Shards of mirror washed down from the opening of that tiny cubicle like glittering rain. It wasn’t the only thing to escape. Dark brown water came down alongside the shards, the smell accompanying it leaving little doubt as to its substance. The impulse to puke was hard to rein in, so I exhaled vehemently, doing my best to cover my nostrils with my arm.
Once I was sure my stomach had settled back down, I glanced into the loo. Everything inside was broken beyond recognition. I doubted anyone could have survived the crash while being stuck in that tiny space. After thanking the heavens that no-one had been in there, I continued my journey toward the back of the plane.
Hoping to find a med-kit, I moved to the space behind the loos. I knew the crew had kept some of their equipment there. What I actually found, strapped into one of the crew’s seats, was the last thing I expected.
4. TWENTY STEPS
The jump seat where I’d been sitting was nothing but a memory. Half the harness was missing and the seat itself had been torn beyond recognition, which explained why I woke where I did. In the other jump seat, closer to the bulkhead, sat the man I’d helped earlier. Both of his feet dangled in the air at an awkward angle, his torso held in place by the blue harness. Passed out like this, he resembled a giant rag doll or one of those flimsy crash test dummies.
I didn’t have a good look at him earlier; in the confusion, I’d only caught the briefest flash of his face under a layer of silvery hair. Now that I could see him without the world coming to an end around us, I noticed that he looked older than I’d first thought. To say nothing of a lot frailer; his business suit did little to hide how thin he was underneath it.
I called out to him, but his eyes remained closed, his limbs immobile. As I leaned closer, I noticed a trail of dried blood on his right temple. It ran from the root of his silver hair to his clean-shaven jaw. My breath caught in my throat at the sight.
Was he…? Was he—
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the thought, especially since he was the only person I’d found. I needed him to be alive.
I shook myself and climbed up to him, minding the treacherous terrain. I’d had to learn first-aid when I applied for a driving licence, but now that I needed it, I couldn’t remember a single thing I’d learned in class.
Assessing the wounds was a thing, wasn’t it? I thought, racking my brains. Not moving the injured person was another… or was I supposed to move him to the recovery position? For the life of me—or him—I couldn’t remember which was best.
I reached for the man’s throat with my fingertips, taking in his face as I did. Even the freckles on his cheeks looked ashen. His thin, pale lips were parted, but I couldn’t tell if any air was passing through them. I pressed my fingers to his throat, not daring to apply too much pressure. His skin was cold to the touch, but I had no way of knowing if that was because of the weather or the alternative. Even though I didn’t feel a pulse, I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right; I’d never taken anyone’s pulse before. I kept moving my fingers about, but every inch of the skin I touched felt the same.
A soft moan made me jerk my fingers away and recoil in surprise. My eyes locked onto his face in time to see his eyes shift underneath his closed lids. The first lines of a furrowed brow started to form above his thick, bushy eyebrows. Well… that was as good a sign of life as any. Thank heaven I wasn’t alone anymore.
I called out to him again, reaching out to rub his arm. Try though I did to coax him back to consciousness, he remained out of it. Scrunching up my own brow, I fought to remember more of those first-aid classes. All that did was make my thoughts a contradictory mess. I kept going back to one contradiction in particular. On one hand, our instructor had warned us that moving an injured person was dangerous and should be avoided; there was no telling what internal injuries the victim could be suffering from, so any kind of movement could worsen an injured spine or even kill. But at the same time, I could also remember lectures on the benefits of the recovery position and how manhandling unconscious people into it would ensure they could breathe more easily. So which would work here?
Biting at my lower lip in puerile anxiety, I looked at the man more closely. The sole visible injury was the head wound I’d caught earlier. Other than that, and the fact he was out of it, he seemed fine.
What decided it for me was how uncomfortable the poor man looked. With the way the tail-end of the plane was positioned, he was dangling on his left side with his left leg thrown over his right. The left shoulder strap was doing most of the work of keeping him in his seat, but it was also cutting hard into the skin of his neck. Another hour of that and the belt would draw blood. I moved closer so that he would lean on me rather than fall to the floor. Then I reached for the buckle.
This stranger may have been thin, but he wasn’t lightweight. Taking most of his weight on me was like getting stabbed in the leg all over again. My back complained and wounds I hadn’t been aware of before flared up in protest. I forced all of that pain to the back of my mind, focusing on the task at hand. I had to get him out of here and to safety.
My human load remained limp the whole way, not once waking up. If it weren’t for the occasional moan of pain, I’d have thought I was carrying a store manikin.
I left him lying on the cabin floor as I got off the plane. I took a moment to make sure my left leg was steady under my feet. Then, reaching under his shoulders, I dragged him outside. I tried cradling his head and neck as much as possible, praying that I wasn’t doing more harm than good.
I dragged him away from the wreckage, his shiny leather shoes leaving deep grooves in the wet soil behind us, trying hard to keep him from soaking up too much of the fluid on the ground. A part of me kept worrying that what was left of the plane could blow up or something. I had no idea how far away we had to get to be safe if that happened. My battered body managed twenty steps before my leg gave out under me and I fell to the ground. I dragged my fellow passenger down with me, though I tried to cushion his fall by landing in a heap underneath him. This would have to be far enough from the plane.
Since he wasn’t protesting the change in altitude, I stayed there for a few long minutes. I focused on my breathing while I also fought not to lose consciousness again. When the pain in my leg was too much, I pushed myself free of the man’s bulk and lay beside him.
Noticing my sweater had come loose during the tumble, I fastened it back in place around my thigh with clenched teeth. More deep breaths followed as I collapsed back into the soil. As I lay there, gasping and wheezing, I was flabbergasted at how eerily quiet the surrounding forest was. It dawned on me that I hadn’t seen or heard any kind of animals since I’d woken up. I hadn’t seen a bird taking flight, never mind the bark of a rescue dog. Everything around us felt like a silent graveyard; the final resting place of a metallic bird that had never made it home.
Dark, black smoke continued to escape from the tip of the tail. As big a contrast as it was from our surroundings, there was little doubt it could be seen from a good distance. The foliage encasing us wasn’t that thick, so it shouldn’t have been too hard to pinpoint our location. Were my fellow passenger and I so far removed from any roads that rescuers had to hike to get to us? Surely they had helicopters that could get to us faster. So why weren’t they already circling our position?