Cristelle Comby - Alone Together

While she wasn’t far from the gaping entrance to the plane, it was obviously taking a lot for her to get there. But she completed her hike and hoisted herself inside the wreckage, ever mindful of the sharp metallic shards near the tube’s mouth. Then she disappeared into the shadows.

“What are you doing?” I called after her. When I got no response, I carefully walked towards the plane myself. Maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t understand English ? I thought. Maybe she’s just deaf ? Or simply rude ?

I got close enough to see the tail had been torn off somewhere between the last row of seats and the twin lavatories. A weak spot in the plane’s frame—a section junction, if I had to guess. The cobalt blue carpet was in shreds near the gap, both plastic and metal showing signs of having been torn off. But I looked about at the trees and what lay beyond without seeing any sign of the other half. Save for a few dark clouds, the skies were clear. Everything around us was calm and quiet. It’d been this way since I woke up and I didn’t like it one bit. What kind of things could be—

Clang!

The sound interrupted my thoughts, making me glance inside the wrecked plane. “What the hell are you even doing in there, lassie ?” I asked, leaning closer to the opening. Near as I could tell in the gloom, she’d disappeared somewhere in the back and was now tinkering with… something. It sounded like she was opening and closing containers. “ Oi! You could answer me, you know. Are you going to make me come after you?”

The only answer I got was more banging and clanging. I decided the way she’d gotten in the plane was probably the safest. I turned my back to the opening, sat on the edge and while turning onto myself, brought both my legs inside. Once I was back on my feet, I moved to the back of the tail. Thankfully, what was left of the plane was sturdy, albeit difficult to navigate. The floor was at a diagonal angle, which didn’t make crossing through it any easier with my entire body still sore from the crash.

I found the girl busy opening and closing doors and drawers in the galley. The little hussy was raiding it, which made me worry about my wallet again. While she had her back turned to me, I moved my wallet from my trouser pocket to the inside breast pocket of my coat. Try getting your hands on it now , you little thief, I thought, mentally snickering in satisfaction while giving her a condescending glare.

My fellow passenger, having found a large bin bag, started tossing items into it, left and right. Water bottles, candy bars, blankets… everything went. She didn’t seem to mind that I was witnessing her crime, and carried on as though I wasn’t there. Who did this bloody millennial think she was ? I thought with a sneer. Entitlement… that was the problem with this generation. They acted as if they’d already inherited the earth.

“They’re not going to let you keep that, you know,” I said, leaning back against the side of the upturned cludgie . “You’re going to have to return every bit of it when help gets here.”

My words didn’t affect her, didn’t stop her from reaching into the last compartment. By then, her bin bag was almost full. I wondered how she envisioned her getaway. She was a tall one, granted… maybe five-eight or five-nine, nearly my height. But that damn bag was as tall as her hips and was heavy to boot. I could tell the heft when she strained to pull the bag after her.

“And now what?” I asked, unable to keep the mirth out of my voice, at the sheer stupidity of all she was doing. “However are you going to get it out now, lassie ?”

She tried taking a step forward and winced. I realised she’d abandoned her makeshift cane, had been doing all her looting hopping round on one foot. But there was no way she could drag her prize out without using both legs. She took another step and then a third before finally giving up. She looked up at me with unshed tears in her eyes. She didn’t need words to get the message across. She wanted me to help her, though? Yeah, that was a laugh.

“ Naw ,” I said, raising both hands. “Not in a million years.”

She frowned at me before giving me that surprised expression again. She opened her mouth as if to say something before closing it again. She dragged the bag whatever little distance she’d made, and then some. She motioned at my hand, and then at the one of hers which was holding onto the top of the bag.

“I’m not helping you,” I said as emphatically as I could. “I work for a bank, not for a thief-for-hire. You want to steal things, do it yourself, you thieving slag !” What the hell was I even doing in here ? I wondered. If this punk wanted to commit a felony, I was better off away from this crime scene. What if someone walked in on us right then? They’d think I was in on it and who could blame them? Ridiculous, the gall of these entitled youths.

“Yeah, I’m leaving you to it,” I said. “You’re on your own here.”

The only reply I got from her was a grab of my hand as I turned to leave. I froze, unsure if it was out of surprise or fear. Not minding my reaction, she reached for something inside her bag. An instant later, she slapped a water bottle inside my empty palm. I left without saying another word to her… not that it’d help. I only kept the water bottle because I was parched.

I’d had time to drink half the bottle and relieve myself behind a tree when she came out of the wreck, dragging that damned plastic bin bag behind her. She struggled to get it off the gaping mouth of the cabin tube. Seating herself down first, she dragged her loot to the forest floor before jumping down herself. Her landing was awkward, but she managed to land on her uninjured leg.

She paused an instant, her trainers sinking into the mushy ground near the entrance, before fixing me with a pointy stare. Well, if she wanted me to come and help, she was in for a long wait. I turned my back to her so I could stare at the trees some more. No matter how much I tried to see what lay beyond them, the only thing my eyes found was yet more trees.

I heard her huffing and puffing behind me, the slow draw of the bag on the floor drowning out her sticky steps. Well, she was nothing if not resilient, that one.

By the time she stepped in front of me, her cheeks were flushed an angry red, a good match for her panting and sweating. The glare she sent me from those baby blue eyes was one of a kind. Her face had an odd mix of anger, contempt and disdain that seemed so out of place on her young features. I stared back at her in bewilderment. Who the hell was this wee girl to judge me? She was the one committing a crime and yet here she was behaving as if I was the one at fault. Bollocks to that!

She sat down near where I stood, a couple of feet shy of the pile of blankets I’d woken up under. Well, I say “sat” when “let herself crumble to the floor in an exhausted heap” was closer to the mark. It was like she sort of melted, the way an ice sculpture does on a warm sunny day.

As soon as her hands left the plastic bin, they reached for her injured leg, which she started to massage. That’s when I saw that she also had a cut on her right arm, though that was little more than a scratch. Her leg was the only visible serious injury. Still, with that sweater masking the wound, I had a hard time judging how serious. If it wasn’t for the bloodstains, I’d have been tempted to think she was faking it to win sympathy.

Not minding me at all, she went rummaged through her stolen loot again. She pulled out another water bottle from the bin, uncapped it and took a couple of grateful sips. Then she recapped it before placing it on the wet ground beside her. She went for another dip inside the bag, feeling inside it a little longer. This time, she pulled out a first-aid kit.