Destiny - مقدر

23 - Death Is Inevitable - موت ناگزیر ہے

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." -Norman Cousins

When I awoke, nothing seemed to make sense. It hurt to open my eyes, my eyelids were sore, my eyes stinging with rubble and mud. I whimpered to myself but everything was silent around me. There was only the ominous sounds of birds and nature; of leaves rustling and wind whistling in the distance. I turned to my side, my skin stung like a thousand knives being stuck into it. Every single one of my bones ached, my muscles finding it hard to contract. Once my eyes had fully adjusted to the pain that came with my sense of sight I looked around. My neck was in immense pain but I needed to assess the area. 

There was a wreckage of what was our plane a few metres or so away from me. We had crashed. That much was obvious. The plane wreckage seemed like something out of a horror film. The seats were all out of place, the windows smashed, and the wings sticking out of the ground like growing plants of metal. It was covered it mud and debris, not to mention bodies. All bloodstained and lifeless. It scared me, to say the least. They all seemed so...dead. Like the life had been literally sucked out of them. And Daniyal, I couldn't see him. I needed to find him...I needed to.

It hurt to stand up, one of my arms was most definitely broken. The mud and grit had become enmeshed with raw flesh and was spotted with blood. The wound was almost drowning in the crimson liquid. One thing was for sure, it was going to be very painful to clean and no doubt it would get infected too, but I had bigger things to worry about. I rubbed it with my hand, grimacing as I did, for my hand had become more bloodied than the wound itself. I shrieked in pain as I leant on one leg, staggering over to a tree to lean against it.

I could see now that I was one of the lucky ones. With one hand to balance on, and one tucked into my ripped, blood-stained clothes, I tried to press my back against the trunk of the tree. I failed miserably and ended up falling on my front with one arm flapping in front of me like a flag. I cried out in pain, tears trailing down my cheek. I half expected Daniyal's finger to come to my cheek and wipe the tear away, before realising he wasn't there. He wasn't here. I needed him more than I needed air to breath and he wasn't here. I looked in front of me and saw a piece of paper. How it wasn't completely destroyed was beneath me. I stared at it, my still blurry eyes trying to figure out what it said. That was when I saw a line of writing, large and bold but half-destroyed in splashes of ink, water and mud. 

- Jender ekwalitee must be advarnsed in orda to help child marridges stop

It was the list the girls back home had written for me. I tried to reach it, to pick it up, when an incredibly alarming sight made me think twice. I tried to scream but it hurt too much. The scream got caught in my throat and caused me to choke, spitting blood all over the ground in front  of me. It was the man that Daniyal and I had sat next to. His eyes were glued shut, never to be re-opened. His beard was stained red with blood and his body was a mess of limbs that had gotten tangled in the crash. It was absolutely terrifying to see someone I remember being so full of life looking so...dead. He had prayed so much for a safe flight that Allah just couldn't give him. It seemed every life had to end eventually ; death is inevitable and his time had come. I remembered what Daniyal had told him on the flight. We belong to Allah, and to Him we return...

I retreated backwards, deciding that the conference would have to wait. It was probably starting soon and I had bigger things to worry about. Were there any survivors? Where am I? Would I ever be rescued? And most importantly, where is Daniyal? If that man is here, then Daniyal had to be close by. He simply had to. I prayed silently to myself that when I found him he would be alive. 

When I finally managed to stand up again, staggering on one leg, I fully realised the extent of this crash. It was an absolute mess. A wreckage beyond comparison to anything else I'd ever seen before in any film. There were people scattered around like plants, though not living. Everything seemed so bleak and bereft of life. I leant against the same tree as last time, being more careful not to fall this time, looking up at it's long trunk and branches, as far as my neck would even allow me. We'd crashed in the middle of some forest.