The plane crashed.
Screams, smoke, fire, fear, despair.
Mark Miller felt those horrifying memories flooding back and let out a bitter laugh, thinking, “If I can still think, I must be alive.”
The man, Mark Miller, who lay stretched out on the beach where the sea gently lapped at the shore, began to replay those memories, even though his entire body felt like it was shattering in pain.
“At first…”
Yes. It all started with the scream of a middle-aged woman. She shouted that sparks were coming from the plane’s engine. She even added that flames were bursting out and screamed even louder.
Mark Miller’s seat was in the same row as the middle-aged woman. On the left side of the plane. A43. Window seat. Thinking back now, he guessed the woman’s seat was probably around A30.
Miller pressed his face against the airplane window, trying to figure out what was happening. He wasn’t the only one doing this.
Who could sit still after hearing such a scream?
Passengers began murmuring, as if each had something to say. Amidst the commotion, Miller also saw the gray smoke outside the window.
There was really a problem with the plane.
The middle-aged woman’s words were true.
The passengers quickly plunged into panic.
Someone frantically looked for a flight attendant. Someone burst into tears. Some hurled curses, while others were too shocked to move.
Mark Miller, like one of them, clenched his fists, desperately trying to calm his pounding heart.
Suddenly, the image of his family flashed before his eyes. His loved ones. The most brilliant memories of his life. Even trivial things, like the time he bought ice cream as a child. All of it passed through his mind.
And then, at that moment.
A rather urgent yet restrained announcement came over the in-flight speaker from the captain.
- “Ladies and gentlemen, this is David Reed, the captain of flight AC 2505. Currently... the aircraft has lost control, and we are attempting an emergency landing... Please prepare, as unexpected situations may occur... This is not a drill.”
- “Passengers, please check your seatbelts again and put on your oxygen masks immediately. I will repeat... This is... a real situation.”
His voice carried an undeniable sense of unease.
To the passengers, it was no different from a death sentence.
The situation was becoming more and more critical. The sensation of plummeting, easily a hundred times worse than the turbulence one sometimes felt while flying, was transmitted directly through their bodies. The aircraft shook as if it had been hit by a bomb, and the lights inside the cabin flickered nonstop.
“What... what should we do? Are we really crashing?”
“No! What the hell is the captain doing? And this airline! Did they even do proper maintenance? Huh?!”
“Please...”
Meanwhile, the flight attendants were displaying superhuman strength. Even in this chaos, they shouted instructions to the passengers.
“Please cover your head with your arms as much as possible and check your seatbelts again! If someone hasn’t managed to put on their oxygen mask, help them immediately! Prepare for any impact that may follow! Assist the elderly and children!”
The desperate cries of the flight attendants.
Only then did Mark Miller feel his dimmed vision begin to return.
The first thing Miller did was press the oxygen mask, which dangled in front of him with a strong rubber smell, tightly against his face. Then, he looked around.
The man seated to the right of Mark Miller was a young man. He appeared to be a solo traveler, but he was trembling uncontrollably, bent over in a state of panic. Still, he was holding the oxygen mask tightly to his mouth. He wanted to survive.
Next, Miller noticed the woman sitting to the young man’s right. Her upper body was slumped over, making her look as if she had fainted.
Instead of instructing the panicked young man, Mark Miller stretched his arm out over the man’s back. He couldn’t quite reach. Apologizing in his mind, he pressed down on the young man’s back to give himself some leverage. A little more. Just a little more. Finally, he managed to grab the oxygen mask that was floating in front of the elderly woman.
His hands almost slipped a few times, but he managed to get the mask on the elderly woman’s face. It was a bit crooked, but for now, this would have to do.
Now, who else was there?
Mark Miller, still seated, shouted at a few people in an attempt to make the situation better. But would such actions even help? Well, he’s not sure right now.
As he continued to scan the surroundings, a child caught Miller’s eye.
An Asian boy with black hair.
About 10? Maybe 12 years old.
But something was unusual.
The boy...
Yes, strangely enough...
He didn’t seem to be terrified.
The boy simply appeared to be quietly taking care of the surrounding people. He calmed down a man in his 50s who was sitting next to him and comforted a peer sitting a bit further away.
The boy was doing something similar to what Mark Miller had been doing.
Maybe that’s why.
This memory, out of all of them, remained so vivid.
