A Flight, In Frost

I awoke, and was instantly greeted with confusion.  What happened? Where was I? Blinking a couple of times, I was still seeing double, and recovering slowly from my state of unconsciousness.  I remembered that I was in a plane, but aside from that I was completely lost. I took a breath to calm myself, as the world came screaming back to me.

The cockpit window was shattered, and sparks were intermittently crackling from the busted instrument panel.  It took me awhile to realize that the plane was upside down.  It was getting dark, and the sun was nearly below the horizon.  I was lying on the floor (well, really the ceiling) of the cabin, inspecting my surroundings.  There was snow that had blown inside through the cracked window of the windshield, and the wind of the snowstorm was whistling outside.  I gave a compulsory shudder to the sound of the ferocity of this storm. 

With the aid of what little daylight I had left, I could see the faint outlines of the seats, eerily suspended from the ceiling, and more importantly, the silhouettes of my fellow passengers.  They were all still in their seats, held in place by their harnesses. Their bodies were contorted into mangled shapes. A big gust of wind shook the whole plane, and jostled them in their upside down positions.  I could see that they were all seemingly lifeless.

The pilot was impaled with a rib from the cockpit frame.  I could see the jagged metal protruding from his torso on the other side of his seat, and there was a semi-glossy liquid caked onto it.  It was safe to assume that he had perished, and I didn’t even bother checking him for signs of life. I crawled around on the floor in the other direction, now moving from cockpit to cabin.  Maria and Armand were the next that I went to check on, and they were seated beside each other. They both had their eyes closed, and their necks were positioned at awkward angles. Blood ran freely from their heads, and if I had to guess, I’d say they smacked their skulls together on impact.  I exhaled sadly, acknowledging the weight of what I was seeing. I found it difficult to continue. But I knew that I had to check on the rest, and forced myself to search further. The only one left to find was Sarah. The other couple of seats were empty, including the one that she was sitting in during the flight.  I was panicking. Having surveyed the whole plane, I couldn’t find any trace of her anywhere. Was she wearing her harness?  Was she ejected upon crashing?

          I decided to get outside, so as to get my bearings, make a fire and plan what to do next.  So I started for the cabin door, groping my way along blindly in the darkness. My only light source was the inconsistent sparks from the instrument panel at this point, as the sun had completely set.   There was a draft that I could hear as I neared where the door was, and I realized for the first time since awakening that it's the dead of winter. The gravity of my situation finally set in. I was alone, in a crashed plane, somewhere in the Canadian or Minnesotan wilderness, and it was snowing.  I forced myself to take a moment and regroup. No sense losing my head.  So far I’m our only hope of being found. The closer I got to the door, the louder the wind whipping past became.  It howled, and drew against the side of the plane, making a ghastly creaking noise. This flimsy metal shell really would be at the mercy of whatever else nature might throw at it, and us.

I was almost to the door now, and hesitantly reached out to grab the handle, when suddenly it flew open!  There stood Sarah, torn and tattered. She had substantial flesh wounds, and dirt and debris covering her face and the rest of her body, but she was on two feet, breathing, and alive!  I was overcome with a wave of joy, and hustled towards the door. Too excited for my own good, and still uncoordinated, I fell out over the lip of the hatch. Face first into the snowbank outside, just shy of where she was standing.  She didn’t recoil or respond in any fashion. She seemed quite dazed, maybe in shock.

I was overjoyed to see her.  Someone else had survived! She was focused, and she was rummaging through some of our luggage bags that she must have dug out of the cargo hold.  It appeared that she was looking for something. I spoke cautiously, so as not to scare her, and tried to offer assistance.

“Sarah, what are you looking for?  Do you need help?” She didn’t answer.  She didn’t seem to even notice my presence.  Could the crash have rendered her deaf? She continued her search frantically, and I lay there in the snow in silent puzzlement.  She was only visible by moonlight, faintly shining through the cloud cover. The storm sounded fierce. She kept wincing from especially nasty pockets of wind that would buffet her face.  I called out to her again, her back still turned to me,

“Sarah!  It’s me! Can you hear me?”  Again, she didn’t respond. I think the crash left her deaf.  Still laying in the snow, I flipped over and began to reach out, to maybe touch her leg and let her know I was here and alive too.

Before I could reach her, she let out an excited gasp, and shifted her stance, stepping out of my reach.  She had found what she was looking for: road flares. I had completely forgotten that we had those with us.  She took one out of the bundle, and in one confident movement, removed the cap and struck it to the flare. Red sparks immediately brought brilliant light into the darkness, and I was now able to properly see for the first time the extent of the crash.

