Faith+D

=  ** __Unfortunate Things __ ** This story is dedicated to Tiny Hands, for making the map. Faith Dancey =

__Unfortunate Things- Chapter 1 Nauseous __ My stomach whined as the cramped, single-engine aircraft lurched forward, 12,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. I can’t even look out the grimy window without tasting the raunchiness of the sour stomach acid in my gut, climbing up my throat. Turning away from the window isn’t making things any better. I’m stuck beside this broad, annoying, ginger guy. I’m sure he mentioned his name before, but I haven’t been paying attention, my mind is only focused on getting off this plane. Not to mention, it’s getting ridiculously hot in here. They’re only two other guys on the plane, not including the pilot, who are sitting adjacent to the ginger kid and me, across the miniscule aisle. So far, we’ve been soaring for about two hours, and the plane is beginning to smell like a hint of body odor. Yum. This is just what I need to make me feel better. The plane is so small, the filthy windows are already fogging up, and every time I take a deep breath to try to calm my stomach, it feels rather unpleasant. Maybe if I close my eyes, this dreadful trip will be over faster. This certainly isn’t how I planned on having my vacation to Cuba.

Closing my eyes is going to be difficult, especially because the person next to me is taking over my arm rest with his massive elbow, and resting my head against the window is out of the question. I can practically see the grime growing on it. I prop my head directly back, onto the sunken headrest, in the most undesirable position to ever sleep in, and close my eyes. Even though my eyes are closed, I’m not fully rendered of my consciousness, I’m just blocking out the miniature world that exists on this six-seater airplane. With my eyes imprisoned by my heavy eyelids, it almost seems that I can actually see things better. My senses are heightened. I can feel the torn pieces of the cushion I am sitting on, hear the spinning of the propeller, taste the bitterness of the plane, and I can smell smoke in the air. Smoke? I thrust my eyes open and nervously look around, only rolling my eyeballs around inside the sockets, not even flinching my neck.

“Hey, do you smell that?” I say to the ginger guy sitting beside me, thrashing my left hand monotonously at his arm.

“Wha-,” I cut him off.

“I can smell smoke on the plane!” I yell, exasperated. I try looking into the cabin of the plane to try to talk to the pilot, but I don’t have a clear view of his seat.

“Hey, you need to calm down,” the gingered boy says to me, trying to sooth me. “Everything’s fine, we’ll be there in-“Slam. The pilot’s body slouches over in a ridiculous sideways bend, hitting the floor.

“Are you okay?” a dark haired boy says distressfully from the other side of the aisle. He gets out of his seat and makes the small voyage from his seat to the front of the plane. When he reaches the pilot he says, “He’s not breathing, HE’S NOT BREATHING! SOMEBODY HELP!”

I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die on this crummy plane, with people that I don’t know, with people who don’t care about me; we’re over some obscure location on top of the vast Atlantic, on what was supposed to be a getaway trip, is the only thing that is repeating through my mind. The plane is tipping, I’m going to die, the water is getting closer, I’m going to die, buckle your seatbelt, I’m going to die.

All the lights on the plane are flashing, the smoke is building tremendously, both inside and outside, and everyone is screaming except for the person who was sitting by the dark haired boy. I can see his fingers making indents into the leather elbow rests and realize I’m doing the same thing.

The plane is making a bizarre put-put-puttering sound, and the dark haired boy runs, practically vertically, back to his seat and anchors himself in. All of the luggage in the surrounding compartments is stumbling towards the cabin. My long hair has shifted from resting on my shoulders, to dangling in front of my face. I cannot even hear what’s happening anymore, when finally the tip of the plane collapses into the dark, deep, dreadful watery death below. It’s almost like everything is happening in slow-motion. I can feel all the veins in my neck pulsating, my splenius muscle tightening, the bones surrounding my throat darting out of my flesh; my jaw is bound, my teeth are clenched; and lastly the aircraft disperses the rest of its clangy pieces into the sea.

The plane is rapidly filling with salty water, and I am not the greatest swimmer. I am completely disoriented, but I watch as the three boys unbuckle themselves and thrash their bodies into the cold water towards the exit. I follow, without even thinking about what my body is doing. Without hesitation, the guys all manage to swim out from the plane. I am last, all by myself, as the plane is almost filled to the top with water.

