Pine opened his eyes to a familiar scene; sunlight filtered through the branches of the trees and the faint trickle of a brook, presumably, could just barely be heard over the chatter of birds.
But something was wrong.
He remembered being on a plane with the rest of his high school class, heading to Anchorage, Alaska.
What happened?
Oh, yeah.
The plane had come down frighteningly quickly; he guessed it had been about 5 minutes from the first hint of engine noise he heard through his AJR music to the moment everything went black. He wondered where everyone was, if anyone else was even alive.
Alive?
I'm not alone, am I?
Am I alive?
Pine sat up with a sudden burst of quickening fear and checked himself thoroughly to make sure he was alright. A couple of bruises and cuts, only one or two were very deep; what seemed to be a slight concussion, or at least some form of brain injury; and a black eye. He was fine, he realized with a shuddering sigh of relief.
Standing up and scanning his surroundings, he was surprised to only see bits and pieces of shrapnel and mementoes from the plane. The tips of the trees appeared to have been sliced by its wings or at least snagged on, and the direction of the plane pointed towards the setting sun.
West, He told himself, trying desperately to remember the survival skills his adoptive father had taught him on their countless backpacking trips. The sun sets in the West. That means we either went off-course or are really pointed Northwest.
Comforted with this information, he padded shakily down the cleared path of wreckage, scanning anxiously for his classmates, his teachers, his friends.
