CRASHED (Part 1)

                        By: Sreeja Padmala and Srivarshini Raj Papisetty 

“Excuse me!” Brooklyn yells as she dashes through the crowd. “Sorry!” 

When she reached the gate, she sees New York City, NY to Paris, France on the big TV screen. The doors are still open to her surprise. She walks up to the front desk. 

“Boarding pass, please,” requests the flight attendant.

“Oh! Found it,” she says gladly as she hands the boarding pass to the attendant. Her mom booked it for her.

This would be the first time she would travel alone, her mom, busy with work. Her dad, on a business trip. She will be 15 in a month anyway.

Brooklyn shows her boarding pass and heads into the tunnel leading to the plane. 

“Enjoy your flight!” calls the attendant.

She walks through the narrow pathway into the plane to get to her seat. She notices she has to sit next to this teenage boy in a hoodie.

As she puts her luggage up in the cabin, she scans around the plane. The captain begins to speak and announces; “Hi everyone, this is your Captain Sri, today we will be departing for Paris and it will be an 11-hour flight. We will be expecting slight turbulence during the flight, but nothing to worry about. We hope you enjoy your flight. Please buckle your seat belts for take-off, thank you.”

Brooklyn sits down in her seat, B3 next to the boy who has his hood up over his head. She clicks on her seatbelt and opens up the map on the airplane’s seat-back screen. 

The plane begins to move at a gentle speed as it gets faster and faster. It takes off and disappears into the sky filled with clouds. A sense of relief fills Brooklyn. 

Only 11 hours to go to meet Grandma and Grandpa, she thought as she wondered about this long flight to Europe.

After a little bit, Brooklyn stares at the boy’s screen and she notices that he’s watching a movie. 

“Omg! Is that the Hunger Games? I loved that movie,” she exclaims.

The boy looks up at her, bringing down his hood. He has deep brown hair and gray eyes. 

“Ya, it is,” he responds, sarcastically.

As time passes, they begin to watch the movie together. 

“May the odds be ever in your favor!” they exclaim as they laugh together.

“I’m Brooklyn, by the way. Brook for short,” she blushes as she admires his face.

“Ben, my name is Ben,” he says.

“Only 10 more hours until I meet my grandparents!” Brooklyn states aloud as more time passes.

“Oh wow, I’m going to visit my family too,” Ben acknowledges.

“Cool,” she answers, smiling widely.

Brooklyn gets up to go to the bathroom and as she comes back the plane lowers down for 1 minute straight and stops. Brooklyn hurries off to her seat. As she reaches for her seat, the plane tilts left and before she knows it Brooklyn is leaning toward Ben. Her head rests on his shoulder and Brooklyn’s sweet chocolate brown eyes meet his light, stormy gray eyes. 

“Sorry,” Brooklyn says as she blushes; embarrassed.

“No worries,” Ben says giving a small smile.

“Sorry about the inconvenience, folks. That was something unexpected, but we advise you to stay seated until further notice. Thank you,” informs the captain.

After what seemed like a million hours, the flight attendants roll the food carts around and ask what they would like to eat.

“I will take a salad, please,” Brook replies.

“I will have the same,” Ben announces as well. 

The flight attendants came back rolling the carts to dispose of the food. They go into the narrow path and disappear into the darkness.

The lights start to fade, and the flight goes at a steady pace as it becomes completely dark. Brook decides to watch a movie on her screen and skims through options. After selecting a movie and letting it play, she seems to doze off to sleep. Her head lowers onto a smooth surface and she seems to settle into sleep without realizing that she is sleeping on Ben’s shoulder. Ben is surprised by this and smiles to himself, not disturbing Brook in her slumber.

As everyone drifts off to sleep, the plane makes a huge noise. BOOM! SCREECH! 

Everyone wakes up astonished and confused and scared. “This is your captain speaking, please buckle up your seatbelts ASAP and brace yourselves as we do an emergency landing!” she instructed.

“What?! What is happening?!” Brook questions; worried. Ben tries to calm her down and as they look outside, they see water so close beneath them.

“BRACE YOURSELVES!!!” The flight attendants scream from the back of the plane.

Everyone nods and braces themselves nervously. The plane swishes into the water fast like a jet ski and makes loud noises. SWISH!

“HANG ON!” the pilots scream over the intercom.

Then, the plane stops all of a sudden and lands with a big BOOM on the water’s surface. Brook hits her head on the seat in front of her and falls back onto her seat. As she slightly opens her eyes she sees water under her seat, she touches her forehead gently. Brooklyn lifts her hand in front of her face and sees blood on her hand. 

“OMG! There is blood on my forehead!” she moaned as looked over at Ben.

Ben is unconscious and Brooklyn tries to wake him up. She reaches down to get some water in her hands and splashes it onto Ben’s face.

“Oh my god!” he yells as he jerks awake.

“Are you okay?!” Brook questions; worriedly. 

“Ya, but. But…” Ben stammers.

Everyone around them is scared and they don’t know what to do.

“Everyone, grab your carry bag and come follow me. We are going to head out to the little island over there!” The co-pilot instructs as she points to the small island in a far distance.

Then, Ben gets out of his seat and slides past Brook. 

“Where are you going?” Brook asks. He runs down to the front of the plane and grabs a box. He comes dashing back to Brook. 

“Everyone, come to the west exit!” notifies the captain from the exit. 

“Grab your backpack and let’s go,” he asserts. Brook follows him and grabs her backpack. She listens to Ben, and they go to the nearest exit. Ben grabs 2 life jackets and gives one to Brook. They both put them on and hold hands. Brook and Ben carefully walk onto the wing of the plane and jump into the lifeboat. A middle-aged man with a small suitcase also leaps in. 