Great, my biggest fear, drowning, followed by my second greatest fear, darkness. I take a gulp of smokey air and force my way out of the door and into the ocean. I panic, forget how to swim, and take a short inhale of water up my nose. My eyes bulge out of my lids, my stomach tightens, and I know that this is the last I will ever see of the world. Water is rushing everywhere, and I can’t tell the top of the ocean from the bottom.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">I feel a pruny, fleshy hand stroke the side of mine. It grabs my hand and vigorously pulls my body towards the sky. My body shreds through where water meets air and I take in a mouthful of oxygen. It was the dark haired boy who pulled me out of the depths of the sea and all I could do was smirk at him as my black mascara dripped in chunky luminous clumps down the front of my face.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: right;">Faith Dancey __<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">Unfortunate Things- Chapter 2 Encircled In Fire __

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">My eyes are stinging and my bangs are glued to my forehead from the water licking my face. To my left, the aircrafts pieces are bobbing about the Atlantic and to my right, two boys are sitting upon a yellow raft, while the dark haired boy is still in the water. He’s staring at me, probably because I look like a sea monster with makeup bleeding down my face, as I desperately try to keep myself from sinking.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I can see that the dark haired boy can tell that I’m struggling and he roars, “Get onto the raft!” I do as he says, kicking my legs hysterically to try to move myself. His cogent callused hand grabs my arm and drags me onto the pontoon. The sides are covered in green slimy algae and it smells like smokey plastic. It’s a rather tiny raft, and I’m surprised that we all fit onto it. Water is slurping against the sides of yellow pliable plastic keeping us afloat and the waves are pushing the raft up and down, up and down, up and down. I have a very weak stomach. I throw my head over the side of the raft, whipping my face with my dank hair as I do so, and instantaneously my stomach gives up and I hurl the contents from my gut into the dingy water below.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Hey, there’s something over there!” a booming voice shouts from behind me. I tune the rest of whatever they’re saying out, but I look up, still gripping the side of the raft and see an island in the distance. I turn back around and face the others. I can still feel my stomach gurgling, I get the sensation that I may have to heave, but I’m fine now. The dark haired boy is sitting beside me. Up close, I can see now that his face is kissed with a couple freckles and now I can notice that his hair is more of a chestnut colour. He sits beside me, his back straight, his chest out, he looks like a born leader, and his presence makes me calm. Across from me is the ginger kid and the quite boy who was sitting beside the freckled boy on the plane. The quite one looks peculiar. He has spiky hair has been flattened a bit from the water and he wears a soggy flannel shirt. His whole body is shaking, and he looks almost detached from the world. I don’t even bother looking at the ginger boy, his face irritates me, and I’m irritated enough as it is. Lying in the center of the decrepit dinghy is a dull red flare gun. It’s just sitting there and I’m tempted to grab it, just to hold it, to feel safe, to feel like I’m in charge, but it just sits there.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“We need to paddle towards the island,” the freckled faced boy exclaims, “C’mon everybody.” The quiet one and the ginger boy start paddling, but I don’t. My hands begin to quiver as I put them in front of my face, so I decide to put my tremulous hands onto my lap and do nothing, except listen to the sounds of my belly babbling briskly. I feel bad not helping, and I’m sure I would be more useful then the ginger kid and the quiet boy, but thankfully there’s a slight current working in our favor.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“So,” the ginger boy says after about ten seconds of trawling, “I know this may not be the best time, but uh, what are your names?” Yippee. We’re all going to be friends now. Ya right. I don’t wish to be friends with these people, they mean nothing to me. The ginger boy speaks up again, “My names Jordan, in case you were wondering.”

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“No one was wondering,” I pip in, not thinking about what I’m saying. Jordan looks at me, flustered, when the freckled boy speaks up.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“I’m Ryan.” He says, and that is that.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“If you really wanna know, I’m Faith.” Sarcastically I add, “and I know that we’ll all be the best of friends!” clasping my hands together by the side of my face, mocking Jordan. Everyone pauses, and looks and the silent boy.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Well,” Ryan says, “what’s your name?”

