by Mitch Goth
tumbled, listless, without power. Her neck was broken. She was dead.
Horrified and forever traumatized, the man stepped away from the lifeless bodies of the two people who made his world livable. Unsure what else to do, he simply fell to his knees, weighed down by sadness and regret. Regret over not being an even better husband and father than he already was, regret over the fact that he was there for their true last moments, and, by far the biggest regret of all, that he didn't follow them through the dark when they went.
-
Waking up in the middle of tall grass, the young, athletic man, wasn't sure what'd happened to him. The last thing that he recalled was sitting on the plane, and the intense fear that coursed through every inch of him. Now here he was, lying face up in a field of grass, so tall he couldn't see anything other than the afternoon sky.
He had no clue how he'd gotten here, or what'd happened. Although he could assume rather well. It must've been a plane crash. It must've been. But, that begged the question of what happened to the plane, and everyone else on it. They young man tried to crane himself over the tall grasses to see what was around him. That's when he felt it. A shattering pain brought him back down to the dirt with a shriek of pain. Looking down, the young athlete saw the source of his pain and let out another cry, this one of pure horror.
His right leg was covered in crimson. Upon further inspection, he could see countless contusions and open gashes in his leg, each still pouring out blood. The only wounds in his leg that weren't bleeding still were those that were plugged up by the compound fractures of his tibia. The sight of his crushed bone through the skin and formerly toned muscles of his leg brought him to heaving. But, beyond the disgust and pain brought by this injury, the young man saw the seriousness of the situation. If he didn't find help soon, he would bleed out, and if that didn't happen, he'd most certainly lose his leg.
Wincing and yelping through the pain, the young man managed to sit himself up. Despite the movement not doing much shifting of his leg, the whole procedure still shook him down to his bones. The pain was so mind numbing his vision went temporarily blurry. But, as it slowly returned, he realized that he was able to see over the tall field grass now, albeit still with a bit of craning.
All he saw were towers of smoke coming from a farm field no more than a football field away. He sat for a moment and managed to ignore his pains as he stared at the tall flames and pluming smoke of the wreckage. As he watched, he could see other survivors making their way out of the destruction and out onto what appeared to be a road. As a few of them got to the street, several emergency vehicles pulled up and paramedics and firefighters began swiftly mobilizing. This sight brought the young man back to reality.
Looking down at his leg once more, he saw that the bleeding had not ceased, and his shifting had torn a few of the gashes even further open. That's when he noticed how light his head felt and how white his arms were becoming. Much of his blood was now soaking into the dirt, creating a thick, vermilion mud that smelled slightly of iron. It was quite the disgusting thing, and the young man knew if he didn't act then he'd fall down dead in this stew of earth and human fluid.
The youthful athlete, no matter how strong in body he was, was not strong in will enough to even try moving his leg another inch. There was no way he could go to the paramedics, they had to come to him. Hoping it was enough, he called out through the grass as loud as he could. A head in the distance seemed to perk up. He yelled again. Slightly more movement. As he yelled, the world began to spin slowly. The kid needed something better, he knew it. That's when he recalled something he'd learned during his time in Boy Scouts, something that'd never once come in handy before today. He put two fingers between his lips and blew. The ear piercing whistle almost echoed throughout the flatland.
With that shrieking sound, a few paramedics began running towards him. He waved at them, and then brought his hand down to whistle again. He waved and whistled constantly until they got to him.
As they loaded him into an ambulance, the young man was confident that his present was safe from all harm. He'd managed to survive something not many others can. But, despite the fact that this horrendous plane crash hadn't taken his life away, as he looked down at his shredded leg, he couldn't shake the fear that this accident had stolen his future.
-
The woman's ordeal directly following the accident was short, as she was only conscious for a short period of time, a fleeting moment between impact and her hospital room. But, however short and blurred it was, it stuck in her brain all the same.