“Hurry up already! We need to get out of this freaking area before the plane explodes. Hurry boy!” he rants.

Business-class people these days, Brook thought as she shakes her head. 

Ben and Brook row the boat hastily to the island and come to a stop. The others have already reached the island and are gathering around the captain and co-pilot. 

They carefully step onto the island and when Brook took a step, she felt a sudden chill down her spine. Ben grabs the box he took from the aircraft and grabs a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

“Come here and sit on the ground, Brook. You don’t need an infected forehead if you wanna survive until people come and get us,” Ben insists as he tears a small piece of cotton and drips several drops of the alcohol on it. Brook slowly crouches down and sits on the rough ground. Ben gently uses the cotton to rub it onto her forehead as he also crouches down.

“Ouch,” she sniffled, turning red as she thought about the fact that Ben was touching her forehead. Then, Ben takes the gauze roll and cuts a long piece of gauze. He folds it in half. He applies it to her forehead and makes it stay by putting on some band-aids over the gauze. 

“There, all good now,” Ben finished as he put away everything and stood up.

“Thanks, that feels much better,” Brook assured him as she stood up and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

Then, the pilots checked if everyone evacuated the plane. The flight attendants made sure everyone is ok and asked if they need anything. They hand out some water bottles that were grabbed right before they left.

“Bryan Lee,” the captain calls out. No one says anything; complete silence fills the space while some people sniffle and murmur things.

“I repeat Bryan Lee.” No response again.

What’s happening? Didn’t everyone evacuate the plane? It seems like the plane could explode anytime now; Brooklyn worries as she looked at the scene of the plane. She notices the plane is half sunk in the seawater. The plane’s back wing- it’s fully damaged. The whole body of the plane is wrecked; parts of the body are floating near the plane. She looks back at the crew again. 

I think they’re talking about the plane; Brook ponders as she focuses on the crew and the people now. She looks at Ben who has a concerned look on his face; she puts a hand on him to support him and he returns a weak smile. 

The crew and the captain decide to go inside the plane, but the co-pilot stops them.

“It’s too dangerous, Sri. You can’t go. We need you to signal the airlines somehow. We need to get out of here,” she protests. 

Then, suddenly the plane explodes. BOOM! Fire expands into the atmosphere, and parts of the wings and body fly everywhere. Everyone jumps back and then Brook sees a lady running toward the plane. “NO! No, wait! My sons, they might still be there. No,” She sobs as the flight attendants try to calm her down.

“I'm so sorry to hear about your sons, ma’am. I can't imagine what this must feel like for you. Please calm down, we don’t want to scare the others,” they comfort her as one flight attendant holds her hand. Brook joins them.

Captain Sri discerns that and runs towards them. Brook reaches the lady and pulls her back as she was trying to wade through the water to get to the destroyed aircraft.

“No, my sons in there,” she cries as she regains her balance.

“No, not yet!” the lady wailed like a newborn baby. Brooklyn stares at her with terror and sadness in her eyes. The crew runs towards the lady and calms her down. 

Then, Brook runs over to the pilots. 

“6 people are still in the plane and are likely to be dead,” Captain Sri reported to the crew.

Then, Ben runs up to Brook and sees her face concerned. 

“What happened?” he questions; the look of terror and shock and worry filled his eyes. 

“Ben. Ben, 6 people were still on that plane; before the plane exploded. The captain said that” she explained. Ben’s face turns into horror.

“What? Didn’t they evacuate everyone?” he gasped.

“Sorry, boy. But we didn’t see them. I thought they came with us,” the captain said as she ended the conversation.

Then, the crew and Captain Sri grabbed their telescopes and looked into them. Ben and Brook decide to join as one of the flight attendants hands Ben a telescope.

“Wait, do you guys see this island?” It was a much bigger island, possibly an easier place to survive until someone reaches the people stranded there.

The co-pilot grabs the telescope and takes a look, “Oh my god, it’s a much bigger island. We could find some food there since we are running low on food supplies.”

“How many lifeboats do we have?” The captain questions the flight attendant.

“Only one,” she responds.

“Alright, me and 2 other people will go to the island,” she responds.

“I’m coming with you,” Ben insists. 

“Me too,” Brook says the same.

“No, Brook. It’s too dangerous. Don’t you remember? You have an injury on your forehead,” he reminds.

“No, I’ll be fine. I need to see the island, too” she snaps back.

Unable to argue with Brook’s stubbornness, he decides to let her come too.

“Hurry, you two. The sun’s going to set soon. We need to be back by then,” the captain adds.

“Alright everyone, we four are setting out to the island. Once we find a phone, someone, or food, we will come back here to contact someone. Don’t worry and stay calm. Everyone will be fine.” the co-pilot assures.

As they say that, they jump into the lifeboat and began to paddle the boat. As the co-pilot paddles, Captain Sri tells her about the direction from her telescope. Then, she spots something, something blue, tall, and shadowy, then realizes that-

“HOLD ON!” the captain yells. The tides swish through the lifeboat and everyone holds on tightly. Then, Brooklyn tries to grip the lifeboat’s edge, but instead, she misses and tumbles into the sea.

“BEN!” she shrieked as tried to stay above the water. “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO SWIM!”

Ben quickly grabs onto her hand and does not let go at all costs. 

“Ben, I’m not going to make it!” Brook exclaims.

“Please. Hold on, Brooklyn. Captain Sri! Is there any emergency rope or something long that I can use?” Ben questions as he tears up. 

Then Brook’s hand slips through his and she plunges into the cold, dark, and cruel sea again. Ben screams as he jumps in to save her. The pilots try to help, trying to grab Ben’s body before he also slips into the deep sea. 

They lose their clutch on him and he swims after Brook, fighting against the vicious sea.

To be continued…