Silence never sounded so violent.
When Arjun opened his eyes, he couldn't tell what he was looking at. The sky was tilted. His ears were ringing. Something heavy was pressing against his chest. It took him a full five seconds to realize it was Maya's arm—limp, unmoving.
"Maya—"
His voice came out cracked, too dry. He coughed, tasting blood.
The smell hit next.
Burned metal. Jet fuel. Smoke. Something... rotting?
He looked around, vision shaking. The plane—what was left of it—was broken in half, its back end lying crooked across a stretch of gray sand. Bits of it were still smoldering. The tail leaned like a crippled limb, one wing half-buried in beach and saltwater.
All around him—screaming.
Wailing. Cries for help. The scrape of shoes on metal. Gasps. Coughs. Bloodied faces. Torn seats. Luggage that looked like it had been through a war.
"Maya," he said again, louder.
She stirred. Blinked. Coughed hard, once, then again. Her eyes found his. "Arjun…"
He didn't wait. He unclipped her seatbelt—she winced—and pulled her into a sitting position. Her forehead was cut, a deep line of blood trailing into her hair. But her eyes were clear. Alert.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I… I think," she breathed. "You?"
"Mostly."
That was a lie. Every bone ached. Something felt cracked in his ribs. But he could move. He could breathe.
Around them, the wreckage groaned.
The back half of the plane—rows 20 and back—had landed mostly intact on the beach, just shy of the jungle wall. The front half was gone. Torn off midair or during the crash.
Arjun turned his head.
There. Deep in the jungle ahead, maybe a kilometer off—smoke. Thick and black, rising from somewhere high. A mountain maybe? Or something burning violently.
"Front must've gone in," he muttered.
"Maya, we need to help."
People were already moving. Or trying to.
A man in a torn business suit was sobbing over someone still strapped to a seat—too still. A teenage girl stumbled out of the aisle, face soaked in blood, clothes black with soot. A woman cradled her own broken arm and screamed for her child.
Arjun snapped into motion.
He moved toward a pile of torn seats. A leg was sticking out—still. No movement. He knelt and reached in, gritting his teeth, pulling metal aside. It was a boy. Maybe twelve. Alive. Breathing, but trapped. Arjun shoved harder, teeth clenched, lifting part of a seat frame with both arms.
His strength—his body—finally had a purpose.
"Hey!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I need help here!"
A man with a cut across his neck rushed over, trembling, and together they dragged the boy out.
From the front, someone else yelled, "Get away from the fuel tank! It's leaking!"
Sparks flew from a torn electrical panel.
Arjun grabbed Maya. "We've gotta pull everyone away from the left side—now!"
She didn't argue. Limping slightly, she moved fast, helping a woman with a fractured leg, shielding a baby with her own body.
There were so many people.
Some just sitting in shock.
Some staring at nothing.
Some not moving at all.
More than a dozen were clearly dead. Arjun didn't count.
He focused on the living.
Two men worked together to pull a flight attendant out from under a shattered drink cart.
Someone passed water bottles, throwing them from a torn supply bin.
A young guy screamed as he looked at his hands—he had cuts all over, like glass had exploded into his palms.
The ocean roared quietly beside it all. Unbothered.
The contrast was horrifying.
Arjun finally slumped down against a piece of fuselage, breathing hard, face streaked with blood and ash. Maya dropped beside him.
She didn't say anything. She just leaned into him, forehead against his shoulder. He held her tightly.
The wind picked up. It carried smoke from the jungle.
The black column rose high into the gray-blue sky, curling and twisting like something alive.
They hadn't just crash-landed.
They were somewhere far from anywhere.
And they weren't all coming out.
Arjun sat on the torn edge of a metal seat frame, breathing like he'd just run a marathon through fire.
The heat, the ash, the weight of what had just happened—it was all still catching up to him.
He looked around at the wreck again. So many lives clinging to what little was left. And yet, he thought—
"Our original seat was 3A and 3B..."
He gave a small, dry laugh through cracked lips.
Maya looked up at him. "What?"
He shook his head, eyes glassy with exhaustion. "I'm just thinking… if we hadn't switched seats, we'd be in the front half. We'd be…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
She understood anyway.
He let out a weak chuckle. "I owe those girls a thank-you card."
Maya smirked through the blood on her face. "You better not be fantasizing about the one who proposed."
He smiled faintly. "Nah. I think I've had enough flight proposals for a lifetime."
Around them, the screaming hadn't stopped. It had only changed—sharper now, more urgent.
From somewhere to the left, near the wing remains, came a sound that didn't belong: hissing.
A sickening, high-pitched whistle.
Maya looked up, eyes narrowing. "Is that—?"
Arjun turned.
Fuel.
Jet fuel.
Leaking faster now, pooling under the metal floor, dripping from torn pipes and twisted wiring.
And near it—sparks.
Tiny flickers of static snapping from exposed circuits.
People had started to realize.
"It's gonna blow!" someone screamed.
Another voice: "Get away from the left side! Move back! MOVE BACK!"
Bodies scrambled over each other. Some were carried. Others dragged. Two people tripped. A man tried to pull an unconscious woman free but couldn't lift her alone.
Arjun and Maya were still sitting, breathing.
Watching the swirl of people and panic like it was a storm they were in the eye of.
Maya whispered, "We made it out of the sky… just to burn on the ground?"
But before the weight of those words could settle, someone shouted:
"HEY! ARJUN!"
He turned, squinting through the smoke.
It was the flight attendant—face bruised, one arm bandaged in torn cloth. "We've got two people pinned under debris! I need help!"
Without hesitation, Arjun stood.
Maya didn't even wait for him to say anything—she was already following.
They ran toward the back edge of the fuselage, where two seat rows had collapsed inward. Metal beams, wires, and one section of overhead bin were crushing down over two bodies—young men, maybe students. Still breathing, but barely.
Arjun dropped to his knees, gritted his teeth, and lifted.
The metal frame groaned but shifted. Maya grabbed one of the guy's shoulders, pulling him free while the attendant did the same with the second.
Another person—crying, but able-bodied—rushed in to help carry them to safety.
Behind them, the hiss grew louder.
The sparks came closer to the puddled fuel.
One more gust of wind might be all it takes.
Arjun turned, scanning for others still near the danger zone.
An old man limped forward. A woman sat frozen in her seat, hugging her knees, not reacting to the shouting around her.
"We've got two more over here!" Maya yelled.
Arjun dashed over, voice rising. "Get up! Now!"
No response.
He knelt in front of the woman, shaking her gently. "We have to move! It's going to explode!"
She looked at him, eyes hollow, lips trembling.
Arjun didn't wait—he scooped her up and carried her like she weighed nothing.
The old man was helped along by two others, arms under his shoulders.
They ran.
The hissing grew to a scream.
And then—
BOOM.
A flash of white.
Heat punched through the air like a fist.
The left side of the fuselage erupted in a fireball, smoke and debris shooting out like shrapnel. Part of a wing flipped into the sand like a crushed bird. Everyone dropped low, shielding their heads.
When the fire died down, the wreckage looked even worse.
But the core—the place where survivors had gathered—was safe.
Just barely.
Arjun stood, legs shaking, breathing hard. His clothes were singed. His palms blistered. Maya staggered beside him, arms wrapped around her ribs, coughing from the smoke.
They looked at the fire.
At the jungle ahead.
At the ocean behind.
And at the thirty or so survivors now all clumped together—some sitting, some lying down, others still sobbing.
It was over.
The crash. The fire. The fall.
But they all knew, without saying a word—
This was only the beginning.