This story is one of the August Writing Challenge entries that was chosen to be a featured story.
Dear diary,
Max here. This is the only thing that has stayed intact and the only thing I have left of my normal life before this one. So I want to leave a message, a small look into what we now have to call life after being stranded here for who knows how long.
To begin with, I thought I was alone. A few days ago I found two others, people I had seen board the plane like I did. Now there are only parts of the plane by the edges of the island and it seems we were the only three to survive the crash. I remember waking up with the waves crashing into my bloodied back, sweeping away the red stains that mixed with the gold glistening speckles on the ground. But before that, all I can remember is buckling my seat belt up, the rest is too much of a blur to figure out. The noises fill my head; children screaming, men and women crying out for help and the sound of alarms from every angle of the cabin. Everything moved so fast it’s hard to decipher how long ago this happened.
Emma and Kat are the two other survivors. Kat has optimism that keeps us struggling on and managed to find the tools to fix our wounds and survive on, for now. I hear Emma in the darker hours whimpering repeatedly. She is so young and has been through hell already I don’t blame her. I have to stay strong for them though, and in doing so convince myself that we will get back to reality someday.
I can’t tell between being awake and dreaming anymore, my dreams are clouded by the nightmare of what has been and my waking hours feel overwhelmed by the thought of what will be. We all have moments where the grief gets to us too, the loss of family for some, mixed with the loss of people we were simply sitting around and then the loss of our own. We were all going somewhere, for leisure, exploring, business. I was heading for a new life; I suppose I got it in some way or another.
Perhaps Kat’s optimism is the right thing to have. If this is what life will be like from now on we might as well find the joy in it. The sun is coming down for another day now and we have squeezed onto a ledge just beneath a rush of water that crashes on the rough stones at the bottom and from this angle we all debate where we are exactly. It looks like somewhere different every day. It is a beautiful place, even if I got here by disastrous consequences. I will try to make this my new home.
Dear Diary,
Kat here. I won’t read what Max has written in here before me. You belong to him but he’s letting me use you to keep my thoughts and memory sane enough. From my own estimations I want to say we have been here just over a week now. I’ve been keeping tally on a rock that I sleep by.
Suppose all the useless optimism I’ve been spewing to the other two lately is sinking in a little. Emma is a little harder to persuade but I take her to the shore every morning and we watch the bloody orange sun rise from the sea. I want to help her relax but really how can I? I sit on the sand and just watch the waves roll up, just waiting for a silhouette of a boat or anything to appear on the water’s surface to come save us. I was so ready to come home, I miss my mum and dad, even if we argued so much, I just needed to leave and then come home with a clear head. Now I might never see them and say sorry for just leaving without saying goodbye. Now all I can do is whisper that word up to the sky in the hope that they will hear me. They probably think I’m dead, just like everyone else. They need to know I love them so much.
I know one day we’ll get back home; someone has to come. I hope this faith stays with me. Max can handle himself, but Emma really needs us. She’s still so young and lost so much more than we have, at least we were alone on that plane. I pray every night that some of her family still made it out.
Dear Diary,
I want to go home. E.
