiting for a response. Personally, Anna didn't like confrontation. She preferred to avoid her problems until they hopefully went away. Still, she was curious, and she definitely wanted to know if she was right, so Anna followed Nao into the tent.
…
"Anna come on, you're gonna have to tell them eventually, why not now?"
She didn't respond, opting to instead lean against the car door and stare out the window. She was in the passenger seat of her girlfriend's car, who had decided to bring up the fact that Anna still hadn't told her parents about the two of them.
"They don't even know I'm a lesbian, okay?" Anna replied after a moment. "And if they do find out, they're gonna murder me."
Her girlfriend, Carrie, looked over at her sadly. God, she was so beautiful with her wavy brown hair and blue eyes looking so perfect.
"Hey, it'll be okay," Carrie said. "You can always stay with me." Anna smiled at her and pushed a strand of Carrie's hair back behind her ear.
Carrie only looked away from the road for one second.
But it was one second too long.
The oncoming pickup truck hit Carrie's small Volkswagen Bug on the driver's side, where Carrie was sitting. Anna screamed as the car toppled onto the street. She could hear honks and sirens all around her as she desperately tried to get out.
However, her right arm was trapped under the remains of the front of the pickup that hit them, and she couldn't get out. There was so much pain that she could barely see.
She only mustered up the strength to utter one word before she blacked out: "Carrie."
…
When Anna walked in, she saw Nao talking to Aaron with their arms folded and a stern look on their face that told Anna that things weren't going so well. Nearby, the woman with straight black hair who Anna assumed to be Ji Yeon watched the two of them converse, seemingly ready to step in at any moment.
"Nao, this is ridiculous," Aaron was saying, not sounding remotely convincing whatsoever. "W-what you're saying is-"
"I don't hear you denying it," They interrupted. "And you're a horrible liar. Tell me the truth right now." Aaron looked into their eyes pleadingly, but the pilot didn't budge. He sighed, and seemed to be about to talk when Ji Yeon abruptly stood up and quickly made her way to Aaron's side. Sensing conflict, Anna moved closer to Nao, who seemed to be willing to take the backup.
"Listen-"
"Don't play dumb with me, either of you!" Nao yelled, clearly getting angry. "Stuff like this isn't a coincidence. Now, this was my flight and I am responsible for the people out there, so if you had something to do with this fucking crash, you better tell me right now."
Both Aaron and Ji Yeon were shocked into silence, and Anna was extremely surprised as well. In the time that she had known Nao, she had thought of them as more of a gentle person, but they clearly had a tough side.
"Do you trust her?" Ji Yeon asked, nodding to Anna.
"Oh, I can go-"
"She stays here," Nao interrupted, putting their hand on Anna's shoulder. Anna, while not expecting to be included in the discussion, was glad that she was going to hear exactly what was going on. It was partly her theory, after all.
"Alright," Ji Yeon began. "Yes, we're related to 815 survivors. But what happened in the flight 815 crash isn't what you think. I need you to promise that you'll believe what I tell you, okay?" Anna nodded immediately, and, after a moment, Nao reluctantly nodded as well.
"Okay then. Here's the real story of Oceanic 815."
Ji Yeon explained everything as Anna and Nao listened attentively. She was fascinated by everything she heard, and shocked and how the people who made it off the island managed to keep the lie going for so long.
"Nao, please," Aaron said after Ji Yeon finished. "And you too, Anna. You can't tell anyone. It's dangerous enough that you-"
"I'll decide what the best course of action is," Nao interrupted. "For now… you two better not try anything stupid." With that, they stormed out of the tent angrily, leaving Anna with the shocked Aaron and Ji Yeon.
She glanced at them and simply shrugged before following Nao's path. She wasn't going to tell anyone. Even if she did, would they even believe her?
Instead, she sat down on the sand and gazed out at the sun setting over the ocean, wondering if she was going to make it off the island alive.
…
The first thing Anna heard was the beeping of a heart monitor.
The first thing she felt was the pain in her arm.
The first thing she thought of was Carrie.
Her eyes shot wide open, and she attempted to sit up, but was stopped by the mass of equipment around her. Anna took in her surroundings and realized that she was in a blue and white hospital room, with two doctors conversing at the foot of her bed.
"You're awake," One of the doctors said, turning to her. "Miss Jackson… you were injured badly in a car crash, so you shouldn't try to move too much. We did everything we could, but by the time we found you, there was too much blood pooling to your arm…."
Feeling an immense sense of dread, Anna looked down to her right. Where her arm had been was simply a stump covered in white cloth that was stained red.
"Where's Carrie?" She asked quietly, trying not to scream or cry or both at the same time. "My girlfri- my friend. She was in the car with me."
The two doctors looked at each other sadly. One nodded, communicating to the other that they would take the burden.
Anna knew what they were going to say from the moment she asked. Did that make hearing the words any easier? Absolutely not.
"She's dead."