Crash of Hearts

Chapter Three

Slowly, my little brother’s brown eyes began to open. David and I positioned ourselves in front of him so Sammy wouldn’t see what was behind us. He didn’t ask any questions; instead, he peered curiously at both of us, more at David than at myself, probably wondering who he was.

“David,” he simply said, offering a hand to Sammy. They shook hands and continued to look at each other, almost like they were having a brief, unspoken conversation. Once they were done, David spoke again. “We should probably get out of here, try and find some help.”

I got up and did a three-sixty. There was the plane in pieces behind me, the lone tree in front, and rolling plains of grass to my right and left. The sun was just above the horizon, but the heat was still baring. We had to be in Oklahoma, maybe Texas even.

There were no roads, no sign of civilization in this section of the state. I had no idea where we were, and I didn’t recognize a single aspect of the landscape from any of the previous flights we had to Aunt Haley and Uncle Jim’s.

“Which way?” I asked. “None of this looks familiar to me. And why haven’t there been emergency vehicles yet? It has to have been an hour since the crash.”

“Maybe they don’t know where we are,” Sammy said, rubbing the welt that was on his forehead from when he bumped me on my chin.

“This doesn’t just happen…” I said to myself, no longer thinking of where we were. That didn’t seem to matter compared to what had just happened. Questions swirled in my mind. It was almost like a dream.

“Come on, let’s start walking. I say we go this way,” David said, pointing in front of us, in the direction of the tree.

Sammy got up along with David, and that’s what we did; we started to walk. Everyone seemed able-bodied enough to walk on their own. I felt Sammy’s hand slip into mine, giving me a gentle squeeze. He looked up at me, and gave me something that surprised me, something that seemed out of place in a situation like ours.

Sammy smiled.

“We’ll be home soon Ari,” my little brother said to me. David grinned a little too, so I thought I’d smile too, for Sammy’s benefit, even though it didn’t feel right. Hundreds of people were dead, nobody knew where we were, and the locket around my neck felt like it was starting to burn again. I took the necklace and put it in my pocket, hoping that it wouldn’t burn through the fabric.

David noticed the red heart that was scorched onto my chest. He tried to make eye contact with me but I quickly looked away, hoping he wouldn’t question me in front of Sammy. My brother was already to curious about everything in the first place.

The sun had already disappeared, being replaced by the moon. There was some light being reflected by the moon, lighting us a path still of endless grass. My eye lids were starting to sink, and Sammy’s hand had long slipped out of mine.

In union, we all stopped. Our breaths were the only thing that was audible in the still, cool night.

David spoke. “We can stay here for the night and start walking in the morning. I don’t think we’re that far from a road or town.”

His words didn’t give me hope. There was still no sign of the town and we had walked away far enough from the plane that we saw no smoke in the sky. Maybe we should have stayed with the plane. The smoke would have given off a signal of some sort, and people would be there to help us. Now that we were gone, they would have three missing people, not knowing which way we went and would have to search for us.

So we all laid down where we were. Sammy curled up beside me, shivering from the cool breeze of the night. David laid next to him, cocooning him tightly between us. It still felt awkward to have David with us. We didn’t know him at all and having met the strange way we did only heightened the weirdness between us. I was glad I had saved him though. It was good to have an extra person with us, especially an adult to help guide us. I had considered myself to be a grown up at age sixteen, but I was so frightened that it made me feel like a little girl again.

My eyes would not close. Sammy’s labored breathing gave me relief. All I could hope was that his dream world was a lot better than this and that it would last him a while. For some reason, everything felt like my fault. Why didn’t I listen to him on the plane? Maybe I could have notified someone about the man under the wing. Maybe he had something to do with everything. Maybe we could have gotten off of the plane and gotten a different flight.

His life was in my hands, and I had to make sure nothing bad happened to him.

I heard a soft whisper across from Sammy. “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” I whispered back. It was good to have a conversation with someone who understood more about life than an eight year old.

“What happened to your locket?”

“I put it in my pocket. It was bugging me.”

There was silence for a few seconds. I could hear David’s head swivel in the grass to look at me. His eyes bored into me, studying my almost like a book.

“That’s not what I meant… Why did your locket do that to you?” he said.

I took a hard swallow, realizing how dry my throat was. I hadn’t taken a drink of anything since the airport.

Only three words came from me, honest as can be. “I… don’t know.”

Now that he brought it up, my hand reached for my pocket. It was warm, but nothing felt burned yet. Hopefully it would stay that way because these were the only shorts that I had now that the plane’s luggage was burned away.

“I wish we had a phone,” he said.

All I could do at that point was sigh. Mine must have fallen out of my hand while we were jostling in the plane, and I could only imagine that the same happened to him. The plane shook so hard you had to drop everything to grab onto something stable.

The stars shined down from above, twinkling at us. It was hard to imagine that just this morning we were just at our uncle and aunt’s house, packing for the trip back home. I had a glass of milk with some pancakes while Sammy ate his favorite food; waffles. I’d give anything at that moment to be back there, sleeping in my own bed instead of lying in a field of grass, wondering what was crawling around me.