Colours and objects where spinning around in my head. My vision was blurry. I watched it gradually come into focus. Blinding white light was making it difficult for me to see much.
I tried to stand up. But a saftey belt pulled me back. Panicking, I tried to undo the belt. My delicate hands were fumbling as I struggled to figure out how to press the catch button.
I looked over to the aisle seat next to me on my right. My neighbouring passenger was hanging out the seat. One of his arms was hanging over the aisle and looked very broken. It hanged like a limp appendage of meat. His bone must have been shattered by something falling on him during our not so smooth landing. His head was hanging over the aisle to, so I couldn't get a look at his eyes. His skin was bluish. He must be dead or out cold. I pressed my fingers into his throat for his jugular pulse. There was no pulse. My heart was throbbing.
I could feel it pounding against my ribs as though my ribs might break with the pressure. I wasn't sure how to get out of my seat. I was panicking too badly to make any decisions. My head was spinning and the picture I was seeing of debris and luggage scattered down the aisle, loose cords and snapped straps and corpses thrown into the aisle. I was seeing triple images. There was a voice, but I couldn't understand it. It was a man's voice. He was talking to me, but the words span over my head. I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or if what I saw was real.
I woke up. A torso was against my chest. The torso had a black T-shirt on. I strained my eyes to see more of his body. My left eye hurt badly and I couldn't see anything out of it. My head was held against his chest, and I felt strong arms holding me around my back. I was being lifted up from my seat. I felt my weak body being supported by his. The shirt was wet from sweat.
"Fuck, I thought you were dead. I thought there were only two of us alive left." He said.
"I almost am dead." I grunted.
"You're going to be okay." His booming voice told me, "you have a gash across your left face, but you'll be fine."
Next one of his arms went under my knees. I could feel the muscles in them, and his hairs tickling my shaven legs. I felt his muscles tightening as he grunted and with the effort of bearing my body weight. Snapshot images I caught of seats and the aisle of the broken plane indicated he was carrying me outside.
I felt the jolt through his body as he stepped down off the fuselage and onto the ground. My eye away from his body scanned the redness and sandiness of the ground. The ground seemed to be made of hard cake plates that had cracked between each other from sheer heat. There were a few rocks and bushes, but not much.
I could feel his hips pressing in and out of my left leg that was against his body as he walked. I could hear the thumping of his feet on the ground. Slowly, he bent down and my body came in contact with the land. From the temperature drop I felt through my skin and the sudden darkness, I knew I was under the shade of something. He'd leaned my back against one side of the fuselage cylinder.
"I'm going to tie the left side of your face up to keep flies out." He said. I tried to lift my hand up to feel the severity of my wound, but he pulled it back.
I could hear the ripping of material. His T-shirt. I felt it being wrapped around my head, and covering my eyes so I was immersed in darkness.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"Some where in the Australian desert away in the whoop whoops." He replied.
I felt my stomach clench.
"Does anyone know we're here?"
"Don't you worry about that," he said, "there's nothing we can do about them."
"Is my eye going to be okay?" I asked.
"Just keep it closed." He said.
"But what does it look like?"
"It's a little red." He said.
"Do you mean its bleeding?"
"It doesn't matter, it will be fixed soon."
"Fuck I'm thirsty." I said.
He held a bottle to my lips. I drank. My tender cracked lips swelled up with the water. I wanted to run my hands through my short blonde and tossed hair, but the bandages were in the way.
"There's bottles of water and soft drinks which survived the crash. In the gully all there. And some food as well."
"You, I and Tanya are the only survivors in this fuselage." He said.
