This is an important chapter, and might be one of my favorites. I felt like i was really Ally while writing this, feeling all of her emotions. I hope you can capture that feeling too! Enjoy.
I fell asleep only to slip into nightmares, so I forced my eyes open as I lie here in the plane, waiting for the sun to rise and welcome another horrible day. It will be rising any minute now, and I'll have to deal with another day without Austin, and another days worth of food will be gone too, leaving us with only 3 days left. How are we going to survive after that?
The twins have been getting really restless, wondering where Austin is, and why we haven't been rescued yet. None of us have had the heart to tell them what happened to Austin, not even Frank, which surprises me. Frank has been acting very cold-hearted lately, but maybe I shouldn't blame him. This place changes all of us.
Sammy is taking it harder than Dannie. Dannie just thinks of home, and shares stories with us, sporting a smile on her face sometimes. She knows things are getting worse, but she doesn't seem to let that bother her. She just stays positive, surprisingly.
But Sammy, on the other hand, sits around with complete fear smothered all over her face all the time. She knows something's up, she is more intelligent than most of us. She knows that something bad happened to Austin, and she realizes that bad things are going to happen when we run out of food. I feel really bad for her, that she's taking it this hard like the rest of us. When I was younger, I couldn't figure out all of this stuff on my own.
I start to doze off again, against my will. But a nose wakes me right up. I sit up fast, and feel slightly dizzy from how fast I moved. But I don't care, this noise, it sounds so familiar… It's a… helicopter.
I jump up and run out of the plane. I look up at the sky, practically spinning around in a circle to see if I can see anything. The noise is getting louder and louder, until finally I see it, it is indeed a helicopter, and it's low. I start to wave my hands frantically in the air, "HEY!" I scream.
I keep doing that over and over, eventually waking up everyone else, which makes them all run out of the plane and look where I'm looking. There shocked faces soon go away and they start to help me flag them down. We are all screaming, yelling, crying, and completely freaking out. And that's when the helicopter hovers right over us, and we watch it slowly land right near us. They saw us, they found us.
I watch as Daniel runs over to Tiffany and picks her up, spinning her around in a circle, and hugging intimately. I feel as though they have always had something going on but have been keeping it secret. Even Rick and Wanda are hugging each other with pure join in their faces, and Frank is explaining to the twins what's happening, and their faces immediately light up. And I stand here, alone, realizing that this is when I should be sharing my intimate happy hug with Austin, but I can't do that. I feel the tears sting at my eyes.
Two muscular men jog over, in some sort of rescue team outfits. Just behind them looks like some sort of paramedic. They come over to us, and they are full of questions, in which Frank happily answers them.
"You are all from plane 207?" One of the big guys asks.
"Yes. That one" Frank answers with a grin.
"You guys are the only survivors?" He asks.
I feel sick now, thinking of everything that died. Stacy, Caroline, Thomas…Au-
"Yes we are." Rick says.
He asks a bunch more questions, but I don't care to listen to them. When it's my turn the woman paramedic looks me over. She notices my still swollen wrist, and I realize I've almost forgotten all about it, I guess I just got used to the pain.
"What happened here?" She asks.
"I fell a couple weeks ago." I tell her.
"It's broken, that's for sure. And it's going to take extra long to heal because you haven't been able to treat it." She says.
She looks me over some more but says the doctors at the hospital will really look me over. "Where are we?" I ask her, suddenly realizing that question could finally be answered.
"New Mexico." She says.
I just nod at her, "My friend Austin, he, he fell off of this ledge near the river, and I mean I know you're going to say I'm stupid but, could he still be alive? Should we go looking for him?"
"Austin-?" She's about to ask, but she's interrupted by one of the rescue guys, "We're leaving." He says and tells us to follow.
"But what about," I start and Frank shakes his head at me, "Ally, let it go." He whispers quietly.
I grab my bag and Austin's blanket out of the plane and get in line with the others. But I stand there, and stare back at the plane where I've spent who knows how long and I can't help but feel a lot of mixed emotions. I want to go home more than anything, I want to be rescued like this, and it's all I've wanted. But leaving Austin here like this, has to be the worst feeling of all. This just can't be happening.
They fly us to the hospital, and we all go to separate rooms and have to wait our turn to be checked on. Even this feels weird, being separated from the people I spent all that time with. Sure, I was only close to Austin out of all of them, but I can't help but feel some separation anxiety.
I look around the room, picking up different random things and going straight to the bathrooms so I can wash my face. When I look in the mirror, I almost don't believe that it's me. My hairs a longer than before, in a stringy mess, and there are scratches and scars on my face. I look like someone that just came out of the wild.
I run the water until its extra warm and wash my face slowly, enjoying the warm water. By the time I'm done, I'm finally the normal pale white that I used to me. I walk out into the room and sit down on the bed. I notice on the far side of the room, on the wall, was a calendar. I jump up and go over to it, and it's opened to June.
