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Struggling to Survive
By Sadie Malmberg
Chapter 1
Victoria watched the propellers start to turn. They gathered speed and spun faster and faster until eventually they reached their full speed. Then the airplane drifted down the runway and it too, gathered speed. Soon the airplane lifted off entirely and flew faster than a racecar could drive. The runway got smaller and smaller and the ground got farther and farther away from them. In all of a few minutes, all the farmers’ fields turned to checkerboard squares. A robotic voice came on the microphones indicating all passengers may now take off their seat belts. Victoria unbuckled hers. Occasionally she felt the airplane bounce up and down on pockets of wind throughout the ride.
Suddenly, a jerk came from the back of her seat. Then another…and another. The jerks kept coming. When she looked behind her to see what it was, the result was a little boy she estimated was about eight years old with an extremely guilty look on his face. Victoria assumed it was him who was kicking her seat. She glared at him her meanest glare.
Victoria checked her watch. It had been a little over an hour since they had lifted off. She sat back and calculated the time it would take for them to get to their cousin’s house. It would be about two and a half hours now. Victoria grew impatient. She rolled up the window blind and looked outside. All that could be seen was nothing but vibrant blue.
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When she looked down, at first, she saw nothing but blinding light. Then as her eyes adjusted, she drew in her breath at the sight. What she saw was magnificent. Below them were the Rocky Mountains - magnificent, almost majestic ice-capped mountains, with absolutely no sign of vegetation on them. Circling the tall peaks were hawks and bald eagles. Oh, how she longed to live there, free as one of those eagles.
To her surprise, Victoria saw the mountainside speeding toward them. She could tell something was had gone terribly wrong and her stomach dropped. As they gathered speed, she felt like her insides were left behind in the sky and a million moths and butterflies were fluttering uncomfortably around in her stomach. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it would break her ribs.
A few seconds later, there was a huge, earsplitting crash and Victoria was jerked forwards. The impact was unbearable but she was thankful it lasted only for a split second. Once she came back to her wits, Victoria was surprised there was not a sound from any of the other passengers. Then, as she turned to look, she saw why. It was a horrible and gruesome sight. Victoria’s heart jerked and then sank. All of the right half of the airplane was crumpled flat. All the people who were sitting on the right side were dead under the wreckage. She was thankful, none of the five siblings were on the right side. Only a couple other people had survived. A small wisp of smoke trailing from underneath a door caught her attention. Victoria unbuckled her seatbelt and in a panic, she rushed to get out of the airplane. The smoke was filling the whole airplane now and she could hardly see anything at all.
“Where’s Robin?” Elizabeth asked looking around.
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“Coming!” Robin rushed to join them. Victoria noticed he was limping. The right leg of his blue-jeans was stained red with blood. Together they stumbled through the smoke-filled airplane. The smoke stung their nostrils and filled their lungs. Victoria nearly suffocated. They groped around through the airplane trying to find a door. Once they had found one, Elizabeth and William both managed to pry it open. The airplane had crashed so that it was tilted and the door that they were exiting from was on the highest part. Victoria looked down. The jump to the ground looked deadly.
“I’ll go first,” said Elizabeth. Once Elizabeth had found the courage to jump and was finally down, she signaled for Robin to come next. The rest came down one by one.
Once Elizabeth made sure they were all down, she shrieked:
“Run!” Victoria shouted and powered her legs as fast as she could after Elizabeth down the slope. She hadn’t taken a few steps before the plane burst into flames. The fear gave her an extra burst of energy and she ran nearly twice as fast as she had been running before. Victoria dared looked back. She hadn’t realized he was far ahead of the others.
“Come on!” she called. “What are you waiting for?”
“Wait!” William called. “We have to wait for Robin.” Victoria scanned around the forest looking for Robin. He was nowhere in sight.
“Robin!” She called. No reply. “Robin!” Her heart beat even faster and her eyes went blurry with fear. The few people that survived had already run off now. She had to strain to keep her legs from running into the forest. It was like trying to run in a dream except the exact opposite. In dreams, when Victoria tried to run, it felt like she was trying to run through a bog. Here, it was the exact opposite. In this instance, it felt like there was
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a huge magnetic force pulling her feet into the forest.
What Victoria saw next was more frightening and astonishing then she could handle. Elizabeth made an extremely daring move and ran strait into the fire. She knew it was extremely foolish, but it was the only way she could find Robin. She dropped down onto her hands and knees and covered her mouth and nose with her shirt to filter out the smoke. The heat was unbearable and the fire singed her clothes but still she kept on.
“Robin!…Robin!” She called repeatedly. No reply. Each moment that suggested doubt, her stomach fell one centimeter lower inside of her. Elizabeth kept searching. Sudden movement among the burning shrubs caught her eye. It was Robin huddled in a ball half unconscious. Elizabeth crawled over and dragged Robin through the fire. This was harder than she thought. Now, crawling useless because the fire was growing just about as fast as Elizabeth was could crawl. As soon the others spotted her and Robin, they ran to help them out. Once they were safe and away from the fire, Elizabeth breathlessly dropped to the ground and rolled around to smother her smoldering clothes. The fire was growing dangerously close.
