Shadows Of The Forgotten Island

The Sound Inside the Wreckage (EP-02)

In Bogotá, it felt as if the city was hosting a grand festival. The streets were adorned with colorful flags and flowers; lively music, dancing people, and joyful songs echoed from every corner. The locals' traditional attire, robes made of vibrant fabrics and intricately embroidered hats, shimmered under the sun. Candies tossed into the air reflected the golden rays of the sun, creating dazzling sparkles all around. Children were running around, screaming with delight as they tried to catch the candies, their laughter filling the entire square. Sali had never imagined Bogotá to be such a vibrant and colorful city.

Just as he was about to disembark from the plane, he suddenly jolted awake from his sleep. As his heartbeat slowly returned to normal, the image of the closed lavatory door came into view. But this wasn't the plane; the lavatory door was hanging from a broken branch, and the rest of the plane was below, engulfed in flames in a deep valley. Flames rising from the darkness sent black smoke billowing into the sky. Screams and explosions from below echoed in Sali's ears. He tried to think quickly about what to do, but his mind was confused. His eyes drifted to the other side of the island, where he noticed a faintly glowing fire. This fire indicated the presence of people who had survived. "If I stay here, someone will surely come and rescue me," he thought and decided to wait. However, the sounds from the wreckage gradually faded and eventually stopped altogether. Only the crackling of the fire and the smell of burning plastic remained.

As dawn approached, the misty air began to brighten slightly. When Sali lifted his head as if waking from a dream, he realized that the scene he had seen during the night had been replaced by a gray cloud of ash and smoke. There was little left of the plane's wreckage. But one question echoed in his mind: "Why didn't the people who lit that fire come to rescue me?" His fear and uncertainty began to give way to a helpless anger. "Is anyone there? Help me, I'm stuck in a tree!" he shouted, his voice cracking with desperation. But no one answered. Only distant, unidentifiable howls of wild animals filled his ears. These sounds were unlike any animal he had ever heard; deep, guttural, and menacing. Sali muttered to himself, "This must be some exotic island... Perhaps a place isolated from the modern world. An undiscovered, lost paradise..." But this thought only heightened his unease.

In desperation, he began to take action to free himself from where he was stuck. He started to shake the part of the lavatory that was hanging from the branch. Over time, the branch weakened under his weight and finally broke. Sali began to fall rapidly. "Is this how it ends?" he thought, closing his eyes. But a cable tangled around his foot and stopped his fall. Just before he hit the ground, the cable had saved him. As the piece he had been hanging from crashed to the ground beside him, Sali was left breathless. He quickly untangled the cable from his foot and scrambled away from under the tree.

Taking deep breaths, he tried to calm his racing heart. As he looked around, he realized that what he had seen at night was only a part of the plane. Scattered luggage, burned belongings, and ashes from clothing were all around him. As he searched through the wreckage for anything useful, one thing caught his attention: there wasn't a single person in sight. "Maybe they all survived," he thought, a glimmer of hope lighting up inside him. "The fire I saw at night must have been lit by the people, who else could it be?" But this thought was slowly replaced by a growing doubt in his mind.

At that moment, the strange howling sound he had heard earlier that evening rose again. It wasn't like the howl of a wolf or a wild dog; it sounded like something between a human voice and an animal's cry, something unidentifiable. Sali flinched but tried to calm himself. "Help will surely come," he thought. "But until someone finds me, I need to find water, get some food. I have to survive." Thanks to the survival games he had played, he remembered the basics. He had a general idea of how to start a fire, find clean water, and meet other survival necessities.

He began searching the plane wreckage for anything that might be useful. He found a knife, a lighter, and a few cans of food. Then, he entered the plane to find a place where he could spend the night. But as soon as he stepped into the wreckage, the smell of smoke and soot filled his nostrils. The light seeping in fought against the darkness, getting lost in the smoke. As he checked each seat, he noticed something odd. He looked around and shouted out loud: "There are no bodies here!" He started to turn around in excitement, thinking that everyone might have survived. "Maybe a miracle happened..." (Yes, perhaps he was being overly optimistic.)

He made his way to the cockpit but found no seats intact or unburned. As he drifted into thought, he heard a faint crying sound coming from the cockpit. "Am I imagining things?" he wondered. But the sound of a baby crying grew louder. He quickly picked up a metal rod he found on the ground and forced open the door. What he saw inside gave him a shock he would never forget.

The cockpit was covered in blood. The pilots' heads were either burst open or severed, and the entire cabin was strewn with pieces of flesh. The plane's windows were shattered, and the control panel was partially melted. And right in the middle, lying in a pool of blood, was a baby, still crying, with blood trickling from its mouth. Sali recoiled in horror and immediately picked up the baby. As he checked to see if it was still breathing, he noticed a human ear in the baby's mouth. Overcome with terror once more, there was nothing else he could do. He cradled the baby and rushed out of the plane.

Sali tried to piece together what he had seen in his mind: "A woman must have brought her child to the pilots as the plane was going down. While the pilot was trying to take the child, the plane rapidly lost altitude, and the pressure change caused the pilots' heads to explode. Maybe it was due to fire or an explosion, I don't know. Anything could have happened. But how did the baby survive?" As these thoughts swirled in his mind, he decided to move on. "Anyway, I need to find a safe place for myself," he thought, and started to take action.