June? June… It was April when we left. We were out there for two months. I mean yeah, it felt like that long but I didn't really think it was. I wonder how worried all of our parents have bee, and how terrible it is going to be for all the parents and family members of the ones that didn't make it. They are just finding out now, and had to deal with not knowing for all of this time.
I sit back down on the bed and that's when a young man walks in, probably in his early thirties, carrying a chart and has a smile on his face, "You're Ally?" he asks.
I just nod, "I'm Dr. Howard. I'm going to check on you and make sure everything's alright, okay? You're dad is on his way." He says.
My face drops, "My d-dad?"I ask, not being able to stop the tears from streaming down my face. I'm going to see my dad again. He knows I'm alive. This just makes me realize how real this really is.
"Yes." He says with a smile.
He checks me over, and takes X-rays on my wrist, which is obviously broken, in two places to be exact. That's the only thing severely wrong with me. I am slightly dehydrated and underweight, but that's no surprise. He sends a young nurse to get me a huge glass of ice water and goes to get my cast ready.
She comes back and hands me the water, which I start sucking it down fast, but she puts her hand up to stop me, "Start slow my dear." She says.
I nod and take a small sip, but when she turns away I take a big gulp. The doctor comes back and puts on my cast. It's red like I requested. And says he'll be back soon to check on me. I lie down on the bed and stare at my cast, not knowing what to do with myself, until I hear the door open. I look and see my dad walk through the door, his eyes full of tears.
I jump out of the bed and run over to him and jump into his arms, "Dad!" I yell, and start crying too.
"I'm so glad your okay." He says, hugging me tighter.
After a while of crying and more hugging, we sit down next to each other on the bed and can't help but ask the question that's been playing in my mind, "Why did it take so long for us to be rescued?" I ask.
"It was hard to find the plane, all the communications and tracking systems went down and there was just no way to track you." He says, "It was hell waiting for answers."
"It was so horrible dad, the whole experience. I don't know how I'm going to be able to become normal again." I say, staring at the sheets on the bed, choking back tears.
"Don't say that Ally, you'll be okay, it just takes time." He says.
I nod in agreement and we sit in silence for a while. Then I suddenly remember something, "Trish! How's Trish? I bet she's been freaking out." I say.
My dad's eyes widen and he nods, "Oh yes she has. But when I got the call about you, I called her right after, so I promised her you would see her when you get home. We fly home tomorrow. They want you to stay overnight so you can get some rest if you don't mind." He says.
"Where are you going to be?" I ask.
"At the hotel that's just across the street. I'm staying with you until you want me to leave though." He says and laughs.
"Okay." I tell him.
After a while of catching up, I get really hungry, so my dad walks me to the cafeteria. When I get there, I see Wanda sitting with Rick and who must be both of their parents, "Ally!" Wanda yells and runs over to me.
She hugs me, and I'm kind of surprised, but I hug her back. "It's so good to be, almost home." She whispers.
I nod, "It really is." I say.
But then her face turns sad, looking over in the far corner. I look over too and it man and a woman. The woman is crying and the man is trying to comfort her, "Those are Thomas' parents." She whispers in my ear.
I look at her in shock, and she nods. I feel really bad for his parents, even though I have a lot of bad feelings toward Thomas, his parents didn't deserve everything they've gone through. I mean, their son isn't coming back alive after worrying about him for so long, and his body isn't even coming back to have a proper burial, that's just awful.
I just shake my head with sadness and go back with my dad, "Who was that?" He asks, referring to Wanda.
"Wanda, she's in my class. She was on the plane." I say.
He nods and we go in line for food. I grab a cheeseburger, which I've been dying for and a big cup of fruit, along with orange juice. We sit down at a table at the other end of the cafeteria and start eating. We eat in silence as I devour the delicious food. I mean, it probably isn't that good because it is hospital food after all, but anything's better than what I have been eating.
When we're both finished, we start talking again. I tell my father stories of the wolves, and the rattlesnake with Caroline. His face shows horror at most of everything I say, like I watched some movie and am telling him all about it. And that's when I'm interrupted by Sammy running over.
"Sammy, what's up?" I ask. She's out of breath and her eyes are huge.
"I have to show you something, come with me, now!" She yells.
She grabs me by the wrist and starts pulling me away from the table. I give my dad a 'sorry' look and jog with her, "Where are we going?" I ask her.
"Just come!" She says and continues to drag me.
When she finally stops, we're in front of a room. I just look at her, and she's staring at me, "What?" I ask her.
"Look," she says and takes a deep breath, "Into the room." She says.
I look in the window at the room, feeling awkward about invading someone's privacy. At first all I see is a hospital room like mine, until I look over at the bed. My heart completely stops when I notice that familiar mop of blonde hair…
Yes, another cliffhanger, but it's a pretty obvious one. Sorry to leave it at that, but there are only a few chapters left, i'm not sure how many, and i need you to keep coming back for more(;