Stranded

Prologue

The bare trees towered above the girl as she stood up from where she had been lying in the gritty sand. The small crystals fell from her thick, black hair as she spun slowly, taking in the dark forest around her. The trees swayed slightly from a breeze, ominous due to their dead appearance. Her gaze moved up into the sky. It was riddled with dark patches of clouds, lending it the appearance of a patchwork quilt. She heard the faint sound of thunder in the distance and jumped slightly. Storms had always scared her and without a second thought, she started toward the forest, searching for shelter from the impending storm, albeit cautiously, rustling the underbrush as she went. The forest appeared dead and deserted, almost as if it were expecting something bad to happen. She picked through the dense, but again, devoid, forest, stepping over fallen tree limbs and ducking under low hanging branches. The forest was unnaturally still, lacking all life. No birds were chirping and there wasn't even the comforting sound of leaves rustling, which set the girl on edge. She continued quickly through the trees, soon coming upon a deep cave. She gazed into the cave with uncertainty. An unseen force seemed to propel her into the cave almost against her will. The girl walked hesitantly along the dark tunnels. Suddenly, without warning, the ground dropped away. Her scream echoed throughout all of the recesses of the cave.

Olympia jerked awake with a gasp. Her eyes flew open and she took in her surroundings. Six other teenagers, all looking between the ages of 13 and 17, sat strapped to seats around her. She realized with a start that she was constrained, too. Looking out the window diagonal from her, Olympia saw that she was high in the air, probably in an airplane. She could make out in the distance, in the direction the plane was heading, a great thunderstorm, with lightning flashing in the clouds. The wind was strong and was causing a lot of turbulence. Fear rose in the pit of her stomach. She glanced at the others and quickly found all of them still to be asleep. She started frantically trying to unfasten herself from the seat, but quickly deemed it a lost cause. She let out a small yelp as the plane dipped wildly to the side and Olympia curled into as small of a ball as she could. Across the aisle from her, a boy, probably about her age, 15, woke up as well. He looked around wildly, panting a bit as though he had been running in his dream and finally let his gaze land on Olympia. She pointed out the window and let out a terrified shriek, just as a bolt of lightning struck the wing of the plane. She felt the plane start to spin out of control, going down. Through the thick rain, she could just make out a small shape among the crashing ocean waves. An island, she guessed. But the plane wasn't going to land anywhere near the tiny island. Olympia let out a scream and squeezed her eyes shut. Thunder, lightning and howling wind surrounded the plane and Olympia knew in the back of her mind, that there was no way she was going to survive this, no way that any of them would survive it. She had never believed in a god, but she closed her eyes and begged for the plane to at least land on that island, her only hope in this vast ocean. The last thing she remembered was losing altitude more and more quickly and her breathing becoming more and more shallow from the lack of air before losing consciousness.