I leaned my head against the cool window of the airplane and watched the tumbling blue waves of the ocean. My mother slept in the seat next to mine and my father was reading a book on pathology. It was thanks to his interest in pathology that we were moving. He couldn't be one of those normal dads who just went the next state over; instead it had to be the next country. What better country than the United Kingdom?
His great, big glasses were only for reading but every time I saw them I prayed I never had to get glasses like that. They took up about half of his face. My eyes were big enough without glasses to make them look like giant orbs. On the bright side, in the UK there were all-girls schools and no boys could see me. Ever. I hadn't looked in the mirror for three months because of my acne. It just kept coming and going like some bizarre plague. The boys at school had called me Freaky Favian. Favian, what a weird name. Why the hell did my mother have to name me Favian? It was like asking people to make fun of me.
The plane flew into dark clouds and we were completely surrounded by mist.
Beep.
"We are experiencing some minor turbulence and would ask the passengers to remain seated." Said the captain.
My mother, who had a weird fear of flying, jerked awake.
"Oh sweet Jesus." She muttered.
I always found it funny when she said Jesus, God, or Lord because we weren't religious at all. A small smile crept onto my lips but fell off as the plane jolted violently. My mother inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut.
"It'll be all right, Mom. It always is." I said, but fear was growing in the pit of my stomach.
"Of course, Favian." She nodded in agreement.
"Jane, will you hold this for a moment?" Dad handed his enormous book to Mom. She held it in shaking hands as Dad retrieved a bookmark from under his seat. "Thanks. I can't read when we're in turbulence. I get motion sickness."
"Oh." Mom squeaked as the plane shook again. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed. I didn't protest, even as I lost circulation.
The Fasten Seatbelt light flashed on and Mom tightened hers with her free hand. I watched my hand slowly turning purple under my mother's clutching hand. I didn't feel it because the fear was numbing. Something… I couldn't name it… something was wrong and I knew that this wasn't going to end all right.
"I love you Mom." I shouldn't have said that because Mom began to cry. "Dad, I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"Favian, it's okay. I understand completely." His face was stark white.
The plane shook and the captain's voice came up.
"Um… folks, please remain calm. I think… oh God. What do you mean engine failure?"
A woman behind me shrieked and stood up.
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" She wailed.
"Shut up." Someone muttered.
A baby started to cry.
And then the plane began to plummet for the violent waters below. I felt tears slowly rolling down my face as I sensed our imminent deaths. My mother had let go of my arm and wrapped her arms around my father. She grabbed me and hugged me too. Then she went back to hugging Dad. I unbuckled myself, feeling that the belt was too restrictive. I wanted to die feeling somewhat free. I was only fifteen and I was going to die, die, die. I had never had alcohol, sex, voting privileges, a high school degree, children, a job… I was dying without experiencing life.
I regretted, right then, every time that I hadn't done something out of fear. I wished that I had asked that boy on a date when I had the chance, that I had eaten ice cream and cookies without fearing all the fatty calories I'd be getting, that I had stood up for myself and slapped Lindsey Mallory when she said I was a "speckle-faced-freak name Favian, which is a boy's name!" My God, I was going down without having made any of my own choices!
"No!" I cried out. "I'm not ready to die!"
Mom sobbed so hard and Dad began to cry as well. I looked at the window and wished it were gone so I could dive out and feel as though I had had some say in my death. It cracked. I wasn't surprised until it flew out of its frame. Fifty feet from the water I hurled myself out and prepared myself for the death-bringing slap of water.
It never came. Just as I jumped out of the plane I started drifting down slowly to the turbulent waters below. The plane went down and crashed into the water, breaking upon impact. Smoke billowed up from the plane and I had the sickened feeling that no one had survived… but me.
"Mom! Dad!" I screamed. I finally fell into the water and was thrown under by a malevolent wave. I choked and swam upwards. The plane would stay afloat for awhile. I swam over to it before being dunked again. I gulped in air and continued for the smoking plane. A wing was floating on the water, drifting towards me. I grabbed hold of it. "Mom! Dad! DAMN IT! RESPOND!" I shrieked.
Nothing.
The windows of the plane sunk under the surface just as I saw the bloody corpses of the passengers. Dead. Dead. All of them. Down to the last baby. I began to sob like an infant, like the baby on the plane that was now gone. I thought that I had been too young to die… what about her? The rain poured down from the dark clouds and I knew that even though I hadn't died in the plane that I was definitely doomed at sea. I was in the middle of the Atlantic miles from land or boat. I moaned, not restraining my tears or wails. No one was there to ridicule me, and if they were, they wouldn't have. They'd be crying too.
I don't know for how long I cried. Hours, minutes, seconds… seconds felt like hours and hours felt like days, but during that time I had fought to stay afloat, occasionally slipping off of my airplane wing. Now the waters were calming down and were as placid as the ocean could be. The clouds blew away to show the dark, starry sky. I didn't recognize the constellations at first because they were all blurred due to my tears. But there was the North Star, Polaris. I remembered my dad showing me how to find it through his telescope. It was easier without it. Just follow the far side of the Big Dipper and voila, you had the North Star. Unimpressive star, really. Mom was right, it was boring. But I still loved the night sky. At sea I had the best view of the heavens that I had ever had. Dad would've loved it.
