Written for the Creative Arts Program at Henry Park School, 2009

I woke up to a bright yellow light streaming in from all directions. Was this heaven? I attempted to lift my head to look around and a sharp pain in the back of my neck caused my head to fall forward into the ground. I felt a strong pair of arms helping me to sit up. It was Felix. Felix.

“Felix!” I exclaimed and wrapped my arms around him, sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. My brother was alive. That was all I needed for now. Felix let me go and we just sat there looking at each other, taking in the sight of each other.

I examined our bodies. Just deep cuts, no bones broken or sprained. My eyes adjusted to the light as I took in my surroundings. Sand. Trees. A pile of metal. I pushed myself off the ground and walked towards the plane. Corpses lay strewn all around it and bits of luggage covered the floor. I looked away, wanting to cry again. Innocent people, with families and friends had died. Felix took my hand and attempted to pull me forward, but my feet were rooted to the ground. My brain refused to function. It was too much for me to take in. He let me stand there looking into space for a few moments before walking off and starting to pick up bits of luggage and pulling them to a corner by a tree, searching for useful objects.

I was vaguely aware that my body had started to mirror his actions until the entire luggage of the plane had been moved. My mind was someplace else entirely, replaying the crash over and over again uncontrollably. I saw the plane shaking, the women screaming, the men crying, the elderly praying. I shook my head, as if to shake the horrible memory out of my head.

Then, I focused on Felix. He was crouched in a ball near the tree, rocking back and forth, his eyes wide open as he focused on the corpses. I crawled over to him and put my arms around him. His sobs came in short, hurried gasps and he leaned his head on my shoulder.

“What are we going to do, Erin?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but we will get off of this island, I promise.” I replied.

I found a blanket in a luggage and draped it around Felix. It was a soft baby blue blanket with little brown bears embroidered into its corners. Felix clutched it and I helped him lie down on the sand. Soon, I heard the comforting sounds of his slow breathing.

We needed water. I dug a hole in the ground and filled a plastic bag with water from the sea and grabbed six clean pebbles, washing them in the water. Then, I placed the plastic bag in the hole and put a pebble into the baby bottle and placed the bottle into the plastic bag. Finally, I lay another plastic bag over the hole, weighing it down with 4 pebbles, placing the last one directly above the bottle. Exhausted, I slumped down onto the soft sand, losing myself in slumber.

When morning came, I lifted the plastic bag off of the hole and found water in it. I woke Felix and we shared the bottle of water. I started searching through the luggage again and found a box of matches. Felix lit the matches and set some clothes on fire. We threw in paper, cloth, anything that was flammable, and waited anxiously for someone to come. Soon, we started tearing leaves off of trees, throwing them in too, until we were both too exhausted to carry on and flopped onto the ground, watching the fire as the sky got darker. We threw in everything we could find and thick plumes of smoke rose into the air. We jumped around and shouted, “HELP!” and “SOS!” like madmen. Then, about five hours later, just when we were at the point of giving up, I heard the sound of a propeller up in the sky, and saw the faint outline of a helicopter coming towards us from the distance. Someone had spotted us. Our lives had been saved.

Lim Tze Yen Jan Noriko Lim

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700 words.