(Morgan)

(Morgan)

(Wake up. Morgan!)

[ Huh? What's going on? ]

Morgan slowly began to regain consciousness as he heard his name being called out repeatedly. As he opened his eyes, he was momentarily blinded by the sunlight shining above him. He gave out a low grunt as the pain finally hit him while he tried to look over to his side.

He felt as if his head was being forcefully split open by an axe and the nausea made him feel like vomiting. There was an annoying ringing sound in his ear that was drowning out the surroundings, but it soon went away. The pain was coming from the top left side of his head. However, when he tried to raise his left hand to touch the spot, he didn't have enough strength to even move his arm.

He could feel a warm sensation on his left side which he could guess was blood. He was semi-conscious however, Morgan could still hear Cristy talking to him.

"Morgan. Thank god you're alright. You were hit pretty badly and are bleeding so try not to move.” Cristy said in a relieved voice. “I want you to stay still for a bit while I try to bandage up your head.“

Morgan only responded with a single grunt.

Christy then tore off the sleeve from Morgan’s shirt and ripped it into multiple strips in order to wrap the wound. The pain of having his wound touched caused Morgan to yell out and struggle, but Cristy couldn’t care less as she held him down and wrapped up the gash on his head. He didn’t struggle for long as he soon lost consciousness again.

Morgan once again awoke, but this time he wasn’t in so much pain. The sun hadn’t changed much from where it was before so he guessed hadn’t been out for long. From what he could hear, it seemed that some of the other passengers were already getting out of their seats and climbing down to the rear exit of the plane.

After crashing through the foliage, the rear half of the airliner’s fuselage had ended up vertical against a tree with the tail towards the ground.

At this point Cristy had already noticed that Morgan had woken up and spoke to him.

“Morgan. Do you feel better now, can you talk? “

Morgan then responded, “yeah im alright. Just a bit disoriented.”

They were then interrupted by the voice of a man yelling from below.

“Everybody we managed to get the door open! Try to get down, but be careful! If you are injured or can’t get down on your own please call for help so we can assist you!“

Cristy then yelled back, “we have someone with a head injury up here!”

The man then promptly began to climb up the aisle to where Cristy and Morgan were. When he got there he slung Morgan over his shoulder and told him to hold on as if his life depended on it.

When they got down the man laid Morgan on the ground as he continued climbing to help other who also needed help.

After a few hours all the survivors were grouped up beside the plane. It seemed as if there was no signal as no ones phones were working.

Some people were crying, others talking about what happened and some just stared at the aftermath in shock. Morgan himself had finally regained enough strength to stand back up as he looked at the man who helped him down.

The man wasn’t very tall but he was well built at around 5 foot 6. He had deep set eyes and short black hair while wearing a dark brown and beige suit. He seemed like the serious sort, but was in fact very kind as he went around checking on the survivors to make sure they were ok. If Morgan had to guess he would say the man was in his mid-40’s.

[ I guess I should probably get up and thank him for helping me out. ]

“Umm excuse me sir.“

The man looked over and saw Morgan looking nervous at him while speaking. The man just smiled and said, “Oh it’s you, you’re the boy I helped down earlier. How’s the cut doing, from the looks of it you really bled something fierce.”

Morgan, glad to see that he wasn’t bothering the man said, “Yeah. That was me and I’m feeling a lot better now. I just wanted to thank you for what you did and all.”

The man chuckled and said, “No need to thank me boy I was just doing my job making sure everyone was safe on the plane.”

Morgan looked a bit confused so the man explained.

“I’m actually the Air Marshall. My job is to ensure the safety of the passengers under extreme circumstances.“

Morgan still said thank you and walked back towards Cristy, and sat next to her. She then asked Morgan. “What do we do now?”

Morgan answered honestly. “I really don’t know.“

All in all it seemed that there were only 31 survivors other than the Marshall, Cristy and himself. 3 Children one of whom lost both his parents, 11 women, 15 men and an old couple.

Once everyone started to calm down the man stood in the center of the group and spoke out.

“Hello everyone. My name is Nestor Morales and I am the Air Marshall. I know this has been a very stressful situation for us all but we need to start working together.”

At this point he was interrupted by a woman who asked, ”Why did this happen, what was that thing?“

“I do not know nor can I explain what occurred. However we must stay calm and work together to get through this. We don’t know when help will be able to arrive, so we must gather our supplies and scout out the area. “

Everyone seemed to be in agreement so they then began to work. First and foremost, the survivors searched through the plane and luggage for any supplies they could find. They were able to find some water, toilet paper and packaged airline food. After going through it all the supplies would at most last them 2 days.

Nestor decided to make 4 groups of 3 men each to go North, South, East and West in search of help and food. They were to return before sunset, or as soon as they found anything. Morgan wanted to join Nestor’s group, but Nestor told him to rest instead. Morgan kept pushing and eventually Nestor let him join.

Nestor assigned Morgan to his group to look over him and they were joined by a young blonde man named Josh. As they headed East Morgan noticed a change in Nestor’s facial expression. He seemed to become more serious and his eyes were sharp as he surveyed the surroundings. Morgan didn’t want to bother him so he didn’t ask.

Neither of the three of them really spoke as they continued on. After about an hour they could hear the faint sound of running water. Josh was the first to react as he rushed towards the sound while telling the other two. ”Hey guys hurry up there’s water.” Morgan stuck to Nestor as they approached to see Josh kneeling on the river bed filling up his bottle of water eagerly.

The river was crystal clear and should have been a thing of celebration, yet Morgan noticed that Nestor’s expression grew darker. As they stood together watching josh enjoy himself Morgan couldn’t help but ask Nestor, “What’s wrong?“

Nestor responded in a deep and serious tone.

“This doesn’t make sense. It’s all strange “

“What do you mean?”

Nestor Just said, “the silence…”

He then continued, “The forest has been quiet. Not a sound at all. There’s no sounds of birds, bugs or animals. It’s as if we are the only living things around. Even the river is empty of any fish. You could possibly say the crash would have scared off some of the wildlife, but not to this extent. There’s just nothing… Nothing.“

At this point Morgan finally understood what was going on. Even though there were in a lush forest they had yet to see or hear anything other than themselves and the river. The more he noticed the ominous silence the more scared he got. This wasn’t natural and he couldn’t find an explanation.

[ What the hell is going on?! ]

Nestor noticed the fear in Morgan’s eyes and understood he had made a mistake and let his thoughts slip out. He told Morgan to be calm and to keep secret what he just said, in order to not panic others.

It started to get late and the three man team decided to go back and report their findings.

When they got back they came to see that the others had begun to build some tents from the emergency slides of the plane. It also seemed that the North team had already arrived before they had. From what the North team reported they came back earlier because they couldn’t continue further after finding a lake. It seemed that the river Morgan, Josh and Nestor had found was one of the lake’s outlets.

Near sundown South team had arrived. They had found nothing and had kept going farther which is why they had come so late.

However, as time continued to pass and the sun was setting there was no sign of West team.