Elizabeth picked Robin up and hauled him onto her shoulders. “Run!” she called again and they all stumbled through the trees.
Chapter 2
They had been jogging for a few hours now and everyone thought they would collapse any moment, but they had to keep going because of the fire. Everyone was covered in dirt and sweat. Victoria glanced behind her. The fire was growing faster than
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they were running. Something caught her toe and she fell with a thump to the ground. A root had tripped her. With a throbbing foot she heaved herself off the ground and continued running to catch up with the others. For a couple seconds, Victoria thought she heard a rushing or roaring sound. Before she knew exactly what it was, Margaret jumped with a splash into something clear and moving. It was a river. Victoria gratefully leaped in. The coolness of the river refreshed her. It felt like she could stay there forever. The fire grew closer and closer to the river but she didn’t care. It couldn’t get her. Soon the water itself grew hot.
“How do we get to the other side?” asked Margaret. Victoria estimated it was about ten meters or so across to the other side of the river. The currant was too fast to swim, and there was no boat or anything. If they stayed on the side that they were on, they would be turned into meatballs in no time. Victoria glanced behind her. The fire was already growing dangerously close. It would only be a couple moments until the fire would reach the edge. Another run instinct exploded inside her and she had to strain to keep herself from running wildly in a random direction.
Elizabeth looked around probably thinking the exact same thing that Victoria was thinking. “Good question. The only thing we can do to at all besides getting roasted alive is to swim across and risk it.”
Victoria was expecting that answer. It was the only thing th
ey could do. But how were they going to swim across this roaring river which could easily sweep them down and under and drown, let alone Robin unable to swim?
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“I’ll go on the on the downstream side so nobody gets swept away by the current. We’ll aim for that tree slightly upstream. When I say go, swim like crazy… one, two, three, go!” Victoria pushed off the shore with all her might and swam as hard as she could. When they got to the middle, Margaret bumped into her and Victoria got dragged under. In a panic she climbed back to the surface and gasped for air and continued swimming like a madman. Her arms and legs were aching. With her feet she reached for the bottom that wasn’t there. Once they had passed the strongest part of the current, Victoria slowed down and let herself be drifted slightly downstream. Finally she just managed to reach the shore and she dropped down on the sandy riverbank breathlessly, her muscles aching.
After they had recovered, they got up and continued up the steep bank and away from the river about a minute or so just to get away from the heat of the fire. Elizabeth set Robin down at the base of a tree. He was breathing and his heart was pumping though he was still not awake. He’ll probably wake up pretty soon, she unsuccessfully tried to reassure herself.
The sun was dipping down behind the mountains and they had gone without lunch or supper, but everybody was too tired to care. They all collapsed down on the pokey shrubs and immediately fell asleep.
Chapter 3
Victoria was the first one to wake. She was expecting to wake up in her bedroom with the ceiling with a squashed mosquito and a couple brown footprints above her…but
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she wasn’t in her bedroom. Instead she was looking up at a light grayish-blue ceiling with shiny bright points distributed across it. Wha…?Where am I? as she went through the previous day in her mind, she finally remembered she was back in that light green forest and across the stream and the forest fire and lost in the middle of nowhere. The shiny points on the navy blue ceiling were the stars in the night sky. There were at least twice if not, three times the amount of stars than at home. The beauty was breathtaking. To keep herself entertained, she found and named all the constellations she knew about. In all of about two minutes she had spotted a couple shooting stars.
Right now it was still pretty dark. She estimated it was around three or four in the morning. Victoria sat up. A few meters to her right, the ground sloped down sharply leading to the river. Past the river the fire had died down slightly but it was still burning, casting an orangish-reddish glow on the river. Some of the trees were bare now without any needles on them. Victoria lay back down and waited for sleep to swallow her…but it never came. She shifted onto her back and gazed up at the stars. A hundred thoughts raced through her head. When will we get back home…how? Which direction is north? Do Mom and Dad know our plane crashed? If so, what are they doing right now? Are they trying to find us? If not, how will they find out our plane crashed?… she never remembered what she thought of after that.
Chapter 4
Robin woke to nothing but wilderness. He found himself in a sub-alpine forest with absolutely no sign of humans. His stomach dropped to the floor…ground. He sat up
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in panic looking around him.
“What? Where am I? Where are Mom and Dad?” He scanned around the uninhabited forest. He was completely lost. His stomach clenched and turned up-side-down and his eyes watered. In a panic he leaped to his feet and dashed through the trees to find just any sign of humans – just anything – even a footprint. He dashed through the trees looking for anything that could get him home. Suddenly, a heavy weight slammed down on him and he fell face down into the ground. The weight drove out all the air out of his lungs. He struggled to get back up, but the weight kept him down.
“Get off! Help!” He shrieked. He realized just a second later that his exclamation was completely useless. He was left struggling under the heavy weight.
