I Can Survive Another

• Grace Sutherland, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2019

As the plane descends, I stay still, frozen in fright. When the plane hits the earth, I hear screams, cries, and then all I hear is the fire crackling. everything goes black. When I wake up, I can barely stand. My head hurts. My back hurts. My legs hurt, my arms hurt. I try to sit up, I cant. I close my eyes. Don’t go to sleep, I tell myself, You could die, but it is to late. I wake up days later, I try to stand, I cant. I pull myself up on a branch and look around. The sight is traumatising. The wreck is flaming, puddles of blood and oil drowning dead bodies, covered in cuts and infections, all of the bodies; dead. I suddenly notice the pain in my foot. I look down at it and see the burnt, infected, bleeding foot. I am missing three toes and the cuts are deep enough to see my bone. I remove my shirt, reviling a cut as long as my arm. I tear the shirt into strips and wrap it tightly around the cut and use the remainder for my foot. The blood quickly seeps through and stains the fabric. I try to walk, it is painful, but I can do it. I rummage around the wreck, trying to avoid dead bodies as best I can. I manage to find some food, water and first aid, but not much. I pack a bag with my supplies and venture further onto the island. I climb a tree cutting branches as I go, when I get to a suitable branch, I lay the cut off branches along it, creating a platform. My foot is in agony. I remove the coverings and see that it is worse than before. Infections bleeding and the bone inside is black from the flaming crash. I look through my bag and find a large knife. The thought of removing the foot barely crosses my mind as the blade digs deeper into my flesh. The pain is unmentionable. The bone is soft and crumbly, making it easy to cut through. My foot hits the ground with a thump and I cry with pain. The blood rushes out of my leg, quickly, staining the timber I am sitting on. It is painful, but I am glad I did it. If I didn't, infection would've eaten away at it, making it slow and painful. I wrap up the stub with bandages I found In the first-aid-box, tightly. It reduces the bleeding, but not the pain. I look down and see a some kind of creature sniff my foot, pick it up with it’s bottom jaw, and swallow it whole. Is quite a strange sight, seeing your foot get eaten, but I ignore it. The sound that woke me up the next morning was almost unbelievable. A helicopter. I run, well, hop over to the rescue vehicle almost tripping over myself in excitement. When I get to the helicopter, I hesitate. I have survived one crash, I think to myself, with a half-worried, half brave-look,
I can survive another.