There Were No Survivors

Veteran flyer Dustin suspected nothing wrong on this routine flight.When two men boarded the plane late, however, it did. Before long the plane was hijacked, and the passengers left to die.

The light faded from the horizon, a distant ray of hope falling into darkness. How many days had it been now? Tens? Hundreds? The meaning of time held no power in these barren lands. Why did it have to happen? For what reason was he stranded, with little food and water?

It had never occurred to Dustin earlier that morning that it might be his last. Not once had he begun to believe his vacation would be replaced with a hellish survival game against Mother Nature. He was a veteran flyer, had always been. He’d seen the world in business class, had been on planes more than he could remember. But never once had they been held up before. Never once had there been strange looking men come on late. That should have been the first clue.

 It brought uneasiness, but it was quickly overlooked by the humming of the powerful engines. Flying always brought euphoria to Dustin, and his mind was quickly put at ease. The flight was a nice one. The boy Dustin sat beside liked to talk, and talk he did. He explained his dreams of becoming a pro baseball player. He loved baseball more than anything, and Dustin felt that. He talked about his relationship with his family, and how his Dad inspired him to follow his dream. He was currently on his way to a summer training camp. Dustin liked to talk about this, and his earlier anxiety was completely gone now. It was miles above a desert that things went wrong.

The two men from before were moving with obvious intent. In seconds they had cleared the over-head compartment of their luggage, charged the c**k pit, and fired their weapons. The sound resounded through the plane and immediately caused screams of fear. On cue, they were all silenced by a giant of a man. These two held control of the plane. They held control of every person on it, and the people knew. The children knew also, as they sat without a sound, tears streaming down their faces. Even through this all, the boy cheered them up. He made faces at the children, and talked to all the people, laughing and making jokes. Even Dustin felt better at this boy’s presence. It was short lived, as the reality of their situation came crashing down.

One man spoke a language which was incomprehensible to many on the plane. It didn’t matter. Everyone knew what they said. They knew what was happening to them, and knew these minutes were their last. No one made a move, no one a sound. Fear bound them into obedience, a much more powerful constraint than chains. The men strapped parachutes to their backs, and everyone looked expectantly at them. With a wave, they escaped from the plane, breaking the chains of fear. Everyone had let go of their anxiety. Many cried tears of joy, others laughed it away. They were alive for now. That was all that mattered. In an instant that was replaced.

Explosions boomed through the plane, the sound of dying engines and scraping metal brought everyone back to their knees. They were not safe, they would not be. The plane nosedived, a stream of jet black clouding the windows. The plane was falling. This was the end. In this instance it finally occurred to Dustin that this might be his last flight. There would be no more meals, nor jobs. He would never see his family again. This was the end. So he prayed. He, and every other person, even atheists, prayed for their lives. The fast approaching ground hurried their prayers, before blackness enveloped them.

Dustin survived. He was the only one. The young boy he sat beside had lived the crash, but not long after. He had lost both his legs, his skull was torn open, and he had his face torn off. He was a bloody disfiguration of the original boy. Dustin did what he could, tried to save the boy, but he knew it would not work.

“I… I guess... I’ll never… play baseball… again.“ the boy spoke with his last breath. This one sentence, just seven simple words, had given realization to Dustin. It couldn’t happen, he wouldn’t let it.

“Hey, hey… it’s not that bad, just a couple �" couple of scratches! Yea, that’s it! You’ll be fine!” Dustin choked out each and every word. Dustin knew it wasn’t true, and so did the boy, but that didn’t stop his disfigured smile.

“At least �" at least I didn’t…. die… alone. Thank you.” The boy choked his last words, and the light fled from his eyes. He had passed into a different realm now. This boy, who had his whole life ahead of him, had lost it all. He could have been a baseball player, could have been one of the greats, but it was taken away from him. It was taken away from everyone on that flight. All of their hopes and their dreams - nothing remained. Nothing but their charred, bloodied corpses. And he cried. He cried, right on the spot, as the boy finally died. Tears that hadn’t flowed for years streamed out like a river. He pleaded to God, to the devil, to any greater power to help this boy. He offered his own life for this boy.

“Take me instead of him!” he cried out. “Save him!” There was no answer, only silence. Dustin had felt alone before, but never like this. He was truly alone now.

For eight days Dustin wandered through the desert. He fought off the blazing days and the frigid nights. Alone, in solitude. He had gotten food and water from the plane, but it was nowhere near enough. Some had been destroyed by the crash, and others had been scattered around the plane, but Dustin dared not go back there. He knew what was there, and he couldn’t bring himself to look upon the dead while he still lived. After those torturous eight days, he was on the verge of collapse. But he had found someone. He was saved.

Days passed quickly, and he had been the only survivor to appear from that crash. The two men responsible were terrorists, and they had never been brought to light. The government tried to get details from Dustin, and he tried his best without breaking down. They found the plane, and found all the bodies. It didn’t matter now, though. It was too late. Everyone was gone forever, all hopes and dreams taken with them. Every night Dustin could see the crash. He could see the people die, their brilliant flames wiped out. Every night, he dreamed of what could have been, what should have been. Every night, he saw the eyes of that boy, saw the light go from them, and he saw every night the end of a person with so much to live for.

The official report came out. The plane carrying 355 people crashed into the desert. There were no survivors.

Reviews

[Starmountainkid]

Again, well written in my opinion. The only problem I see is how did the guy survive when everyone else were killed? I mean, the boy sitting next to him was shredded. I think it's a little hard to believe that Dustin survived unhurt. What saved him?

I like your film noir style of writing. If you continue with this story I hope some unexpected twist happens to Dustin. Here's hoping I can read more.

[Nusquam Esse]

The theme of being a lone survivor is a powerful theme; and for a good reason. This has a lot of potential as a story, but it is unfortunately held back by some issues; some of which I can hopefully point out. At which point, you should be able to make something much more solid, and emotionally poignant. First of all, your first paragraph is mediocre. The writing is not compelling enough to hold a reader, which is extremely important for an intro. I would either rethink the perspective you are going to use for the 'future event' and rewrite it accordingly; or drop it all together. Next, you overuse 'telling' foreshadowing. you keep telling people how the character will feel later on in the story. Not only does this weaken the emotional impact when it does happen (boy who cried wolf) but it also makes the writing feel contrived and needlessly melodramatic. If you try too much to tell the reader how characters feel throughout the whole story, especially with out-of-place flowery poetic metaphors, then they will have a harder time feeling the emotions themselves. The emotions that we feel as we read are much stronger, personal, and long-lasting than any emotions we are 'told' to feel. Next, you need to work on repetition, there are several parts of the story where you repeat words such as torn and saw, and they are not segments which are made more powerful with reiteration. Which brings us to the next issue, word choice. Go through this and do an extensive copy edit. Consider each word you use, and how it fits in the sentence and the paragraph. Use simple words when they make sense, but use more powerful and exact forms of words when it is a recurring use. Be wary of overusing bland metaphors. And finally, check to see if there are ways you can combine sentences using punctuation or alterations to your syntax, in order to make the story flow better, and leaner. And last of all, you had the boy take two 'last' breaths, it is a bit ridiculous... I would probably remove the second segment about him showing gratitude.

[CptCog]

Thanks for the review! I've already been told this other people as well and have figured it out myself, but this piece was literally written in ten minutes. It was one of those "if I don't post a writing soon, I'm never going to." Thanks for taking the time to critique it though! I will use this information with the next pieces I make.