“Robin! Robin! It’s just me! It’s Elizabeth! It’s OK!” A voice said. It seemed to be coming from the voluminous galumph that was sitting on top of him. “Robin! Calm down!” As he recognized the voice, he eventually stopped struggling. The heavy weight slowly lifted off. He got up sore all over and completely breathless. The thing that had jumped on top of him indeed, was Elizabeth. He was disgusted that he was such a fool and randomly ran just anywhere, - that wouldn’t help anything, plus that he could be so easily knocked down by his sister.
“Where are the rest?” he asked.
“They’re still back there where we woke up. C’mon,” Elizabeth urged. He stiffly walked back with his sister. Robin realized just now that his stomach was growling about thrice a minute. His stomach felt as if it was digesting itself. The five of them sat on the ground doing nothing except for thinking about how hungry they were and how hopeless
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they were. Robin’s famishment had gotten unbearable now. It felt as though he was going to die of starvation any moment. The only way he could ease the pain in his stomach was by lying down on his side and curling up in a ball.
He must have fallen asleep by now because he woke up to find the sun getting low in sky. Now it felt as though he didn’t have any stomach at all. He looked up. all the others were still awake. Suddenly Victoria started crawling to the right. Robin realized that the thing she was crawling toward was pathetic little patch of dandelions. She motioned to come over. The five of them filled their fists and faces full of the little yellow flowers. The flowers tasted horrible but Robin was too hungry to care. He loved the feeling as the vegetable filled his stomach. Normally Robin hated all kinds of vegetables, and if he was not starving and was made to eat this, he would have nearly puked. Right now, he was just too hungry to care. The whole patch was torn up by the roots and completely demolished in no time. After that, they all felt a little bit better…though not much.
That night, William watched the sun slowly crawl down toward a distant mountain. Slowly, very slowly, one millimeter at a time, the sun just barely touched the mountain, and the snowy peak glistened brightly in the sun’s rays. The loud call of a chickadee jerked William out of his trance. He noticed everything sounded eerily silent. He twisted around, looking for the others. Nobody was in sight. What? Where did everyone go? Uncontrollable panic rose in his stomach. If he could control it, he wouldn’t be nervous at all. “Beth? Vicky? Margie? Bob?” He called, his throat tight and his voice
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shaking.
“Yeah?” Elizabeth’s voice replied from what seemed like nowhere. Relief flooded through his body. William relaxed. He had been as stiff as rebar ever since he realized they were gone.
“Where are you?” He called back.
“Didn’t we tell you?” He realized that Elizabeth’s voice came from the direction of the river.
“No,” William slid down the slope to meet his siblings.
“Ah, man,” Elizabeth sighed. “You must be an extremely ignorant oaf if you couldn’t here us saying were down at the river from like…a meter away from you. It’s okay, there’s nothing to worry about,” Elizabeth said as if she was comforting a five year old in the middle of a thunder storm. William was so mad for being treated like a baby he couldn’t think of what to say. Somehow, he had to get revenge. With no obvious sign, he sprang from where he was and literally landed on top of Elizabeth. The two of them started rolling over each other around and around. All at once they toppled over into the river. The water was nipping cold and had probably just melted from a glacier at the top of the mountain. The cold of the water was enough to break up the fight. Both of them crawled out of the river dripping and chilled to the bone. They each threw a hateful glance at each other.
“What do we do now?” Elizabeth groaned. “This was my only change of clothes, and it’s nearly night!”
“I guess you’ll have to sleep without clothes at all until they dry, If you hadn’t
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pissed each other off,
you wouldn’t be this cold and wet. And anyway, there’s no way we can get back home when everybody’s wasting their time fighting each other,” commented Victoria.
“You really think we’ll survive?” asked William.
“Do you want to?” Victoria asked.
“Duh, of course.”
“Then why did you say ‘you really think we’ll survive’?”
“Okay, whatever! This isn’t the most important thing right now!”
That night, both Elizabeth and William slept in their underwear and their clothes were hanging on nearby branches of trees. Once they had gone to bed, Victoria couldn’t help felling sorry for them both. She felt horrible and was chilled to the bone already with no sleeping bag or anything, let alone Elizabeth and William having to sleep with hardly any clothes.
Chapter 4
Victoria opened her eyes to a navy blue sky. It was already starting to lighten up now. Her clothes were soggy from the dew. She hugged her arms for warmth. Victoria glanced at Elizabeth and William again. If she were one of them, she wouldn’t be surprised if she had turned to blocks of ice by now. She rolled onto her other side and closed her eyes, shivering. After what seemed like forever, she finally dosed off.
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William opened his eyes and sat up. Nobody else was awake so far so he just sat there thinking about random things. It seemed like forever before the others awoke. Finally the others woke up. Not long after, everybody was up and picking at whatever rare edible vegetation there was.
“So how to we get home?” Asked Margaret.
“Yeah, we have no idea which way home is,” asked Robin.
“We should find the airplane again. That’s the most obvious and closest place to go if we want to find a way home; and ruins of it are still probably there. Once we find it, we can probably find something that’ll help us,” said Elizabeth.
“Yeah, so when we were running from the forest fire, we crossed the river. So we were coming this way – so we should go that way,” William joined in.
Before they started backtracking, they all stopped to take a long drink from the river. The water probably wasn’t the cleanest, but at least it was better than nothing.