====================
The next thing i remember is waking up after crash with a bad headache. At the time, i could only see through my left eye as i looked around the cabin at the carnage that resulted from the crash. The chopper seemed to have come to rest on it's left side as the cabin was tilted at an angle and i could only see rubble and debris through the smashed left side windows. I then turned and reached out to Sarah and began shaking her should with my left hand, trying to wake her. "Sarah, can you hear me?. Come on, wake up Sarah."
After a minute or so of shaking, i finally got a response as Sarah groaned and opened her eyes. "Asterin? What happened?" She dazedly asked me. I reached to my chest and began fumbling with the harness as i tried to gather my thoughts and answer her. "The helicopter..." i winced and stopped mid-sentence as a jolt of pain went through my head. After the pain subsided, i finished what i was saying. "It crashed." As i spoke, i managed to get the harness undone and free myself. As a result, i half tumbled out of my seat and landed on Sarah. Fortunately, it was a very short distance and we're both quite soft.
"Crashed? So we're trapped? What are we going to do now?" Sarah said as she began to cry and tremble. I could feel her shaking in terror through the body contact but admittedly i was shaking as well. I carefully climbed off of Sarah but held onto the seat so that i wouldn't fall further down the cabin. I needed to calm her down so i figured i'd give her something to focus on. "All we can do is try our best, Sarah. Could you try and find a first aid kit, please? I'm going to check on the others. "
It was then that i heard Sarah gasp as she looked up at me. "Asterin, your.... your head. It's bleeding." When i heard her, i reached up with my right hand and touched it to my face then to the side of my head above my eye. As soon as it touched, i winced from the pain that flared and pulled my hand away. I lowered my hand and saw that my hand was covered in blood. "Gotta... gotta stop the bleeding. Um.. uh..." I began to panic a little as it seemed like a lot of blood was flowing. That was probably also why i couldn't open my right eye at the time. Sarah suddenly reached into her bag, which hung at her side, and pulled out a pair of folded up tights.
"Lean forward so i can reach better." Sarah said as she refolded the tights into a makeshift bandage. I moved like she asked before she placed the thickest part over the bleeding spot then tied them tightly around my head. Finally, she used the end of one of the legs to wipe the blood off my face so that i could open my eye. "It's only a temporary fix but it should help stem the bleeding at least. Even minor scratches like that tend to bleed a lot on the head." As if she could read the question on my face, she smiled and explained. "Well, you know my mom is a nurse. She's always insisted on me learning first aid skills to be prepared. I never expected to use them in a situation like this though." She said with a nervous yet infectious giggle which quickly spread to me.
I'll admit that giggling in that situation is very odd but we needed it or we would have psychologically fallen apart. Thanks to that, i was able to focus and gather myself to do what i needed to do. I carefully climbed down the cabin to where our fellow students, once living people, lay crumpled in a tangled heap of humanity with limbs splayed out or bent at odd angles. I reached out to check the first person, a girl, laying on the top of the heap. Her head was bent at a strange angle and her eyes were wide open, staring off into space. I still sometime see those blank, lifeless eyes when i'm able to sleep.
It was clear to me that she was dead so i gently shut her eyes then searched her and gathered her personal effects, like her phone, wallet and jewellery. I then moved on to checking the rest of them. Some of them were very clearly dead, their head twisted far beyond what the human neck could handle. Others had no obvious signs of injury except for huge bruises on parts of their heads. As i confirmed another dead, i gathered their personal belongings like jewelry, wallets and phones in the vain hope that i could return them to their families in the future. A likely futile gesture but it was something to cling to.
Just as i was about to give up hope for survival, i noticed something about the girl i was checking. Up and down... her chest was moving. She was alive!. "Wake up. Come on, wake up please." I plead as i worked to free her from the pile of bodies. I finally pulled her free then laid her out on the bench seat where we had originally sat. "I've got the first aid kit." I heard Sarah say as she came up and crouched next to me, the kit balanced on her legs. "Leave her to me. You... do what you do best." she mumbled as she began to check the girl for injuries. Her decision was right so i got up to begin searching for any and all useful items i could find.
Sarah gave me a nod and a smile before i climbed forward into the gunners bay. The crew chief had not survived the crash either and lay crumpled on the left side. I gathered his dogtags and personal items, removed the holstered pistol from his flight suit then returned to my bag and put them away. I made my way to the semi-crumpled cockpit this time and repeated the process for the pilots before searching for any more weapons or survival kits.
