The wreckage surrounded her.
It wasn’t a plane anymore. It was pieces—twisted metal, torn fabric, shattered plastic. The aisle was gone. The ceiling had collapsed inward in sections, creating jagged openings where sky glared through like an accusation.
Seats were scattered at unnatural angles. Some still bolted to fragments of flooring, others ripped free entirely. Luggage was strewn everywhere—bags split open, their contents spilling out into the debris like the remnants of interrupted lives.
A shoe lay near her hand.
Just one.
She stared at it for a long moment, her mind refusing to follow the thought to its conclusion.
Don’t look.
But she did.
To her right, a few feet away, a man was slumped forward, his forehead resting against the back of the seat in front of him. His body was too still. The position too final.
She sucked in a breath that hitched halfway through.
“Hey,” she called weakly. “Hey!”
No response.
Her voice echoed strangely, swallowed by the broken shell of the aircraft.
“Hey!” she tried again, louder this time, panic creeping into the edges of her tone. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing.
No movement. No groan. No shifting.
Just silence.
Her chest tightened, and for a moment she thought she might suffocate—not from injury, but from the sheer weight of what she was beginning to understand.
No.
No, there had to be others.
There had to be.
She turned her head slowly, scanning the wreckage. “Hello?” she called, her voice trembling now. “Is anyone there? Please—answer me!”
Continue Next Page
