Cristelle Comby - Alone Together

I took off my sweater and fastened it around the wound, binding it as tightly as I could. I had a T-shirt underneath, the cold air on my bare forearms a welcome distraction from the pain.

With nothing to grab onto as leverage, I screamed as I got to my feet. I was forced to put pressure on both legs to steady myself. When the left one protested the action, I screamed again.

Both screams were met with silence. I knew what that meant. Help was nowhere nearby. If I wanted to find any on my own, I had to get a move on. Simplifying things was the fact there weren’t a lot of directions to choose from. The mountain curving inward at my back was a dead end, leaving only the birch forest ahead. About a kilometre away, I could see a plume of smoke rising from beneath the treetops, just a little to my left. I decided to aim for it. With my leg, it’d be an arduous journey, but well worth it if someone—or, better yet, painkillers—was waiting at the finish line. I started walking, one step at a time, favouring my injured leg as much as I could.

Past the first row of trees, I found a broken branch to use as a staff. It was thick enough to take all my weight, but not too heavy to carry around. Sun-dappled leaves created flickering shadows on the ground while I marched through clumps of moss, mindful of hidden tree roots. Five minutes later, I’d broken into a sweat and my breath came in short puffs. Though my exhaustion grew, I had no choice but to keep moving.

The only sounds I heard were the wind rustling through the leaves and the spongy crunch of layers under my feet. With no path in sight, I made my own. It wasn’t such an arduous feat; the trees here grew further apart than I was used to seeing. They were also smaller in girth, a bit like the strong oak trees that grew high on mountainsides back home, near snow level. It made me wonder how far north of the map we were.

My brain felt sluggish as I tried to remember what one of the attendants had said. Thirty minutes away from… Kiruna, I think it was. But that was by airplane standards. I had no idea what that converted to in kilometres, or even if we’d been on course when we went down. Besides, it wasn’t as if my battered brain could do the maths. But I could keep moving, so I did.

The sweet scent of the musty moss was soon replaced by the acrid smell of smoke. It grew thicker the closer I got to its source, more and more debris littering the surrounding ground. I quickened my pace as much as my throbbing leg would let me, determined to reach the fire’s origin.

It turned out to be the tail section of the plane; or rather, what was left of it. It lay on its side, its left elevator fin crushed beneath the gaping broken tube of metal. Large plumes of black smoke billowed out from the tip. What remained of the plane seemed to have been torn free near the last row of seats, wires and hydraulic lines spilling out from the poor machine’s ruptured skin. Remembering that I was in there not so long ago, I was surprised that I’d survived that level of devastation, let alone being thrown so far.

The front of the plane, the pilots’ cabin, the rows of seats where dozens of passengers had sat, the massive wings… all of that was missing. It was as if an angry giant had torn the plane in two during a tantrum, then dropped the rear here and thrown the rest away, somewhere well out of sight.

No matter how much I looked about, I couldn’t see anything more than debris-covered moss and a wounded forest. Two birch trees had fallen, with a third leaning dangerously against one of its brothers. No sign of the front of the plane… had it kept flying without its rear? Was it possible for an airplane to do that without its tail? I didn’t know. As long as it had both its wings, maybe it could glide for a little while.

The reality of what I was seeing started to sink in. The full weight of it knocked the wind out of me, making me glad for the dead branch I had to lean on. Tears started rolling down my cheeks and I couldn’t decide if it was from the smoke or the thought of what had happened to the other passengers. Either way, my eyes stung like that day my cousin found a pepper spray bottle and decided to have some ‘fun’ with me.

The depth of what I was looking at would not let up. There was nothing else here, only the broken, fuming tail-end of a plane and me. There was no rescue team coming, no helpful bystanders. I was alone with the plane wreckage—it was alone with me.

To counter the despair, my brain was quick to come up with reassuring thoughts. Maybe we were in a remote area. Maybe the nearest road was a few kilometres away and the rescue teams had to hike to get here. Maybe they were busy tending to the rest of the passengers. Yes , of course , that had to be it , I thought. It’s natural for these things to take time . When a huge plane falls out of the sky, burning on fire, someone’s bound to see it . They had to . Otherwise … did it even happen ?

Everything was going to be fine. I just had to be patient and give them some time to find me. I was overreacting, overthinking it like I always do. I just had to wait it out until people came and found me. That was what happened when planes crashed. Everything was going to be alright… just fine.

My battered leg begged me to sit down, cutting off my happy chatter. I could feel the rest of my body’s will to crumple in on itself and curl into a tight ball. There was a broken tree nearby with a sturdy trunk that looked damn inviting, but I fought the urge, tempting as it was. I knew that if I sat down, I’d never find the strength to stand back up again.

While I was thinking, cold droplets of rain started falling at irregular intervals. My T-shirt was now drenched and I was freezing. I had to find a way to warm up and to escape these angry skies. Once again, there weren’t many options to choose from. I was a sitting duck… a sitting, frozen duck.

Though smoke billowed from the tail’s tip, the rest of it looked safe enough for the moment. Leaning hard on my makeshift cane, I ambled closer to it. Even though it was a short walk, the razor-sharp debris embedded in the ground made it difficult to navigate. Slurping sounds punctuated each of my steps, getting worse the closer I got to the wreckage. The ground around the crash site was imbibed in more liquid than the light rain could explain. Something must have leaked out of the tail-end. Was one of the fuel tanks damaged from the crash? I didn’t think they were located at the back of the plane, but then, I didn’t know much about planes. Fearing that the liquid might be fuel, I stopped and bent as low as my leg allowed to press my fingers to the ground. Bringing it back to my nose, I inhaled the scent. The fluid had no particular smell, and petrol is distinctive, easy to recognise. I carried on, my sneakers sinking a little more with each fresh step.

By the time I reached the tail, I was breathing hard. What was left of the metal tube I’d flown on was resting at an odd angle, the gaping opening about fifty centimetres from the ground. Getting in there without further damaging my leg was going to be easier said than done. In the end, I decided to turn my back to the opening, sit on the ridge, and then swing my legs inside, being careful not to tear the backs of my legs on the torn carbon fibre and metal edging the wreck. I didn’t know if the wires hanging from the side of the plane were live, so I was also careful not to touch them.

The torn-up blue carpet near the entrance was water-logged but the back of the plane looked to have been spared the elements. Despite a little smoke inside, the air remained breathable. And aside from the odd angle it was resting at, the tail-end seemed safe to navigate.

With the carcass tilted in this manner, I had to walk on the walls more than on the floor, dodging the remains of the awkwardly protruding last row of seats. I had to force myself to forget that three people had been sitting there the last time I saw this spot.