I inhale the frozen air and let it fill my lungs. My mind fires up and I turn from the ledge and look back across the frozen land. The wind dies down and I can see the thin strip on which the captain crashed the plane. It is a plateau a couple hundred yards wide and perhaps twice as long. It is dotted with thick evergreen trees and shrouded on all sides by mountain peaks. It was pure dumb random luck, I think. We hit a tiny runway tucked on the side of a mountain. A hundred yards more in any direction and we’re dead.
Whatever footprints I made on my way to the ledge have been swept away by the wind. An impenetrable wall of snow and ice moves sideways through the air. I can see neither tail nor wreckage. I close my eyes and imagine my trek to this ledge and then my way back. I open them and step forward with an odd air of confidence.
This isn’t a want. You need to save Paul. You have no choice, Jane. Just go forward.
I take my first step and then a second. Slowly, I trudge through the deep drifts of snow. Each step requires an enormous exertion of energy. I steel myself against the wind and ice, and I let my legs take over. One foot in front of the other until, after ten minutes, in the near distance, I glimpse a speck of red in a sea of white. Lettering, a number, I do not know what it is yet, but through the squall I lock my eyes onto that one spot. It must be the body of the plane.
With a shot of hope to charge me up, my right leg flies out of the drift and then my left. Step over step, again and again, I move through the deep snow without thinking, just staring at that bit of red.
The red gets brighter and deeper, but it isn’t a number or a letter. I’m about five feet away, a couple of strides perhaps, when I see a red boot sticking straight up out of the snow. There’s a leg attached. And then about two or three feet from the leg, I see the captain’s head, turned on its side, detached from its body, staring at me.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out until my guts clench and I dry heave specks of dark green bile onto the snow.
There’s no air in my lungs and my stomach turns again and the sound that comes out of my body is deep and soul-scraping, like a wounded animal torn in half by a trap. I look around and see luggage, clothing, debris, and what appears to be a woman with her arm draped over the snow at the near entrance of the main cabin. Her hand is still adorned with a giant ring.
“Margaret,” I whisper.
It is weird and unexpected, but a lump grows in my throat. This is so fucking random. I’m alive and Margaret’s dead. Why do I deserve to live? I don’t. I don’t.
I imagine Eddie, and Margaret’s sisters and brothers, her mother and father, all of who are hoping right now that she’ll be the lucky one. I can hear Eddie’s voice as clearly as if I were still standing in line behind him: “If anyone survives, it’ll be Margaret. She’s a survivor.” Well, I guess we all are until we’re not.
And then my mother’s face pops into my mind. That sad, broken face she wore for years after my father died. For a moment I try hard to remember what her face was like on that Christmas Eve before he died. We made cookies. I wonder if she remembers? I wonder if across the continent, our brains could be connecting right now. If she believes I’m a survivor.
Alex Morel
Survive