By the time i had found a few items and returned to the passenger cabin, Sarah had managed to wake up the girl. She had her sitting on a seat with a bandage wrapped around her right wrist and left ankle. Sarah turned and smiled at me before she began to talk about the girl. "Meet Angie Simmons, year 8. She has a sprained wrist and ankle but apart from that she's fine." Angie was small and petite with shoulder length brown hair and very pale looking skin.
I gave Angie a nod and a quick smile as i placed the last few items on my bag and began to check over them. Sarah continued to talk, this time to Angie. "That quiet but determined girl is my best friend Asterin Prior and i am Sarah Mason. We're both in year 10. I don't know what to talk about now." I stifled a short giggle when i heard that. That was just like Sarah, managing to get a giggle in any situation.
I turned to face them and gave them a serious look. "Ok. I've gathered and tallied anything that may be of use to us for survival. For defence, i was able to gather three M9 pistols with three full magazines each and an F88A2 Steyr carbine with three magazines." I explained as i strapped two of the pistol holsters to my legs and put the third in my bag for safekeeping.
"I also found the crew's personal survival kits along with the emergency kit. They have some food rations, medical stuff and other helpful stuff." I held up the small bags for them to see then placed them back down. I opened up my bag, pulled out my bulky textbooks and tossed them to another part of the cabin. "Get rid of your textbooks and any other heavy items from your bags. We don't need to carry the weight."
I left them to sort out their bags while i retrieved the bags of our schoolmates and piled them up in an open area of the cabin. "What are you doing Asterin?" I turned my head and saw Sarah watching me while Angie dug around in her bag. I returned my attention to the bags and opened the first one. "I'm going to see if there is anything that we could use. Clothes, food... anything we could use." Some might see my actions as morally questionable at best and heartless at worst but practicality trumped sentimentality at that time.
As i dug through the bag, i pulled out any items of food or pieces of clothing i found and piled them on the seats in front of me. When i finished the first bag, i then went through the others until i had checked them all and a large pile of items sat on the empty seats. "Pack as much as you can into your bags. We can sort it all out once we find a safe place to spend the night." I began to pack things into my bag when i heard footsteps come over and stop next to me before Sarah spoke.
"Asterin, are you sure we should do this? Isn't it stealing?" I couldnt fault Sarah for thinking like that, as it was the common sense of the normal world, but the world was no longer how it was yesterday. "Yes, i'm sure. I understand how you feel about this but the world has changed and i think we have to change along with it if we want to survive." I saw Sarah's bag dropped to the floor next to mine before her arms began to pack things away, joined a minute later by what i assume was Angie's bag.
We spent a few minutes packing in silence until everything had been put away. "I think that we've spent enough time here, as they might have been attracted by the noise of the crash." I turned to look at Sarah and Angie so that they could have their say. Sarah answered first with a smile. "I trust you to make the decisions for us. I think you only have our best interests in mind so i'll follow you whatever you decide."
It was precisely at that moment that i felt a warm and fuzzy feeling spread out through my body. I was sure that i had the best and closest friend i could ever have and that i was lucky to have her in my life. She was and still is the only person who really understands me and helps me to not fall apart mentally or emotionally.
Angie looked around the cabin, her eyes lingering on our deceased schoolmates, before she turned back to us and tearfully nodded. "I'm scared. I dont know what's to going to happen from now on or what to do but..." She sniffled and wiped her eyes with a sleeve. "I want to trust you. I need to trust you. I will trust you. You make the decisions for us."
Hearing all of that, their willingness to entrust their lives to me, was like a weight had dropped on my shoulders. I was hit by the realization that I was now responsible for their very lives. I calmed my rapid breathing and resolved myself to my new responsibility. I was determined to protect their lives for as long as i could even if it ended up costing my own in exchange. Looking back on it now, it was quite the heavy responsibility for a teenager to bear. We didn't know what might happen in the future or if things would ever get back to anything approaching normal.
"Thank you." I zipped closed my bag then picked it up and slung it over my shoulders. When it was in place, i picked up the carbine and smiled at the girls. "Once i open the door, i'm going to check the area before we get out. Once we reach the ground, we're going to have to move fast but carefully." When i finished my explanation, both of them nodded to me and picked up their own bags.
I turned to face the right side door and made my way over to it. It took me a minute to find the handle to open the door but once i got my hand on it, i slowly pulled the door open a little and peered out. I wasnt sure what exactly i was expecting but i was surprised, to say the least, at what i found.
