All was still in the airplane that was headed to Florida. Sarah’s eyes weren’t exactly fighting to stay open. Instead her pupils were wide, like what a little girl’s would look on her first trip to Disneyland. Her hair was long, dirty-blonde, and it never stayed in place. She had wonderful hazel eyes and thin rosy lips. Her body was very athletic-looking, but she never played a sport in her life. Sarah watched as all different kinds of people drooled and snored. They slept peacefully, like naughty, worn-out children after a long day of mischief. The old man sitting next to Sarah wasn’t asleep either. Instead tears drowned his eyes, which had faded with age. He mourned for his deceased wife, which he had known ever since he was a freshman in high school. A week before she was in a terrible car accident. Sarah was usually sympathetic and would give anyone tissues and reassuring words whenever she saw someone was feeling down.
This night was a different story. She barely even noticed the man, and was too distracted from daydreaming about her trip to Florida. Sarah’s hazel eyes danced and smiled. Before she had left to the airport, she had excitedly packed her bags by stuffing mountains of clothes onto each other, not caring to fold them. She had glided around her messy college dorm-like house and kept picturing the last time she had visited her fiancé. The outrageously bright sun shone onto the brilliant blue ocean, which made it feel like a jacuzzi It was so bright it temporarily blinded anyone who stared it for too long. Her fiancé, Darren, got on his knees as if he was making a sandcastle. He pulled out a box out of a wadded up towel and out came that enchanted question every lady wants to hear.
“Will you… marry… me?”
His words seemed to appear in slow motion. For about five seconds Sarah thought she was dreaming.
“Of course!” She jumped into his arms, squeezing him tightly, not to hurt him; she just never wanted to let him go. Now it was nearly midnight and she was still blasting music up on her i-Pod, which she had been doing the whole time. The airplane finally came to a stop. Sarah assumed that the plane had landed so she took off her seatbelt rebelliously. Suddenly the ground seemed to disappear from under her.
The plane whirled and twirled around in the air and everyone awoke, screaming, terrified for their lives. The world seemed to fall apart. Everyone, but Sarah, at least had their seatbelts tightly around them, but she flew down the aisle. Her heart was a drum, thudding and pounding against her chest. Sarah thrashed against the seats, and hit her head. For a moment everything in her view was spinning. This cannot be happening, Sarah thought. Then everything went black. It was as if the whole world was hidden under a colossal black curtain. She couldn’t hear anything, see anything, or think anything…
“Wake up, wake up!” Sarah could vaguely feel someone shaking her, but she was not all the way conscious yet.
“Is she alive?” There was another voice now.
“What?” Her eyes finally opened. Sarah found herself laying down awkwardly on her side.
“Who are you?”
Two unfamiliar people faced her now. A man and a woman. The lady had long black hair, which was now tattered from the plane crash. Parts of her clothes were stained with blood. The man dressed as a businessman. He had a shabby suit on and his slick brownish hair was parted to the side.
The lady now spoke, “My name is Rosemary and this is Todd. We think the pilot fell asleep while flying the plane. You passed out during the plane crash.”
Duh, Sarah snapped in her mind. She looked around and shuddered at the sight. Everyone in their seats were dead. Their faces were pallid, like ghosts, and some even had their eyes open.
“They’re all…”
“Dead, we know,” Todd now spoke. “The thing is we’re stuck in this plane!”
Sarah looked out the window and saw that they hadn’t exactly landed on land. The plane had furiously collided into the ocean and sunk to the very bottom of the sea! Fish were swimming everywhere. Sarah thought they looked so beautiful, but she’d rather not see them this close. She’d rather not see them at all in her life if it meant not seeing Darren ever again and being trapped in water forever.
“What are we going to do?” Sarah asked, terrified. Her voice came out as squeaky as a mouse. She felt like her heart had just been ripped out of her chest. “I can’t swim! We’re never going to get out of here and I’m never going to see my fiancé ever again!”
Todd tried to reassure her. “We won’t be able to call anybody from the bottom of the ocean, so we’re going to have to swim to the top. We could do this. Rosemary and I have known each other forever and we were both great swimmers in high school. We’ll just swim to the top and you could ride on my back. It’s worth a try. Look, we either stay here surrounded by dead people, run out of food, or we can try and escape.”
Sarah sighed, but finally agreed with Todd and Rosemary. They decided to wait until the next day for their swimming adventure. After Todd, Rosemary, and Sarah all ate food they found in the refrigerator, they all picked a place in an aisle and used some of the dead people’s jackets for blankets. They felt frigid, since the warmth of the bodies was no longer there. It was a long and sleepless night for Sarah. Her head was filled of thoughts of Darren and she wondered if the plan about swimming to land would work. She was like an insomniac, tossing and turning all night, and unable to close her exhausted eyes.
The morning she dreaded was finally here. The sun was nowhere to be seen, but the water was brighter and easier to see through, like when the lenses of a person’s glasses are cleaned. The three survivors of the plane crash ate a short breakfast, and then opened the doors to the airplane. This is it, Sarah thought, as she held onto Todd’s back. Rosemary followed behind them as they finally took off into the wet, fishy ocean.
Sarah held on tight, but was scared as tons and tons of fishes swam by very near to her. She held her breath for a long time as Todd and Rosemary swam, but she could not take it anymore! I…can’t breathe, she thought. She was an asthmatic gasping for air, but her breaths were replaced with salty fluids from the water and her tears. She kicked and kicked to be set free from Todd so she could try and go back to the plane to be able to breathe again. Todd was a soccer ball and Sarah kicked harder and harder, until he finally let go. She kept kicking and swinging her arms to get back to the plane, but she couldn’t breathe. Todd tried to help her by reaching for her arm. While this was happening, heaves of water were filling Sarah’s mouth and lungs. She had no other choice than to swallow and die. Todd desperately swung for her arms, but missed, like a batter still learning the game. She slowly sunk to the bottom. Darren was the only thing she thought as she finally landed on the sand below.
Although Rosemary and Todd felt terrible about what had happened to Sarah, they had to keep swimming to survive. They pumped their arms and legs and breathed through their noses. Suddenly bubbles appeared all around a gray, mysterious shadow. Todd and Rosemary squinted their eyes and saw the figure was edging closer to them. It was gigantic and as it came near Rosemary and Todd could see it had very pointy, sharp teeth. The monster could smell the dry blood from Rosemary’s shirt. It turned crazy, like a psycho murderer trying to catch his victim. The shark tugged at Rosemary, at first gently, but then impatiently, as it craved for more food to for it to taste. Rosemary was underwater now and screamed, frantically as she felt her limbs ripping off, like Band-Aids.
Todd watched, astounded, as the color red was seen everywhere, taking place of the clear water, which surrounded him. He tried his best to tackle the shark, but he could now see he was too late. Rosemary was history now, and Todd was next.
