The Cliffed Coast

Sound of waves, sea gulls and a taste of salt. Wait salt, sea gulls! What's happening? Arav opened his eyes amidst debris, sands, people and luggage stranded all over. 

He tries to get up, his feet gets wobbly as he stands. He sits again and tries to think what happened. He remembers, he was on a flight to New York. Then there was some turbulence and here he was stranded in the middle of God knows where. He looks around to see if there were any survivors. He checks the pulse of nearby person, dead. Another, dead. Another one, hardly breathing. He tries to resuscitate him. 

His actions were very meticulous like he had years of action. He heard movements from behind him. The sound came from the cockpit. He rushes there. 

"wa_"

Pilot was hardly breathing and mumbled something under his breath. He was heavily injured and stuck on his seat. The Co pilot was beyond recognition. He pulls out the pilot and gives him some water which he found near the pilot. He fishes for first aid kit from the cockpit and attends to the pilot. 

Inside the cockpit, the pilots had a terrified expression as he remembered what had happened.

Few hours earlier

"We've lost signals", a pilot in his 40s said in a worried voice.

"What the hell was that?" A younger pilot with a terrified expression said.

Just as he said this, the plane started descending.

"What's happening? Do something. We're going down", younger pilot said frightened.

"I'm trying", the older pilot said while grunting.

He tried all he could, all the alarms were red. The engine was failing. The equipments were malfunctioning. And the plane was going down.

"Make it land there. There is an island there."

The older pilot tried to take control of their downing plane and detour it towards the island in sight. The plane ascended a bit and moved towards the island. However, the pilot couldn't control the plane any longer. They fell down. They missed the sea by few inches and fell towards the land. However, the plane hit few trees while descending, it broke the plane in two parts, throwing the passengers all over.

Few others started showing movements. Some were lucky to survive with barely any scratches. Others…. Not so much. With more people waking up, more panic and chaos started. Some were crying and yelling asking for help. Some calm people were attending to the injured. Looking for supplies or thinking about how to get rescued. 

Gaining consciousness Kiara found herself strapped with seatbelts oxygen masks hanging over and massive pain striking her lower body ready to take her life apart. With blurry vision she tries to figure out what tragedy befell on her. Fiona was next to her, alive, but not really in good condition. Her breath was irregular, and her head was oozing blood. She herself was injured, but was not sure how grave her injury was. Fortunately she didn't bash her head. Un-strapping herself she tries to push the front seat which was crushing her lower body. 

"Ahh, come on damnit." 

"Help."

"Helppppppp"

Kiara yelled a few more times but to no avail. 

She tries to wake up Fiona. She pulls out her handkerchief and presses on her head. 

"Hey! You need to wake up. We both are not going to die here. Not here in some shitty place. Come on wake up." 

Kiara was aggrieved with how unjust her life was. With tears flowing down her cheeks, refusing to die, yet finding herself utterly helpless. 

"I don't wanna die. Wake up Fiona. Please. Help me. Help me please." 

"Hey, you alright" 

Like a beam of hope, someone answered her desperate calls. Not far from her, an Asian guy came up. Probably Japanese, average height, fairly complexioned, with a geeky appearance. With confused expression, he extends his hands, towards her for help.

He tries to push the collapsed passenger seats and try to pulling the girls out of there. But to no avail.

"You wait here. I'll ask for help."

Disheveled, half in shock, half in panic, this guy, himself regained consciousness from the cry of help from this girl. He was not sure what happened. He was not sure if others were even alive. As far as his eyes could see, there were collapsed seats, broken cabinets; luggage sprawled everywhere, with their owners mostly dead. There was scent of burning, wire burning, and smoke slowly emanating everywhere. He has to do something otherwise those girls would most probably die.

He saw that the their plane was cut off in the middle, leaving a huge opening, he went towards the opening, and saw the other part was also burning not far away and panicking people were everywhere.

"Help! There are people in here."

There were injured people everywhere. He couldn't see fit person who could help him pull those girls out. A tall Indian guy, came to him, and gestured him to show him the way.

They both went in and with a bit of effort they could pull them out of there.

Kiara was close to losing her senses again when the help came. She was in a constant battle in her mind, with her pessimistic nature catching up to her stubbornness, convincing her to give up.

When the weight was lifted off her, there came another massive bolt of pain, giving her a sense, that she was worse off than dying, her left was totally dislocated with multiple fractures here and there. Fortunately, or in this case a bit of luck, she was not cut anywhere, with no apparent blood loss.

Seeing her condition, Arav quickly tied her leg with a piece of cloth. With that sudden movement, Kiara could only grit her teeth and bear what comes.

"Let's get you out of here first", said Arav in a solemn tone.

After few hours, panic settled a bit, 252 passengers were onboard; now no more than 80 people were on that goddamned place. Around them was a dense forest and a cliff which was some 2000 metre above the sea level. Down the cliff, were rocks all over and sea waves beating the coast harshly. If their plane had even missed an inch, they would have been in the sea bed.

Few people were wielding their phones towards the sky, trying to find signals and ask for help. Pilot was trying to operate the radio, trying to figure out their location.

Kiara was seating under a temporary shelter, her left leg was strapped and fixed with two big sticks and bandages were all over her legs. She had never felt this amount of pain in her entire life. She hardly ever got a paper cut, now she's got an entire deal of fractures. She could not even wimp in agony seeing the situation around her. So many people died. Some died during the crash, some died after the crash. Some good people were trying their best to help them. Unfortunately, there were few who could be saved. She wanted to help, but her help in her condition would only be bothersome. There were at least 20 who were still in critical condition or similar to her immobile condition.

"How are you feeling now?" asked the doctor who fixed her leg.

"Alive. But not kicking", Kiara responded to lighten the mood.

"You will be fine. I have few orthopedist colleagues in US. They can fix you up and you can be kicking as well."

"Sure. Will do".

"By the way what's that in the sky? It's too big to be moon and it's daytime." Kiara queried pointing fingers towards a celestial object in sky.

"I'm not good with planets. But that's really strange. Never seen something like that. Maybe it's visible from this part".

"That's…. "

"Also, we should be somewhere in Atlantic Ocean. Right? I thought it would be cold. It's fairly warm."Kiara, thought to herself, and not telling what probabilities came her mind.

"How's your wife doing?"

"Tamara is well just her memories are messed up. She will be fine after some while. I'm glad my family is safe. Both kids are shocked but better than most people here. You rest here and stay hydrated, I will check up on Arav if he needs my help."

"Ok"