Oh The Humanity! - Chapter 1

1985…

Richard woke up in his cushioned plum colored chair, as a thin stream of blood ran out his right nostril, muffling the smell of burning metal. He frantically rushed to undo his seatbelt as the source of the stench grew stronger. Upon finally undoing the mechanism he used to find simplistic, he stood up to rush out the gaping hole behind him, but remembered Calvin, who had taken the window seat. Richard turned his head left to see the unconscious boy, laying limp in his seat, with shallow cuts from shattered glass across his arms and face.

Despite having known Calvin for most of his life, it was only now that Richard learned his weight, which was more than the body’s fit frame implied. Once out of the burning machine, Richard was welcomed by sand that Calvin’s body could be dragged across. He pulled until he couldn’t feel the heat anymore, relieved to drop the body. There was no damage sand could do that the crash hadn’t already delivered. Richard then lowered himself onto the beach, having earned the chance to breathe. He looked away from the burning piece of their plane, knowing that anyone else left inside had no chance of survival.

The water at the end of the beach seemed more peaceful, with few disturbances beyond its gentle push and pull on the shore. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to be seen before the ocean met the sky. Richard hoped that a boat would soon enter his view, or that he would wake up, but he couldn’t recall a time where he would have fallen asleep on the flight.

The stranded pair had been on a flight, with their world history class, to England. They were awarded the privilege due to their attendance at St.Andrew’s Private School, with the class usually consisting of only Seniors, but the unconscious boy on the beach was smart and had tested into it, despite being a year younger than Richard.

Before they took off, Richard and Calvin had agreed to switch seats and move up in the plane to accommodate a mother and her two children. Richard couldn’t help but think that in their generosity they had accidentally sacrificed that family and escaped death, assuming that he, and Calvin, had become the only exceptions to a crash with no survivors. That was, of course, only if Calvin were to wake up, seeing as Richard could not find the time inside the burning wreckage to check for a pulse.

Calvin did wake up, and the adrenaline eventually left his body, despite Richard’s inability to provide even the slightest clarity to their situation. Richard didn’t know what else there was that he could say besides “We crashed. The plane’s on fire. I got us out.”, and he certainly had no idea how to answer Calvin’s questions, all of which regarded the existence of other survivors, without realistic pessimism. There wasn’t much more to speak of besides that, so they didn’t. The pair sat in silence as they absorbed the type of trauma that would surely keep a therapist living comfortably for the rest of their life. Calvin, however, was not interested in the ocean, choosing to examine the jungle that had been standing behind Richard.

As he looked at the abundant green leaves slowly moving from the breeze, Calvin thought of his classmates, who he hoped were only in a situation similar to his, but he could not avoid his intrusive thoughts that wondered if dying in the crash was actually the lesser of two evils. He did not know how to survive without easy access to food or fresh drinking water, and he had little faith that Richard did either, and even if they found a way to survive, the pair could go insane from their isolation if help did not come soon. Calvin kept those fears to himself, however, knowing that they were his burden to bear, not Richard’s.

The pensive couple eventually spoke to agree that they wouldn’t strain their damaged bodies to find food and water until tomorrow, and would use the little daylight they had left to prepare a campsite for the night. Richard noted that there could be animals in the jungle that neither he nor Calvin would enjoy meeting, and, because of that, they should sleep on the beach, only gathering supplies for the night that existed on the border of the jungle. Calvin quickly agreed, so the two began their scavenge, neither venturing far enough to leave the eyesight of the other. Both knew that the only thing “lucky” about their situation was that they were not alone.