As if he were looking at a photograph he’d kept for a long time.
“Ugh.”
Mark Miller briefly stopped thinking. The pain in his ribs was the reason.
He rolled on the ground, clutching his ribs. After some time, he finally managed to calm down.
It hurt like hell, but it didn’t seem to be a serious injury. If it were, he would’ve been dead already. He could still breathe and see clearly. That meant there wasn’t a major issue, at least for now.
More time passed as he lay sprawled on the beach.
Miller forced himself to stand up. The pain in his ribs was still there, but he could manage to move. If he tried, he could probably walk.
All around him, there was nothing but a long stretch of beach. Behind it, there were palm trees and other unknown trees, but there was no sign of human activity at all.
“I need to find something if I want to call for help...”
Mark Miller had no choice but to start walking aimlessly along the beach.
After the sandy shore, he came upon an area with scattered rocks. A small hill, followed by a slope. Without hesitation, Mark Miller continued to move forward.
As he walked endlessly, he came to a few conclusions.
1. This place was either a completely deserted coastline or an uninhabited island.
2. The sun was gradually setting toward the sea. That meant it was evening, and soon it would be night.
3. More than worrying about rescue, he needed to find a place to spend the night before the sun went down.
Miller decided to settle in a spot that would be easy for rescuers to find. He also made a place to lie down with palm leaves he had picked up along the way. It was midsummer, so the temperature wasn’t too cold.
But...
“Even if I get through today, if I don’t find water, I’ll be in serious trouble.”
Ideally, the rescue team would come by tomorrow morning. But there was no guarantee that such luck would be on his side.
That meant he had to find the essentials for survival on his own.
As Miller weighed his options, his thoughts wandered back to the plane crash.
Screams, smoke, fire, fear, despair.
The crew and the captain doing their best.
The young man in the seat next to him, the elderly woman beside him.
And...
The truly unique Asian child.
Had they survived?
The moment when the view outside the airplane window came into sight suddenly flashed into memory. It was just a few minutes after a middle-aged woman had screamed.
Mark Miller witnessed something incomprehensible outside the window.
A massive wave.
Outside the window, all he could see was that gigantic wave.
For reference, this wasn’t some bizarre phenomenon or a change in the laws of Earth’s gravity.
Although he couldn’t understand it at the time, now it was easy to grasp.
It simply meant that the airplane was plunging directly toward the sea at a 90-degree angle.
At some point, the cries of the passengers could no longer be heard. Even the voices of people next to him expressing love to their families or praying faded away.
Mark Miller, too, could do nothing but tightly shut his eyes.
Nothingness.
There was truly nothing in his mind.
Humans were so weak in the face of death.
He just thought that everything was going to end like this.
But then.
Something strange happened.
Something that didn’t fit the situation at all.
A child suddenly started humming.
A simple yet comforting sound. A melody that felt like it was on the tip of his memory but couldn’t fully recall.
It was an odd thing to be happening in a situation that felt utterly maddening.
But...
Upon hearing the humming, he suddenly began to calm down.
It wasn’t because the song was cheerful, or because it had deep tones, or even because it evoked some emotional response.
The sound, the melody, it calmed Mark Miller.
What could it be?
Why did the child do that?
Was it a joke?
Out of nervousness?
Out of boredom?
Or perhaps...
Like the musicians on the Titanic, who played until the very end for the passengers as the ship sank?
He didn’t know.
None of it made sense.
Surviving this long didn’t even make sense, so what else could?
However, what Mark Miller did feel was that the child’s sound had definitely calmed him.
If that was truly the intent, wouldn’t that be the most noble act music could perform?
That thought crossed his mind.
‘But music, even in this situation…’
It was so absurd that it almost made him laugh.
Mark Miller decided to stop thinking.
No matter how much he wracked his brain, nothing would change.
Tomorrow... tomorrow is when something might happen.
He would find water, find food, and find a way to call for rescue.
But for that to happen, he first needed to regain his strength.
For now, sleeping was the best option.
Mark Miller looked up at the stars scattered across the empty sky and drifted off to sleep.
Unaware that, far away, a small light at about a child’s height was coming toward him.
T/N: I personally really like this story. I wanted to translate it long before, but I waited until it's completed. Anyways, hopefully there will be people who will read this and like it as well. (,,>﹏<,,)
