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alexa, play THE 30TH by billie eilish
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ONE YEAR, SIX MONTHS, AND TWENTY FOUR DAYS AGO...
"I've lost control!" I repeated to everyone who was listening, giving up on moving around the ineffective lever. "We are going down, I repeat, we are-"
"Fuckin' hate birds-" Taylor Neven was busy cussing the bird that had blown out our engines to fully realize the gravity (or lack thereof) in this situation.
Tears began to fall, but the amount of G's we were pulling made it difficult for the tears to truly get anywhere. Staying calm was no longer an option, but neither was lying down and dying. We needed to get out of this jet, and fast. We needed to eject. This jet could no longer be saved, but our lives still had a chance of survival.
"Neven, eject, eject!" I called out to my blonde backseater, and a tear finally fell. He didn't waste a single second after the canopy was raised, pulling his eject lever and flying out with a big boom. Quickly, I realized I needed to follow suit before this pilot went down with her plane. Following protocol, I pulled on my own eject lever and tensed up, ready for an immediate expulsion out of the jet.
But that didn't happen. I was still in the burning jet, still strapped into the seat. My eyes widened, and I pulled on the eject lever again, realizing that it was jammed. I needed to warn the base, but I couldn't form a single sentence. My tongue was caught in the back of my throat, and I was caught in my burning jet. I pulled on the eject lever again, still to no avail.
"It's stuck!" I choked out amidst the anxiety racking through my body. "Shit, shit, shit-it's stuck!"
"Altitude, altitude, altitude," the robotic voice began to echo in my ears, and I let out a cry of frustration. I can't die. I don't want to die, I still have...I still have so much to do. I can't die. I won't die. I need to get out of here, one way or another. Ejection or not, I needed to get out of here.
With more force than ever before, I jerked on the ejection lever again, and felt a sense of relief when the ejection worked. I was floating down to the ground, but floating much faster than I should be. Why? My parachute was tangled. The thing that was supposed to cushion my fall was tangled, because of course it was. The tears made my vision blurry. I couldn't catch my breath. I uselessly tugged on the different strings, doing my best to not look down at the ground. The ground that was closing in. The ground that was getting closer and closer. If I still landed in this chair, with a faulty parachute, my chances of survival were slim to none. Fight or flight. I wasn't flying anymore, that was out of the question for a multitude of reasons. I'd have to fight my way out of this now.
"You always fight for your life, Jamie, promise me you'll always do that." My mother's voice echoed around in my head, and no longer having time to think about it, I unstrapped and unbuckled myself from my chair. That flew me in the air, and my vision began to go blurry. My leg was caught in the faulty parachute, but I was out of my chair.
And then I slammed onto the rocky, rough terrain; my vision went from being blurry to fading into black. I didn't know how long I was out for, but nothing felt wrong when I came to. Taylor's voice was distorted at first, but after shaking my head and squeezing my eyes shut for just a second, I was able to understand what he was saying-although shouting would probably be the more appropriate word.
"June," he was shouting, "June, can you hear me!? Wake up, c'mon, wake up!"
"Shut up," I tried to stay strong, moving my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose and rub my eyes.
Not feeling the pain was just my body going into shock, but that didn't mean I couldn't feel everything else. I could feel the sweat matting my hair down. I could feel every hitched breath my lungs took. I could tell that my body being in shock and not feeling the pain hinted at how much pain I would be in after the shock waves ceased running through my body.
"How bad is it?" I asked the stressed blonde, who seemed to be having an understandable crisis. "Be honest."
"It's...there's a lot of blood, your right leg looks all fucked up." He explained, and I tried to not move.
"Fucked up like broken, or fucked up like there's too much blood not in my body?" I asked, and he ran a hand through his sweaty hair.
"It looks like...both?" He shook his head, clearly never having paid any sort of attention to our medical training days. "There's a lot of blood, don't get me wrong, but there's also a lot of uh-a lot of your right knee not looking normal."
Against what was good for my body, I sat bolt upright upon his super detailed and helpful description. Surely enough, my right knee did not look normal at all. There seemed to be points where my skin caved in, and alas, the pain sunk in; the abruptness of the pain causing me to press my head against the gravelly ground. It was most definitely a patellar fracture (or broken kneecap; the medical knowledge gives me peace of mind). Pain was an understatement, however. With all the blood I not only saw, but could now actively feel coming out of my head, legs, and arms, perhaps agony was a better word to describe what I felt.
Oh yes, agony was the precise word to accurately describe what I was feeling right now. A million times over, agony was the perfect word. My breathing became labored against the nausea I felt. Black dots began to dance about my eyes, and I knew it was a matter of mere seconds before I lost consciousness again. I was running out of time, but I knew that if I let my eyes succumb to darkness right now, I may never wake up again. I couldn't afford that, not when there was so much that I still needed to do in life. I needed to get back to Nat-this was a stupid training exercise, not a mission. I needed to tell Nat that I loved her-that I love her.
So my breathing stayed labored, and I moved to rub my eyes in an attempt to wake myself up. The effectiveness of that was debatably nonexistent, but it was all I had to offer right now. I can't slap myself, that would only increase the amount of agony I was in, and all of that would probably lead to me passing out. None of that was acceptable. I just needed to stay awake until the medics arrived, I couldn't do anything to help my condition, but the medics could-the medics needed to, because I wasn't about to let a broken kneecap end my career. I needed to recover from this, and fast (this is what I thought of as my vision began to fade, but I never realized this because I was overthinking too much). If I wasn't able to fly after this, I don't know what I would do. I can't live without flying, I can't do it-in fact, I won't do it. I refuse to do it.
I refuse...I refuse to live a life if I can't fly.
