Orona (Book 1)

Chapter 2 - Mysterious Attack

"Troy, wake up," Drew whispered, softly nudging my right shoulder. "We need some water. There's a stream down below. Come help me fill these bottles, several of the wounded are asking for water." I felt the small, slightly crushed empty plastic water bottles hit my back.

I wasn't surprised he woke me up instead of Jack who I could hear snoring right next to me. Though Jack was the shortest of the family, he was also the stockiest, and ill-tempered if woken from his slumber. Standing at about five foot nine and one hundred and eighty pounds of mostly muscle, he was quick to challenge any man who wronged him. Years of wrestling in high-school only fine-tuned his abilities, making it easy for him to quickly take down a man twice his size and keep him pinned.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. They weren't ready for the daylight, and I lifted my hand up to shield them from the sun. I took a breath and was immediately hit with a terrible stench that smelled like a mixture of jet fuel, burnt metal, and another horrible odor. Then I had the sick realization that it was probably the passengers that had died on impact . The ones we didn't even bother trying to save because they were burning along with pieces of the plane.

It was surprisingly quiet. I stood up and sharp pains shot through my body, but I noticed the gash on my stomach had clotted up nicely in the night. I climbed up and over the boulder we had slept next to and got my first view of our surroundings. It was not what I expected.

Beautiful large dark green pine trees went on as far as I could see. They were huge, larger than the great sequoias I had seen in northern California. I looked down the mountainside and could see Drew up ahead, making his way to a small creek that fed into a large aqua-blue lake below. On all sides of us were towering, snow-capped, jagged mountain ranges that brushed the slow-moving clouds above.

"Can I help you guys?" asked an eager voice from behind. I turned to find a blonde-haired man of about six feet running to catch up to me, holding several empty bottles in his hands.

"Sure, that would be great," I replied. "I'm Troy."

"I'm Larry," said the man in an American accent as he shuffled the bottles into his arm and reached out a hand. He had bright blonde hair that somehow seemed combed, sharp cheekbones, and sky blue eyes.

"You seem to be one of the lucky ones," I said, noticing he hardly had any cuts or bruises, nor were his clothes tattered like mine.

"Yeah... I was really lucky," he agreed somberly, looking down at his feet. "My girlfriend's parents were both killed in the crash. She's really shaken up about it."

"I bet."

"We were on our way back to Johannesburg for a position she took at the University there. Her parents came to visit us in the States before we left. She begged them to come, even though they hate flying. She convinced them it was the safest form of travel."

"Oh no... I'm sorry to hear that," I responded. I didn't really know what else to say, so I picked up the pace, trying to catch up with Drew.

"Where do you think we are?" he asked from behind, hurrying to keep up.

"I'm not sure. This doesn't look like Africa. We should have been over the Atlantic somewhere, so this doesn't make sense. I would guess we have to be on some kind of island."

"Looks like a big island. I'm surprised no rescue planes have flown over yet. They have to know we went down, and they had all night to get here."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

I pulled out my shattered cell phone, which still wouldn't turn on.

Larry watched me put my phone back in my pocket and said, "I can't get my cell phone to work either. I've already tried a couple of others too. My watch stopped working too. I watched several people die from their wounds last night. Maybe they would have made it if they had medical treatment. Luckily, I found two survivors who had some medical experience this morning. They're doing the best they can with the supplies that we have. I think I'm going to go climb to the top of that little ridge up there and see if I can see something. We've got to find help!"