STARLIGHT ☆ JACKIE TAYLOR

001. sugar, we're going down

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chapter one.

the blazing brightness of the inferno seared tatum young's freshly-opened eyes as her lids parted against the cloud smoke that filled her plane's cabin. the flames roared as they swallowed cushy plush seats whole and closed in around the injured victims, climbing further toward the sky with each meal. tatum could feel the heat against her bare legs as a stream of blood poured between her eyes and into her mouth and nose, but her swimming yet static thoughts and blurring vision held her beneath the belt that bound her to her chair.

she was most certainly concussed, deluded by the impact of her head against the chair in front of her, but knowing that alone was not enough to still her swirling mind. the screams of the other girls were muffled by the incessant ringing pooling in her ears, and she couldn't help but wonder how many had already met a gruesome end, and if she would be the next to shake the hand of death. she had brushed against him countless times before, but none had ever managed to feel so real.

giving the clasp one last fumbled attempt, tatum was finally able to pull the two halves apart, providing her the long-coveted ability to propel herself toward the exit and onto the ground that crushed the plane. her singed legs buckled the moment contact was made with the earth, and she fell into the dirt, chest heaving to welcome the fresh air and push the soot from her lungs.

out of the grip of death once more, the pain of her injuries began to set in. gnarly burns wrapped her calves and were beginning to bead with blood, her cheek was scraped clean across, throbbing pressure packed the inside of her skull, a lesion cut across her stomach from the force of the seatbelt, and her neck was thrown so far out of wack that she wasn't entirely sure it wasn't broken. each of her wounds were caked with filth and prospective infection and looked as though they were obtained through a brutal crawl out of hell. not that they weren't, because in more ways than one, that certainly was the case.

the urge to close her eyes and allow a long slumber to prompt the dissipation of her pain was strong, but tatum knew better than to sleep with a concussion. so, instead, she forced herself to sit, even if every bone, muscle, and joint in her body protested agonizingly. for the first time, she looked around at the chaos ensuing in the forest surrounding her. girls being carried, girls searching for their friends, girls digging desperately for medical supplies in hopes of mending injuries. the entire scene seemed to pulse with her warped vision, and the movement brought up a nausea like no other, but she swallowed it back enough to bring herself into a standing position.

the ringing was beginning to die down, and through what remained, she could hear the desperate voice of taissa turner calling for her best friend, vanessa palmer. tatum, of course, was never close with either party, but that didn't stop the gut-wrenching feeling of dread that came with every pleading shout of the ginger's name. the possibility that she could be dead somewhere, pinned beneath a thick pile of wreckage or hanging from a tree by her intestines was all too real, and enough to bring up everything tatum had been fighting to keep within her stomach.

plane crash. the phrase bounced around her skull like a rubber ball. it felt as though she was trapped in some sort of nightmare, as if nothing or no one around her was real. but this was real, and she really was trapped in the canadian wilderness with her dying teammates and a flaming aircraft. the people around her really were hurt. standing there and throwing up in the dirt wasn't going to help anyone, even if the thought of action felt useless considering the lack of proper resources and professionalism.

with one shaky step after another, she followed the muffled sound of voices to the spot where a few of the other girls were gathered. coach ben scott was on the ground, pinned by a piece of the plane, and it was obvious even from a distance that his leg was, at the very least, badly broken. with some group effort and some grunts to signify it, however, tatum was to quick to find that "at the very least" was nothing short of an understatement, because the beloved coach's lower leg was left a string of mangled meat.

the girl grimaced with the rest, averting her eyes just in time to see a bittersweet reunion between taissa and van a few yards away. across the two stood shauna shipman and her best friend, jackie taylor. tatum never liked shauna much — she always thought she was a bit of a bitch, even if she didn't have much room to talk herself — but she loathed jackie. the two had never once managed a pleasant conversation, with jackie's overbearing attitude and hatred for tatum's every move fanning the flames of an already hostile relationship. tatum knew how she came off and that most of the team's perception of her was a direct result of her own antisocial behaviors and technical rudeness, but it was always next-level ridiculous with jackie, and tatum hated it.

pressing a hand to her mouth, she opted to look back at coach scott and his mutilated calf. if that was any indication of how the situation would end, tatum was 100 percent certain that the group wouldn't make it a month in those woods. all she could hope was that the emergency transmitter was still intact, and that a rescue team would reach them before the harshness of the wilderness did.

if all else failed, though, jackie would be her first vote for who to kill and eat.