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“I-I’m, uh, m-my names Evan.” He finally says, looking at no one, almost as if he’s in a trance.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s getting dark and cold and I can feel raindrops plunking onto my face. After what seems like an eternity of being pushed and pulled away from the island by the waves, we stop on top of a bunch of black jagged rocks surrounding the island in the shallow water. Past the rocks lay a dark sandy shoreline surrounded by slouching palm trees. This is the gloomiest place I’ve ever envisioned. It’s as if there’s no colour on the island, only shadows dance upon the grounds, and shades swallow up everything that rests upon it.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Well, c’mon.” Ryan says, cool as a cucumber. It’s as if this is normal for him, like there isn’t anything wrong. Ryan, Jordan, and myself get out of the raft. Evan stays sitting, and finally looks up at me, grabs the flare gun, and prances out of the raft onto the beach. Ryan dawdles the raft to shore and sees that Evan has the gun. I want to say something, but I bite my tongue.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Hey gimme that!” Ryan shouts to Evan, reaching for the gun as he continues dragging the hunk of plastic over top of crushed shells and black sand. The sound of the plastic being hauled along the ground makes a horrid crunching noise, like when someone breaks their arm, or cracks their knuckles, or bites their nails. Crunch, rip, gnaw, scrunch. The sand sticks in-between my toes and itches as it scrapes under my nails and gets stuck in-between the wrinkles on the bottom of my feet, which have been fondled by the oceans tongue. Slurp. Greeny-blue sea foam continues to caress my feet, as the waves endure pushing inward and out.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“NO I WANT TO GO HOME!” Evan shouts, his eyes frantically searching the island. He lifts the gun with his right hand, his left hand embracing the side of the gun, and raises it over his spiky hair. His tiny hands are fluttering as his fingers search for the trigger. BAM. The flare fires off into the sky, at a peculiar angle and hits one of the massive droopy leaves of a tree.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“GAHHH” He screams and drops the gun. My nostrils flare and I can smell cooking flesh and conflagrated greenery. He grabs his left hand with his right and screams in horror. The palm of his left hand is red and the skin is shredded and deformed. Scarlet blood begins to trickle from the wound, and he looks petrified. My eye twitches and I take off my soggy half-jacket and use my teeth to rip one of the sleeves off. I wring out the damp fabric and wrap it around his shaking hand, trying to neutralize him. From the corner of my eye I can see that the fire has danced from the one palm tree to all of the trees surrounding the sand. The four of us are completely encircled in a sweltering orange flame, and we are trapped once more.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; text-align: right;">Faith Dancey

__<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif';">Unfortunate Things - Chapter 3 Sea King __

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">A single bead of sweat is trickling down the bridge of my nose. I cross my throbbing eyes and I can see the tiny ball, slowly making its voyage to the tip of my beak, hanging there for a second, and then slashing down onto my lower lip. It tastes brackish. My vision is blurring, as the flames surrounding us are causing the scenery to morph. The sky is black and thick with grey smoke; the only colour that is visible is orange, which is coming from the harsh inferno engulfing us. My toes dig deeper into the sand; I have no idea what to do. I am completely surrounded by an immense fire, stuck with three boys who don’t know what to do either.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I look over my shoulder and see that Evan’s hand is still convulsing. My torn sleeve, which is supposed to be stopping his hand from bleeding, is now soaked with deep scarlet coloured blood. His jugular is pulsating at the side of his throat and his eyes are frozen. Something else is wrong with him too, though; he looks like he’s going to crack any second.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Evan shrieks, just like a little girl, and ran directly through a wall of fire. And there it was, he had cracked.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">CABAM. The glass of the house shattered, sending tiny pieces of glass fragments everywhere, directly in front of my face. Fire. It ate away at the building right in front of my face. There is no way my mother and baby sister were still alive; they were dead, and had died right in front of my face. Tears streamed immediately down from my eyes as I dashed towards my home. There’s still a chance that they’re alive, I kept trying to tell myself. God, I’m so stupid. I peered through the broken window and all I could hear was the sound of my mother’s flesh, crackling away. I saw my sister’s crib, charred and disfigured, and I could feel the heat licking my forehead, just like when you open an oven and feel the sudden whoosh of heat escaping and rubbing onto you. WE-OOH WE-OOH. The fire trucks are finally here, but are too late. What was I supposed to do? My family was gone and I needed to escape from reality. To clear my head, to start over.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The wind moved my long hair from resting on my shoulders, to blowing in front of my face, blocking my vision of the streets below. My feet shuffled at the edge of the skyscraper’s boundary**.** The rushing of the cars below, the soaring of the planes above, and the sound of the wind whispering in my ear is torturing me, making me want to jump even more. The wind changes directions and begins pushing against my back, caressing my neck, urging me to topple over and finally be done with everything. I should just do it, I have no purpose in this world anyways, there isn’t a point of me being here. I close my eyes, envisioning a perfect paradise, trying to convince my self not to end my life. A small island over the vast Atlantic covered with sandy beaches and beautiful wildlife. Ah, Cuba.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Panic. Fear. What am I supposed to do? My eyebrows push together and fear envelopes my eyes. I can smell his flesh cooking. After about ten seconds of Evan running through the fire hysterically, he collapses to his knees and tries to crawl through the rest of the flames. His skin is bubbling and his spiky hair has vanished.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My toes dig even deeper into the sand and I can feel something scaly, weaving through my toes. I look down and spot a red and black snake intertwined between my tosies, making its way over to Jordan. It slithers in a sly and creepish way, moving its tiny head side to side, sticking out its long repugnant tongue. Jordan doesn’t even notice as the snake slinks up the bottom of his jeans.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Aha,” Jordan begins to chuckle to himself. I’m assuming the snake is tickling his leg. I hear a quick hissing noise and Jordan squeals.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“SOMEBODY HELP, SOMETHING JUST BIT ME!” Jordan cries as his right leg collapses, bringing him to the ground. The moment his face makes contact with the black sand, more and more snakes pop out of the black crushed shells and rocks, rushing over to Jordan’s helpless body. He tries to fight them off, but it’s no use really. There has to be at least a hundred of the red and black snakes, all moving their tiny heads right to left, left to right, side to side. His body rolls over, gradually, and I run over to him and crouch down by his side. The snakes ignore me. Jordan tries to open his mouth, to maybe say something, but as he does, a skinny little creeper dives down into his throat. Jordan’s greenish eyes shoot out of his lids as he makes some short gagging noises, then finally disappears and rolls back into his sockets. He looks totally different now, his round face currently enlarged and swollen from all the bites, his eyes different sizes now; the left much puffier and more purple than the right, and his mouth stuck in an awkward open position with the red tip of a snakes tail jutting out. Just as the flame swallowed Evan, the snakes took over Jordan and devoured his entire lifeless body. I can’t even see him any more; too many snakes, it just looks like a giant ball of creepers all rolling on top of one another, occasionally snapping their jaws and spurting venom. In spite of this, Ryan, still baffled by Evan’s sudden panic attack, doesn’t even notice that Jordan is dead.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the distance, I can hear a fwoosh fwoosh fwoshing sound from overhead, atop the grey smolder suppressing the island. Snap crackle pop. I can’t tell if this additional clamor is Evan’s burning body, the snakes meal, or-