She awoke slowly, and her vision never really came all the way into focus. She could still depend on her hearing though. Screaming and crying was what she awoke to as a distraught person darted by her body, wailing as they went. After they went out of earshot, she heard the low roar of a nearby fire, and could smell the pungent fuel as it burned. She couldn't see the smoke, but she knew that it was there.
Her whole body ached, she didn't want to move. But, the part of her that hurt the most was her head. Through the heat of the close fire, she felt the cool streams of blood rolling down her face. Every time that her temple pulsed, she felt a bit more begin to seep out and across her eyes.
Attempting to shift caused her nothing but pain, enough for her to wince, which only cause further pain in her head. But, through that hurt came a rather insignificant, yet interesting piece of information. She felt something fall from the gash in her head as she made her painful face. Upon opening her eyes again and focusing as much as she could, she noticed that it was a piece of metal. From where she wasn't sure. Moving her head slightly closer gave her an answer, as a small letter "F" showed up on a flat portion of the metal shard. It was a key to a typewriter, her typewriter.
The typewriter was a massive, heavy machine. Well built, highly dependable, and always her choice of writing device. It always amazed her that she could manage to bring a typewriter onto these small local flights, but still she couldn't bring any water bottles or hand soap.
She had no recollection of getting hit with the machine, but if it had struck so hard as to leave one of its keys lodged in her temple, there probably wasn't much left of it elsewhere anyway. After that realization, the woman's vision began to blur again. She wanted to fight through it. The pain was unbearable, the heat was beginning to get too close for comfort, and the smell of fuel and burning flesh stung her sinuses, but she didn't want to slip away from reality again. She feared that she might not ever come back if she did. But, no matter how much she fought against it, the woman's vision got worse and worse and her eyelids got heavier, and in no time she blacked out once more.
3
The man stood over the edge of the bridge. He was tall enough where he could just shift his gravity and flip himself over the railing if he wanted. But, it seemed only right to savor the moment more than that. His wife didn't get that chance, neither did his daughter. Hell, she hardly even got a chance to live. But he had this opportunity, to take a moment to savor it all, reflect on it all, and to leave it all behind.
He lost his wife, he lost his daughter, he lost his whole life. Everything that he knew he loved, everything that gave him a reason to breathe was gone in an instant. He could be gone just as quickly now, he could tumble down into the icy currents and be swept away, right back into their warm, loving embrace. Wherever they were now, he would be there soon, and he knew they'd be happy to see him. He longed to see their identical smiles again. Even if he didn't die when he hit the water, the thought of them would keep him warm through the dark, bitter cold water below.
With a long, deep breath, the man had gone through all that he wanted to go through before his finishing moment. He took one last look around. The fog was even thicker now, he could hardly see the streetlights above him. The man liked to think that if he saw someone else on this bridge about to do as he was, he'd talk them out of it. Alas, the world simply didn't work like that, and the fog was too disruptive for him to see any of it anyway. And so
he turned away from the misty scenery surrounding him and focused on the beautiful oblivion below.
-
The woman stood over the railing of the bridge, ready to begin her climb over it. It was just a few feet of steel and cement, she wasn't going to let it hinder any of her progress. Holding the notepad in her hand, but dropping her pen, she lifted herself up and put one leg over the side. In that instant she felt more liberated than she had felt at all after the crash. Since then her mind was in control of her as it faded away. But now, at long last, she was back in the seat of power of her own body, and she knew what she wanted to do with it, exactly what was scratched deeply into the paged of the notebook in her hands. Jump. Jump. Jump.
With another lift, she got her other leg over the railing. Now it was just a few inches of foothold and a single arm grip keeping her from the fall, keeping her from her freeing eternity. She wanted so badly to let herself go, but peace had to come first. It was coming quickly, she could feel it, but in her last moments, the woman wasn't much in the mood to rush anything into her head.
Aside from the freedom she felt dangling over the edge of this life, she felt a spot of guilt at all of those she was
