#stranded event 1

The sound of the plane breaking in half before it hit the ground was enough to sliced through the thick jungle air, heavy with moisture and the scent of the dense vegetation. The rhythmic sound reverberated out to the dawn. Phoebe wakes up with a start in her hut ; back straight and ridged. Slowly, peaking out, she can spot from the sky the object, a plane, rocketing toward the island. There was no time for parachutes, in seconds there were fireballs in the trees. All that remained was mess of mangled metal.

Phoebe doesn’t go to the devastation that sprawled itself all over the shores. Burnt electrical wires and flesh fill the air. Away from screams, from those who are traumatized, away from the sobs only interrupted by the person's need to draw breath. It was a primal sound, one the human condition seemed programmed not to ignore.  She does, though. She’s able to. Phoebe slips out of her hut, then backs away from the scene of unmoving bodies that a group will have to toss into a mass grave later, after turning right around and taking from the dead without guilt. She moves away, unable to ignore the fact that there's people parts to dispose of. Quickly, they were becoming grey tinged regardless of race, blue lipped with blank stares. 

Instead, she backs herself further into the jungle where she can get away from the rumbling of whatever engine machine continues to desperately run. The trembles through the earth are vicious and unforgivable, and in an instant, a migraine comes along. When the migraine struck, Phoebe was quite helpless in her cage of pain as she stumbles into the jungle, her safe space. She was blinded with flashing colorful spots and craved darkness, quite and stillness. Pain throbbed so violently around her skull that she wondered why it didn't just crack open, releasing some pressure. 

The world shook. It shook in such a way that Leon would have felt it even without the finesse of perception that his attunement granted him to sense the whimsical shiftings of the earth. And it was because of that very attunement that this particular shaking he sensed it in his bones. It didn’t take long for him to discover what had caused the violent shake he felt: a plane crash. He was at the site in minutes, looking to make himself useful, help where he could. He silently led some of the injured people to The First and those setting up the triage, then ran back to the area where the shattered plane had embedded itself on the shores of Meridium to the misfortune of everyone on board. It wasn’t all that fateful of an accident as it could have been with many survivors being aided to safety but Leon was secretly grateful that he wasn’t the person in charge of telling these newcomers that their journey had reached a permanent end in this place. Nowhere to go from here.

He carefully approached a person lying on the sand, someone who was slowly coming to. As their eyes fluttered open and landed on him, Leon stopped on his tracks and raised his hands in front of him, offering what he thought was the global gesture of ‘I mean you no harm’. He didn’t attempt to use sign language to reassure the stranger further. Hearing people never had to wonder whether strangers spoke or not, whether they could hear or not, it was a given that everyone could and never had to discern. He, on the other hand, always had to wonder whether strangers understood sign language but by now he’d mostly stuck to the idea that no one understood it until the contrary was proven. Slowly and purposely trying to seem as unthreatening as possible he crouched down and used his finger to write on the sand ‘HURT?’ before looking up again. At first glance there didn’t seem to be anything evidently wrong with the person, but unless he asked there was no way of knowing if there was any internal pain they were feeling.

From his vantage point, Frank can see the mad scramble on the beach from the survivors. New and old alike, it seems, spotting familiar faces among the crowd. He hastens his way down the edge of one of the cliffs, his feet landing in the water of the North Beach with a splash. Tamyra is already gone, he isn’t sure where, but somewhere, he assumes. Instead, he heads into the water, dragging out a person scrambling to find their footing against the heaving waves. “It’s alright, you can stand now,” he soothes, helping them settle onto the sand.

He releases them once they are sitting, looking them over with evident concern. “Are you hurt? Salt water won’t have been good on any wounds you have.” His medical training is... limited to the few classes he took, but he thinks he knows enough to wing anything minor. “I can take you to someone who will help you.” Tomas, he nearly suggests, but bites his tongue with a grimace. He’s saved from responding as a cry echoes across the beach, louder in this tiny corner of the North Beach. Too quiet to pinpoint it’s location over the buzzing in his ears and the crashing waves.

There was such a huge contrast between the early morning quiet and now. To think Tamyra figured this would be a morning just like every other and now she was standing among different parts of a plane - a plane that had more people on it than they ever saw arrive at the shores of the island before -, and both different levels of injured people, people who were trying to help the newcomers, and bodies. It was not a pretty look, to say the least.

The one thing that got through all the noise and the shouting, the cries of pain and the calls for help, the red on the sand and the way the ocean hit hard and almost louder on the side of the plane, was the opportunity. This was contact with the outside world, and if they could just use it to their advantage, if they could just get the right parts and find everything that was salvagable from the wreck, they could actually get out of here.

And that’s when it hit her. "The radio!” she excplaimed. They needed to get the damn radio, maybe if they got lucky, it could still work and then finally they could contact somebody outside of this damn island and the rescue would come soon after. She got so excited, she immediately rushed off towards the plane - or would have, if she actually paid attention to where she was going. In the rush she didn’t realize she was standing right next to a bigger piece lying on the floor, so she tripped and fell... right to the feet of a woman. “Fuck, just what I needed,” Tamyra groaned and rolled onto her back, looking up at the woman. “Hey, are you okay enough to help me up?”

As time passed since the plane crashed landed here on the island, things seemed to be calming down slowly but surely. Nora had gotten some assistance on the injuries she’d sustained and had to answer a few questions once she had felt in the proper mind to do so. Having to answer those questions just brought back the memories and fears she had momentarily forgotten about through all the commotion. It made her feel anxious and shitty and with no idea where to run (if she even could run anywhere on this island) the furthest she managed to go was the shallow end of the water.