He's dead now, he'll never see it. I allowed tears to trickle down my face, too tired to make any noise. I tried to wipe my nose on my sleeve, but my sleeve was soaked. I was shivering in the cold. If I didn't drown I would get hypothermia or die of thirst and starvation.
"Great decision, Favian. The first you make is a real stinker."
My eyes slowly drooped shut. Soon I would be joining my parents in death. At least I wouldn't have to live without them. But my eyes snapped open again. How was it that I had survived jumping fifty feet into a turbulent ocean?
I had floated down! But how?! Was there any scientific explanation for how that might've worked? I wracked my brain. I had landed relatively softly in the waters. That wasn't logical. I squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn't the first weird thing that had happened to me. Once a mad hair dresser had decided I would look good with a mullet. It was so hideous that I had spent all night crying into my pillow. I had only wanted a trim, I liked my hair long. The next morning, however, I had awoken to find it had all grown back. I figured it must've been a weird nightmare but my parents noticed too. Since there was no explanation we just continued on our way without discussing it.
Maybe there was a God and he did love me.
No, I had too many zits for God to love me. The man probably loathed me if he existed.
Think! But I couldn't. My brain was too foggy and I fell, spiraling down into a deep sleep.
Yeah, I was going to drown.
I woke up with a rock poking roughly into my side. A wave rolled up over me, leaving a great wet spot on my jeans. I sat up slowly, squinting in the too-bright sun. Why on earth was I sleeping outside?
Man, what an awful dream. I looked out at the ocean and realized that it was no dream. To my left lay the broken wing of the plane. I continued to stare, in a daze, at the ocean, expecting to wake up at any moment. I sat for so long that my butt became numb from the rocks pushing into it so I stood.
"What do I do?" I whispered. Tears trickled down my face and stopped suddenly. I was so thirsty, hungry and sore. I looked up at the land mass I was on and wondered where I was. Scotland, Ireland, or England? I started trudging up the shore. Had it not been the summer I would have been freezing. Lucky for me it was mid-August and I already felt my neck getting burned by the sun.
"Help." My voice cracked.
My throat and mouth were parched. There was nobody to hear me anyway. Even if I had screamed my heart out nobody would've responded. The more land I traveled over the more grass there was. I was in a large field in knee-deep grass before I knew it. Eventually the grass reached my shoulders, but that was because I had sunk to my knees and started to cry again, heavy dry sobs of desperation and loneliness.
"No, make a right choice." I whispered, and got wobbly to my feet.
A wind picked up and my long auburn hair tossed around my face, salt-caked and in need of shampoo. My shoulders were shaking.
My parents were dead and I was lost. I had survived by magic or a miracle.
Or God really, really hated me.
I saw a dark forest after a long time of wandering through the tall fields. I didn't want to get any more burned than I had to so I full-out ran to its welcoming shade. I collapsed to the ground and panted. I was so thirsty, tired and hungry. I ran my fingers through my snarled hair. My clothes had dried and become hard and crusty. My shirt was irritating my skin and had torn in several places. I took it off. My undershirt was at least in one piece and tight enough that it wouldn't rub my skin. My jeans, which had holes in them now, were difficult to move it. I started to tear at them and managed to rip only bigger holes at the knees. I gave up on that pursuit and began to look for a stream.
The forest was dark and the further in I went the darker it got. I suppose that was to be expected but I felt a tremor pass down my spine. Suddenly I wanted out, even if there was a stream nearby. The problem was that I was utterly lost. Then I heard running water and decided that there was no use to being lost and thirsty. The water looked clean enough and even if it was poisoned I was going to die of something sooner or later. I gulped gratefully at the stream. After I had gotten all I needed, the cold water trickling down my esophagus and into my stomach noticeably, I stood back up and looked around for berries or something that might feed me.
I wandered deeper into the forest and got even more lost, not that it mattered how lost I got, I doomed forever and I knew it. I groaned but stopped suddenly. I thought I heard whispering. Whispering meant people.
"Hello?" I tried.
The whispering stopped.
"Please! If there's someone there… help me. I am so lost…." Then I realized what I was saying. "But on the bright side, I am not defenseless. In fact, I'm a black belt in karate." I lied. "Not that that will help me against wild animals or anything, but it's good to know how to break things with my fists…."
There was no response.
I continued wandering through the woods. A few moments later the whispering started again.
I made out two words only: human and girl.
Human? Well, that was weird. Of course I was human! I mean, what else talks? I stopped walking again.
"Look, this really isn't funny. I'm serious. I've just lost my parents in a plane crash and by some weird miracle I managed to wash up on shore. I don't even know what country I'm in. If you're trying to scare me it doesn't matter because I am resigned to a fate of death." Still no response. "Come on! What kind of a sick bastard are you?!" I shouted.
There were slow hoof beats of about three deer or horses or something. I turned in the direction of the noise and my jaw dropped.
Three centaurs. Men from the waist up horse everywhere else. One was a black man with a black horse. His dark eyes glittered with intelligence. The other two were white-skinned. One was blond and the other had black hair. The blond had a palomino body while the black-haired one had a black body with white spots.
They were scary because they had crossbows notched with sharp arrows. And they were pointing them at me.