I found a grand total of bugger-all. Though the rain had stopped falling, the surrounding ground was still muddy from the drops. Be damned if I was going to ruin my suit by sitting on it. Tom Ford himself would never do such a thing.
Looking at the place where I’d spent the night, I saw that it wasn’t in any better condition than where I stood. Looking at that made me palm the back of my pants with a hand. I frowned at the grime my fingers found there.
I sighed and shook my head. Silly of me to think my suit wasn’t ruined long before I woke up. I sat down at a reasonable distance from the makeshift surgeon next to me. She was intent on juggling her tools one-handed while trying to stem the flow of blood with a napkin. Seeing that made me think, Oh well… a suit’s something I can replace when I get back home.
By then, the girl had a piece of jagged metal in hand, which she was using to cut away the leg of her bloody jeans. That sight made me look away again and return my attention to what was left of the plane. The smoke coming out of the tail had died down in the past few minutes. Only the tiniest of hazy tendrils remained, the dark-grey plumes going about twenty inches before they became too thin for my eyes to make out. That wasn’t good news. Anyone looking for us now would have a much more difficult time of it.
Behind me, the girl was muttering something foreign under her breath. If I had to guess, she was cursing her damn fool self for making her injuries worse. I glanced at her then, saw her still working on her leg. While I was glad to discover she wasn’t a mute, I was less glad to find that she definitely didn’t speak English. Her words were too quiet for me to make out what language she was using. Maybe if I heard more, it’d be something I knew.
While I’d been looking at the dying smoke, she’d opened a bottle of clear liquid that smelled like iodine. Whatever it was, she poured some of it onto a cotton ball that she was using to dab into her open wound. When my stomach somersaulted, I had to look away again. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, how the bloody hell could she stomach all that? I thought.
As I listened to Ms Medicine Woman tend to herself, I let my gaze wander around the crash site. Seeing as there was nothing but trees, debris and the big metal tube we’d both come out of, I got bored with that in a hurry. Amidst sounds of plastic wrappers being torn open, I could hear several gasps of pain and foreign words that could only be heavy bouts of cussing and cursing. While I might have been wrong, the words sounded like French.
A while later, I cautiously turned back around. By then, the worst was over for her. She was wrapping some gauze over the wound and fastening it with a white bandage. My stomach congratulated me on finally picking the right moment to look.
By the time she was done, I realised what an odd pair we made. The two of us stranded here—wherever the hell here was—with no rescue in sight and no way to call out for help. The smoke was all but gone now and I’d left my smartphone charging next to my business class seat. Resourceful as this girl was, she didn’t look like she owned a phone either. At least one she hadn’t stolen first.
“Have you got a phone?” I asked. While I was almost certain what her answer would be, I had to be sure. When she gave me that confused look, I extended my thumb and pinkie to give her the universal sign language for ‘talking on the phone’ saying, “Telephone?” for emphasis.
She shook her head no before returning her attention to the med-kit she had in her lap.
“Aye,” I said with a sigh. “Me neither.”
After she packed up the first-aid kit, she inspected her handiwork with a critical eye. It looked like she’d done a good job with the tight white bandage around her mid-thigh, though she used way too much tape to fasten it. After she put the first-aid kit back inside the plastic bag, she pulled out two KitKats from it. She tossed me one and kept the other for herself.
The moment it landed in my lap, I realized that I was starving. I tore through it as fast as I could, not minding so much that I hadn’t paid for it. As breakfast choices go, KitKats weren’t anywhere near the top of my list, but after wolfing it down in under a minute, I concluded that it was the best damn KitKat I’d ever eaten.
That’s when I noticed how the girl hadn’t even started eating hers. She fixed me with a raised eyebrow and a smirk that spoke volumes. No translation needed to understand what it meant: “Aren’t you glad I got all of this stuff now?” Christ, she was so damned smug.
I looked up through the sparse leaves at the empty skies above us. I strained my ears to capture any foreign sounds or any kind of disturbance. All I got back was the ever-present quiet that had surrounded us from the start. By the looks of things, we were going to be stuck here for a while yet.
Blame it on the crash scrambling my brains. Blame it on the stubbornness noted on my many performance reviews. But it was only at that moment when understanding finally dawned on me. This young woman hadn’t been stealing at all. Despite her injuries, she’d been gathering the supplies we’d need to survive on our own out here: food, drinks, blankets, medicine.
The reason she’d shared it was because she knew we were all we had. Since help wasn’t coming anytime soon, we had to stick together. She’d just been quicker on the uptake than me.
7. SOMEWHERE ON THE MAP
I woke up to the same sorry, dilapidated sight I’d fallen asleep to. The faded glory of the broken tail was still there, resting sideways in its quiet vegetation shrine. The last of the smoke had long disappeared into the grey of the not-night sky. A glance at my watch told me it was a little after six o’clock. I’d napped for only a couple of hours.
It seemed like the sun was brighter now than it’d been during the starless night. Still, it’d be another few hours until it reached full bloom. When I looked around, I realized that the woman was nowhere in sight. Given the fact she’d left the bag of supplies a few feet from me, coupled with her nasty leg wound, I doubted she’d gone far. Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder where she was. Maybe she’d gone back into the plane?
Standing up, I strained my ears to hear her. The only sounds to reach them was a faint wind rustling through the trees and what sounded like waves crashing on rocks. No barks coming from search and rescue dogs, no thump-thump of a helicopter’s blades, not even the crushing of fallen tree branches under heavy boots. I didn’t think I’d ever felt this alone.
The creaking of twigs behind me disturbed the silence, making me turn around to face its source. I saw the woman coming out from behind a shrub. She had her makeshift cane in hand, but seemed to be moving with a little more ease than the previous night. Cleaning the wound and applying proper bandages to it had no doubt done wonders.
Naturally, she wore the same clothes as before, but she’d since tied her curly hair into a bun, revealing more of her youthful features. Definitely mid-twenties, for sure—a baby-faced mid-twenties at that.
As her eyes settled on me, a soft smile rose to her lips. Was she glad I hadn’t run away? Then again, where was there to run to?
“Have you seen anyone?” I asked. “Help?”
She paused a few feet from me and cocked her head to one side, her brows knitting. Then she shrugged her shoulders. I wasn’t sure if it was because she hadn’t seen anyone or if she hadn’t understood the question. Probably—even likely—both, for all I knew. I doubt she’d have been alone if the answer was yes.
Hobbling back to the bag, she rummaged inside until she found another pair of KitKats. After throwing me one, we ate in silence. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong with our situation. Help should have been there by now. What, were they so busy helping the other survivors that they just assumed the tail-end of the plane was empty?