Warmth kissed my face and shoulders, but everything under that seemed to be chilled. Opening an eye, I closed it again right away. It was far too bright to open them now. Laying there, I processed everything that happened in what felt like just moments before. I wiggled everything I thought possible to check before sitting up and actually looking over myself.
Sitting in a few inches of cold water, I didn't seem to be injured from what I could see. My right shoe was missing, though. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. White-brown sand was all I could see for miles on both sides. Right out in front of me was nothing but the expense of dark blue water. The same stuff I was sitting in currently.
Checking to see if I could stand up, I rolled over and got on my hands and knees, crawling out of the water further up onto the beach area. This gave me a chance to look around at what was behind me before. Trees and bushes lined the start of a jungle. Good thing it looked like it was a few hundred feet away from where I was. I would be going nowhere close to inside that jungle. There were probably things that could kill me. Using my hands to push up off the sand, I took a few steps. Walking hurt ever so slightly. My best bet as to my pain was that it was from being jostled around when the plane hit the water.
If I didn't have any bruises, that would be a shock. Being alive right now alone was a shock when I thought about it. I just lived through a plane crash. I shivered and my teeth chattered when the wind blew. The wind was chilly, more so because the ocean had soaked me all the way through.
Looking down the beach on both sides, I didn't see any other people lying around or even moving about. I saw a few suitcases laying just down the beach on the very edge of the water. Wandering down that way, I hoped and prayed it would be my suitcase. My phone, which had been on my lap, was long gone. Not that it would actually work out here, to begin with.
Wobbling towards the suitcases, pulling them out of the water into the dry sand and opening the first one, the inside was wet, but there were a lot of things. A soggy laptop, a bag of cosmetics, and plenty of other female products were really no use to me. The second bag was a man's bag, and it was actually mostly dry.
The clothing inside was almost dry, but it was better than what I had on. I peeled off my wet and dripping clothing, tossing it into the sand. The man who owned this suitcase was slightly larger than me and I felt gross putting on his clothing, boxers included. I would rather not be freezing anymore, though. Sitting back down in the dry sand, everything finally hit me.
My chest tightened, and I trembled. I had lived through a plane crash and I might be the only one alive still. That's what it was looking like right now. Unable to hold it in, I cried on top of all the other things that were going on. Now was not a great time to be having a panic attack. I worked myself up until I ended up puking.
Taking a deep breath, I wiped my hands on the pants I had on. The feeling of dying alone was still really deep in the back of my mind now. I could have been some right now in bed, getting ready for school. Dealing with my controlling parts, but no. Here I was, stuck on a beach somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I might never see my parents again.
Trying to recall any and all information from any of the adventure and survival shows, I knew the first thing to do was build a fire. After that, who the fuck knows? I pulled things out of the suitcases, tossing them left and right, looking for anything that would be useful for making a fire.
In the women's suitcase, there were a couple of magazines still wrapped in plastic and I prayed they would only be a little wet if not completely dry. Ripping all the plastic off, I thanked the heavens; they were mostly dry. Now I had to calculate precisely how I was going to light it.
Besides fire, it seemed shelter, along with food and water, were my next targets. But most of that would have to wait. It seemed the sky was darkening and clouds seemed to fill the sky. I needed a quick way to build a shelter or else the jungle was going to be the only spot I didn't get soaked.
I moved quickly to shove the magazines and most of the dry stuff back in the man's drier suitcase and zipped it up as fast as I could, doing the same with wet stuff that was once in the woman's. It was a race to beat out what looked like rain clouds. If everything got wet, then I was going to be so extremely screwed.
Dragging the suitcases with me towards the forest, I checked for anything that could eat me before getting under a large tree. Raindrops hit off the leaves above my head and protected me from getting soaked. The rain falling around me made me want to sob. I was going to die, and it was all my fault. Though at the moment that was more of an afterthought, the process leading out to my death was where my thoughts were at. I was going to have to find somewhere more permanent to live if I was going to stay here. Alive, that was.
When the rain finally ended, the light in the sky was going to fade at any moment. With the mirrors the woman had in her bag, I was hoping to use them to light the magazines on fire. If I could concentrate on the sun, something was bound to happen. I had faith in the sun, not myself, so most of what I was running on was hope.
Someone was bound to find me. I just had to stay alive until then. That was easier said than done, yet I had to try.
Pulling out everything from the woman's suitcase again, I dumped out her cosmetic bag and dug through everything. I tried my hardest not to shatter the mirrors as I pulled them out of all the unique pieces of makeup. If my memories served me, this should be no harder than using a magnifying glass to light fires, and I had done that as a boy. It was just a matter of setting them at all the right angles to make a beam of light. Then there was the hope it would be strong enough.
Taking the magazines out into the sand of the beach, I laid them out and went back to grab all the mirrors. I only had so long to make this work. Moving them around and piled sand to hold them up. I made sure to have as many as I could point towards the paper. This is what I needed.
If that wasn't enough, the next best thing I could try was clear glass from anything I could find and hope for the best on that. I had yet to see anything made of clear glass. Some of the cosmetics were glass-bottled but that wouldn't work, but they might come in handy for boiling water in tiny amounts after we actually got the fire.
The only thing she had that I was grateful for in all the makeup, minus the mirrors, was the sunscreens. She had brought a few with her and I wondered if the flight they were going to get on after the one we had boarded was one somewhere sunny; she had everything to support that idea. Sadly, she would not be making that flight, and I would not be making mine either.
I was terrified to leave the mirrors and papers; I didn't want to miss the window to light it on fire. While it was still light, I needed to look for food. Swallowing the terror of missing my chance, I pulled my left shoe off and tossed it towards the suitcases; it was pretty useless to have just one on my foot.
Walking down the beach in just socks, I dipped them in the water to avoid burning my feet on the hot sand. Parts of my body ached as I wandered down the shore. There were bits of plastic and small metal chunks all over the beach. The standard white colour of all the pieces suggested they might be from the plane, but I wasn't sure of that.
I spotted another bag, but it wasn't mine. This one was dark blue and had a visible rip in it as I got closer. Everything inside was going to be soaked, but I was hoping for anything I could dry out and use eventually.
Grabbing the handles, I pulled it up out of the water and far enough onto the beach I would not get soaked. Water poured out the rip in the bag as I carried it back towards the spot of the jungle and beach I was calling home. I didn't want to even check to see what was inside the bag until I got back and checked on my set-up. I was hoping for something promising.
Even if there was nothing super useful in the bag, the bag might be more useful on its own. It was a canvas-like bag and seemed to have industrial strength handles. If I could figure out how to fix the hole, then I could use it for the storage of food or whatever else I might find.