It was devastating.  My brain went from a place of delirium, to that of calm admiration and awe, at the fact that any of us survived.  The plane was entirely destroyed, and almost unrecognizable. Only a twisted, heap of metal frame was left. Sarah must have had to pry the hatch open, because there was a massive dent running along that entire side, disfiguring the doorway.  The plane was upside down, its starboard wing embedded in the ground, and the port wing protruding proudly into the sky in the other direction. Almost all of the windows were shattered, and the propellers were obliterated, shards of them now visible to me laying haphazardly around the crash site.

I was snapped out of my thinking by the sound of Sarah exerting herself, trying to climb back into the plane.  She had thrown the flare down into the snow, far from the plane, where it continued to burn. She jumped up, grabbed a hold of the ledge of the doorway, and wriggled back in.  Sitting on the outside, with the light of the flare, I realized how far a drop it really was from the hatch to the ground outside. I was exhausted, and decided to rest for a bit while she dug around in the cabin.

I awoke some time later, and she had offloaded a lot from the plane.  I got up to see what she had removed, and noticed that they were the corpses of our friends, among other things.  My heart felt heavy. I wish she would have asked me for my help. I had to hand it to her though, she has strong resolve, removing three bodies from an overturned plane on her own.  I got up to assist her, and noticed something. There was only one set of footprints.  Admittedly, I was very confused, and could not think of how this was possible.  I had been walking around out here as well, and I had even taken a nap in the snow.  But to my horror, as I turned around to look at the spot where I had been lying, sure enough, there was no indentation or depression.  It was just pure, untouched snow. There was no sign that I, or anyone else had been there at all. I began to cry in confusion and panic, and started flailing myself around in frustration.  My outbursts did not leave a mark on the snow, like I had hoped, and this upset me even further. I started to make my way over to Sarah, scaring myself even more because I couldn’t hear that telltale squelching noise that one makes when they step in fresh snow.  I had crossed a thirty foot expanse of open land, and not left a single footprint, or mark of any kind.

“Sarah, what is happening?  Are you seeing this too?!” No reply.  Why wasn’t she answering me? I reached out to grab her again, and my hand disappeared as soon as it should have made contact with her.  Upon recoiling and bringing my arm back away from her, my hand appeared in its entirety again.  I tried to touch her once more, and upon having my finger reach the boundary of her person, it disappeared.  As far as I would reach outward, my extremity would vanish. I thrust my body forward, and fell entirely through her.  She didn’t react at all, and clearly had no sensation of my presence, or violation of her space.  I had fallen to the ground another time, and noticed that I bore no weight, and the snow again did not indent.  Was this a dream? Was this actually happening? Or was I imagining her, in a delusion of shock from the accident?  Then it set in. No, I thought, it couldn’t be…

From where I had fallen, I had a new view; that of the row of corpses she had lined up.  I could see all three. The light from the flare in the snowbank above cast a hellish red glow far into the dark, and I could see them perfectly.  I scanned their expressionless faces, looking at the careful way that she had laid them all to rest. My gosh, they all looked even more beat up now in the light.  The one on the end stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the pilot. I didn’t pay enough attention to him when I was first waking up in the plane, but he looked exactly like me.  I sat there, examining him, and the resemblance was uncanny.  The pilot was me.  But if I was here, laying in the row of corpses she had dug out, impaled with a metal shard, then how am I still seeing all this from this perspective?

The wheels in my head were turning very slowly, but I think that I knew the answer.

“Is this why you aren’t answering me?  Did I die in that crash?” I spoke to her in a timid tone of voice.  I was too afraid to hear it out loud. She didn’t show any sign of noticing my presence.  She just kept working at what she was doing. She answered me with her silence. I didn’t feel anything anymore.  What more was there to feel? All of my pandemonium seemed to just melt away into nothing. Reality set in. I died in that crash.  Sarah must have been the sole survivor.  Good for her, I thought to myself. At least one of us will make it back.

She pulled out another flare from her pocket, and climbed back into the plane.  I could hear a faint scraping noise, and then a rush of air, like the sound something combustible makes when you ignite it.  I heard rustling in the cabin, and saw her faint shadow passing by quickly through the airplane windows. Just as she jumped out, a large fire began to consume the entire plane.  She must have started the upholstery on fire. She lay there outside, and began to cry. I would cry too, but upon realization of my fate, I found I was no longer able to foster emotions like that anymore.  I was overwhelmed with a great sense of calm, watching the airplane burn, the orange flames reflecting and dancing off the fallen snow.

I tried to put my hand upon her shoulder, and watched as it seamlessly disappeared into her.  She was crying so hard now. I’m so sorry, Sarah.  I can’t stand that you had to see us this way.

“Goodbye, you guys,'' she whispered to us in between tears.

“Goodbye,” I responded, even though she couldn’t hear me.

I turned, walking into the snowstorm,  leaving no trail behind. It was a strange sensation walking without leaving footprints.  I wonder what comes next for me? I suppose I’ll find out shortly.