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Faith, look!” Ryan exclaims, “We can run through there; there’s something over there. I think it’s a helicopter. C’mon back in the ocean!” I turn around and notice that one of the giant palm trees has crumbled onto the sandy beach and has made a small clearing that will allow Ryan and me to escape from this hellish ring. Ryan makes his way over to me and helps me stand up, takes my unsteady hands, and drags my feet through the sand. My body is so useless, it’s almost like I’m paralyzed and I can’t control what I want my corpse to do, yet I can still feel. His hands are warm and callused. Mine, cold and clammy.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">We flee through the blaze and see a small helicopter hovering over the ocean’s chilly waves, about five hundred yards away. Great, it’s on top of the deep end, probably because it couldn’t land over the jagged rocks which lay in the shallow portion of the water. Again, Ryan and I thrashed our bodies in to the ice-cold water, trying to make our way over to the helicopter. The waves keep pushing me towards the island, and I’m not strong enough to push myself through the current. Ryan is having no trouble swimming and again, sees that I am struggling and takes hold of my withered hand and pulls me along the Atlantics current.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“There is only room for one of you on the ‘copter,” a mechanical voice booms from the fwooshing Sea King.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Go,” Ryan says coolly. I spot a small silver chain droop from out of his shirt. Dangling form his necklace is a small locket that has the name Sophie engraved on the outer shell. My legs are kicking frantically, but I grab the locket and open it and see a picture of Ryan holding a stunning baby girl.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Is this Sophie?” I ask. He looks down at his necklace and replies,

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Yes, she’s my sister.”

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“You go, for Sophie,” I say still looking at the locket and let go of his hand. My body bobs more anxiously in the water, as I try to keep myself afloat. It’s now my time to go, maybe I’ll be able to see my sister once this is over. I look at Ryan, to get one last glimpse of him before I close my eyes and sink into the depths of the dark sea below. A single tear rolls down his freckled face as I take my last breath, seal my lids, and sink into the deep below. I’m descending rapidly, and I release all of the air that remains in my lungs. My stomach tightens, my lids thrust open, and then everything is gone and I’m finally at peace.

<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">