Beyond the Stars

Crash

Mariah's world went pitch black. Her perception of time began to distort as space contorted and stretched around her. She felt like she was wandering in the void for ages until she saw a fleck of light. The particle gradually enlarged as blurry shapes started to form around it until it became something recognizable. It was a memory from back when she was five, spending the day at the Maryland Zoo with her mom and dad. From there on out, Mariah saw her life flash before her eyes. From her years in school, the friends she made throughout her life, her bat mitzvah, the time she graduated high school, the butterflies in her stomach when someone told her how he felt about her, the time when her uncle showed her how to repair a TV, and boarding the plane which would end up leading to her death. Am I dead? Mariah asks herself. How can that be if I'm thinking and ..." Mariah then felt a twinge of pain in her head. Her muscles ached and her neck felt like a busted pipe. Mariah felt as though she was floating and spinning in zero-gravity. She was coming to her senses slowly but surely. She began to hear voices from the void. They sounded garbled, like they were speaking underwater. She felt fingers prying her eyelids open and she saw a bright light from her right eye to her left. Her vision began to come back into focus. What she was seeing was just a regular flashlight. As Mariah squirmed in the seat slightly, she felt very heavy. Her entire body ached yet simultaneously felt numb. She finally heard a voice clear as day, "Is she gonna be okay?"

It was Annie! Mariah felt her hand being squeezed as she heard another voice respond. "She's okay. Just knocked out. She bumped her head pretty badly, but there is no concussion or any other injuries." The voice droned on about Mariah's condition in a matter of fact way, the same way a professional doctor would.

"Is there anything else you can do?" Annie's question was curtly responded with, "There isn't anything wrong with her, she'll wake up momentarily. There are others who do need medical treatment. Please excuse me." Annie tried to convince the doctor to stay, but he wasn't having it.

All Annie could think to herself was; What if she doesn't wake up? What if she has some kind of problem that you can't see?! She thought of the first time she met Mariah as her freshman roommate, bar hopping on New Year's Eve, the times they went to the school plays and musicals. She also remembered the time when Mariah let her stay with her parents when fleeing her ex-boyfriend and when she helped her get a restraining order against him. "Annie?" Antoinette turned to face Mariah and let out a huge sigh of relief. She gives her a hug and Mariah could feel the worry that had been building up at her expense washing away. Mariah still felt as though she was hit by a freight train and this wasn't helping to relieve her suffering. She didn't mind though and reciprocated Annie's embrace. After a bit, Mariah lets go and asks, "What happened?"

"We hit some rough air," Annie says somewhat quietly, "Then a bright light came out of nowhere..." She was starting to breathe heavily as she was speaking, "Then suddenly the wing was on fire!" She pauses for a moment. Mariah looked into her face and saw that she was on the verge of tears. "... Holy shit!" She finally musters to say. Mariah did the best she could to calm her friend down. After a few minutes Annie calmed down and continued, "I saw the whole thing through my window!"

Annie recounted the crash to the best of her memory. "After the blinding flash of light, everyone saw that the wing had caught fire. Everyone began to panic even as the pilot tried to calm everyone down and told us to brace for an emergency landing. That didn't stop anyone from freaking out though. We began to calm down as we prepared to land. The plane landed on some water to cushion the momentum before stopping at the lake's bank. Once the plane was planted on the shore, everyone got off the plane immediately – there were some people who were unconscious who had to be carried out."

Mariah cycled through terror, surprise, and relief in the span of a minute. She didn't know what to say, her head was still cloudy from her head trauma. With no words coming to mind, she simply hugged Annie closer. Mariah could feel Annie's relief oozing onto her as Annie trembled in her arms. Mariah felt the heat of her breath as breathed in and out to calm her nerves, with mixed results. Annie then asks, "Do you think everything's going to be okay?"