Putting one foot in the water was already refreshing and it wasn’t long before she had  gotten to a point where she could sit and submerge her body into the ocean. It was as though she was sitting in the bath with relaxing ocean sounds to calm her mind. As she sat in the water, she closed her eyes and submerged her head under the water as well, holding her breath and floating there and just letting that empty sound. She must have been under for a long time because when she resurfaced she noticed a woman who was staring at her with a concerned look on her face. “Sorry, I just needed some alone time.” she explained as though that was a reasonable explanation for why she was floating underwater and barely moving. It made sense to her at least.

Nothing else matters. Not the people who try to help her, not the searing pain in her left arm nor the steady throb in her head. Rose can’t feel it – not at all. What she does feel, however, is panic. The type that grips her by the throat, stealing her breath and tunneling her vision. Her gaze is lowered some, constantly skimming at the height her daughter stands at. She looks at no one’s face – they don’t matter. Not when this – when she – is at stake. “Jo!” The cry is desperate, guttural, but still feels miles away. As if it comes from someone else, but really, it’s just her: a mother numb with panic. “Josephine!” Heads are turning her way, she senses them only vaguely, but their inquiries fall on deaf ears. She’s only listening for one voice, and so their warnings to not wander into the trees go unheard as she treks into the line of trees. Determination drives her forward, her cries of her daughter’s name continuing long after her throat has gone raw. And then finally, miraculously, there is an answer. Everything comes into focus the moment Rose spots that head of curls hurtling towards her. She meets Jo at a run, their bodies colliding and spinning. A sob wrenches itself free from somewhere, buoyed by her relief as she cups her daughter’s face in her hands, no matter how her left arm protests. 

“You’re okay? Are you hurt? Are you – oh, baruch Hashem, I thought... well, I thought... look at me, sweetie, are you alright?” The words come tumbling out, Rose’s line of inquiry stepping over her daughter’s. Jo merely nods to answer her questions, but she’s trying to say something of her own – something urgent, it seems, and so Rose finally stops, reassured enough for now. “Mama, look.” With emphasis, Jo turns, gesturing to a figure behind herself that Rose hadn’t even noticed. And everything stops. After so much movement, she’s suddenly deathly still, staring at a face she thought she’d never see again. “Oh. Oh.” She looks back to Josephine fleetingly, a sudden sadness settling in. If they’re face to face with this reunion, it must mean... “Are we... no, we can’t be. Are we...” She can’t bring herself to say it. She can’t come to terms with death like this. Not in front of Jo. And so Rose instead turns back to her husband, moving nothing more than her head, as if anything more severe will reveal the harsh truth behind this dream. “Frank?” She chooses her words carefully, afraid of their answer: “Is it... is it really you?”

The gentle waves scattered the evening sun like the sequin. It was calming as Phoebe trudges herself out of the jungle after a small hike.

Watching from the tree line, the brunette surveys with ice-clear hues as person after person shift into the plane. She can hear it creaking from where she stands, announcing how unstable it is and yet, some thought they were safe enough to go aboard, searching for their own bags and cases, for personal items or anything they were able to tighten their fingers around.

Phoebe wasn’t going near the water. She knew damn well that wasn’t her place to be. She went on it once, late at night, just like everyone else did - to rummage and hunt for whatever was left and that’s all she needed. She found a few new pencils, a new notebook, although still drying out from water damage, Phoebe wasn’t about to push her luck just as some of the other islanders were doing. 

Just as she turns to leave and dip back into her hut so that she didn't have to watch the disaster that was about to unfold, her eyes find a young woman taking her turn and Phoebe shakes her head, whispering to herself while narrowing her eyes, ❛ Don’t do it ... Don’t fucking do it. ❜

Amongst the crashing waves, which threw water into one side of the plane, causing it to shake, people began to scurry frantically against the movements. Then, the floor collapses beneath the unsuspecting, those who believed the metal would hold them for at least a moment more. Through a few bellowed commands of trying to get people away from the water, there was a large mix of fearfully shouts. With a straightened spine, Phoebe watches as people run away from the sinking plane, away from the danger that they thought would help them survive this island.

So much is right. And yet so much is wrong. The thoughts wrap around themselves as Rose stands on the threshold of the homestead Frank had created on this island. The two of them, father and daughter, asleep in the same spread eagle position... well, it’s something she’s hoped to set her eyes on for seven years now. If only it wasn’t happening here, in this place, and after so long.

Something else is wrong, too – and that’s why, after leaving her jacket draped across Jo’s sleeping form, Rose takes to searching once more. Cal had been only one seat away from her when the plane had begun its steady descent. Her face had been one of Rose’s final sights before a sudden jolt sent her colliding into the seat in front of her and delving into an evidently deep unconsciousness. That being said: she has no idea where the other woman could be now. Resting had been done with some guilt when she felt like she should be coming the shore – a familiar feeling. And so Rose rises before the sun fully does, emerging in the gray light to look for her friend. This is no small island and therefore no small task. The sun is well into its rise into the sky by the time a glint of copper light on a familiar head of hair makes Rose let out a shuddering breath. Her steps hasten and her voice is ragged from her cries the day before, but still, she calls out: “Cal?” Her walk is a hobble, but a quick one, and it only grows faster as the other woman turns in recognition. “Oh, it’s you. Thank God, it’s you.” There’s so much to talk about. So much to explain. But for now, she’ll just be grateful. Others have suffered much worse. Her friend is wrapped in a tight embrace despite the soreness that Rose is sure they both suffer from, and she sighs into the slightly taller woman’s shoulder. “Are you alright? I – I’m so sorry, Cal. I’m so sorry.” For more than just inviting her on this trip, Rose realizes. But now isn’t the time to unpack that. For now, she sticks to what matters, backing away some to look at her friend rightfully: “Really, though, are you hurt? Have you gotten any help?”