The Pack and Sidemen Oneshots

The Pack Ships- Plane Part 2

Jerome's P.O.V.

"BRACE! BRACE! BRACE! BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

One of the flight attendants yelled and both of us ducked forwards, pressing our heads to the back of the seat in front of us. Mitch was sobbing, one of his hands over his head and other squeezing mine.

We hit the runway with a huge jolt and suddenly everything was ripped apart, there was a massive explosion. I must have blacked out but I came back around with a few seconds and found myself, still strapped into my chair, lying on the runway.

Behind me, everything was burning.

A section of the plane which included mine and Mitch's seats and several other rows as well, including Vikk and Lachlan, had been thrown from the plane and onto the runway. Most of the passengers were unconscious, Mitch included, and as I unbuckled my seatbelt and attempted to stand I realised what had happened.

The plane was shattered, pieces of metal and seats and bodies lying everywhere. I screamed but as I saw lights and sirens approaching in the distance I turned my attention back to my friends. Mitch was slumped in his seat, as was Vikk, but Lachlan was partly conscious and groaning in pain.

Somehow I didn't seem to have any injuries, I didn't feel any pain, so I rushed to pull all of them with the help of another conscious passenger, out of their seats. In total there were 12 of us that had been thrown from the plane, 9 of which were unconscious or partly unconscious. 3 of us were mostly uninjured.

Once all of them were out of their seats and being kept an eye on, Lachlan, Vikk and Mitch all right beside me, my attention finally turned to the burned wreck. Preston and Rob. Where were Preston and Rob? I had been so focused on the boys beside me that I didn't realise that they weren't there.

I began to panic. Where were they?

I blinked, stumbling. I was still on my feet after several minutes and now the pain was beginning to hit me, my head was pounding and everything ached.

Blinking, I stumbled and then I was out.

---------------------------------------------------

I remembered the rushed ride to the hospital in the ambulance, the doctors and nurses checking me over but declaring that I was mostly uninjured. I remembered asking where the boys were, where Mitch was and where the others were but there was no answer. They didn't have anything to tell me.

Eventually I got something, Lachlan was in the same hospital as me but Vikk and Mitch had been rushed elsewhere because of the number of people that had to be hospitalized. My heart sank when I got the next news, through the television.

There were 304 souls on board and so far there had been 132 bodies recovered. Unknown numbers in the hospital, unknown numbers missing, unknown cause of crash.

I first saw Lachlan a few hours after the crash, when the nurses were trying to reunite survivors of the crash together. He was injured but the only injuries were a massive egg on his head and a broken leg, and he squeezed his arms tightly around me the second we finally saw each other.

The first thing he asked was about the others.

"Where's Vikk and Mitch? Rob and Preston?" I felt the tears welling up inside me.

"Vikk and Mitch are in another hospital, I saw them both after the crash and they didn't seem too badly injured, they were thrown from the plane with us but... I don't know... I don't know where Rob and Preston are. I haven't seen them, there's been no news."

He went pale and clung to me, he knew how many had been confirmed dead. The death toll was rising hour by hour and now it was up to 159. That was more than half of the people on board that had been killed and something in my heart told me that the odds weren't in Preston and Rob's favour. 4 of 6 of us had survived, we had been thrown from the plane. It wasn't in their favour.

All 4 of us were released from the two hospitals less than 12 hours after the crash and we were all taken to a temporary shelter for survivors, those who didn't have relatives in the city. I saw Mitch first, half asleep on a mattress in the middle of the hall, with Vikk sitting beside him, both legs in cast.

There was sobbing and crying as we reunited, screams of joy and kisses and hugs. There was also a sobering moment as the 4 of us realised that two of the group was missing, Rob and Preston weren't there with us and we had no idea if they were dead or alive.

It was the following morning, after a sleepless night filled with pain and tears, that they started naming the victims of the crash. Neither Preston or Rob was on the list and officially both of them were missing because no one was sure if they were one of the dead, missing or in hospital.

There were tearful calls to family members and friends, I remembered Vikk's painful call to the members of the Sidemen the next morning to tell them that he was alive. He cried and Lachlan just held him tight, both of them being bound to the floor, wheelchairs or crutches because of their casts.

Mitch spent most of the first day curled up in my lap, nursing the bruises and bumps he had sustained. It seemed the row the two of us had sat in had received the least injuries because neither of us had broken bones, just concussions and bruises.

I simply held him tight because there was nothing we could do other than watch the news and wince at the rising death toll. 159, then 162, then 170. If it kept rising then two-thirds of the passengers and crew would have died, meaning that the four of us were incredibly lucky.

The pilot and co-pilot had been confirmed dead, as had several children.

We didn't get any news about what had happened to Preston and Rob until that night. There were boards up the front with papers, the list of passengers on them, and beside the names were the status of that particular passenger. That night when we checked them, instead of missing next to their names, there were the words status known, information available.

And so we asked for that information. Mitch screamed and fell to his knees, the information was exactly what we had feared.

Both Preston and Rob had died in the crash and were among the dead, there had been no chance of saving them. They had both been found among the mangled wreckage and declared dead on scene but the one piece of information we were told was that they had been found hand in hand. They had never let each other go.

My fingers shook as I held Mitch close. Lachlan and Vikk were right beside us, both of them were crying as well. We had just lost two of our closest friends, simply because they were sitting across the aisle from us and I knew if they had been sitting in front of us, or behind Vikk and Lachlan, they would have survived.

We found out that the only survivors, who numbered 112 by the end of the week, were on the left side of the plane. Every single one of the survivors was sat on the left side of the plane and that was because the right wing engine had exploded, killing everyone on the right hand side of the plane and most of the people on the left hand side in the centre.

"Mitch?" My voice shook as I spoke, trying to get his attention. He looked up, his lip trembling. "I'm here. You're here. Vikk and Lachlan are still here. Rob and Preston might not be here anymore but you need to remember that it's okay. We're still here. I'll be here for you."

"I know." He mumbled, his hands snaking around my waist. "But why did it have to be Preston and Rob? Why did they have to sit on the other side? Why did it have to be them?"

He was crying now, both of us were. But neither of us knew the answer to that question.

"I don't know Mitch. I just don't know."