The First Day on Colossus

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      A few of my peers and I flew in a small passenger plane from Paris to Senegal’s Dakar International Airport . Our mission was to aid poor families in Africa by helping establish a community school and tutor and teach basic concepts that we learned in our home school to the children.  Far into our journey, traveling over the Atlantic ocean, the Captain's voice sounded on the intercom and said “We are now flying over the beautiful Cape Verde islands and are going to begin our descent into Dakar International Airport shortly."I was so excited to land and to meet the people that we would be so close to the next couple of weeks. 

·      Suddenly there was a jolt. We rocked back and forth and the plane seemed to be moving through a turbulent patch of air. I looked out the window beside me and saw a horrifying sight. Flames were erupting from the port side turbine engine. 

·     The  plane started to pitch hard to the left and then I felt as if we were rapidly descending. There was so much noise with people screaming, the pilot’s voice yelling into the intercom and the airline attendants falling in the aisle. 

·      In the brief time before impact, as we’re hurtling through the clouds and I can see the endless expanse of ocean rushing up to meet me, I can only think of my family and how I wish I had had time to say goodbye.

·     Then I braced myself, closed my eyes and my entire body shot forward out of my seat and my head collided with the eat in front of me. I felt the warmth of the blood on my face but then realized that it was in fact the warm tropical water rushing up around me. We had collided with the sea and we were sinking. 

    The back doors of the plane were shattered and the hull was a mess with shrapnel and bits of plastic floating in all directions. I scrambled out of what was left of my seat and swam faster than I have ever swam before out of the rear opening and up to the water's surface. 

    I shot out of the water and grabbed onto the nearest floating object to support me, a piece of luggage. 

·      I called out frantically for any other survivors but there was no answer. It felt like I had been floating for hours on that miraculously buoyant luggage and I slowly felt myself getting numb.

·      I must have lost consciousness because I woke up sprawled on a sandy beach with the hot sun beating down on my back and the taste of salt and sand in my mouth. I was disoriented at first but then the horrible truth hit me when I saw the battered suitcase lying nearby. The entire chain of awful events came right back into my head. I could not believe that I had survived such a catastrophe.

·      Slowly I sat up and checked myself for injuries – my clothes were torn and I had no shoes but to my astonishment I had escaped the disaster virtually unscathed. 

·      Initially I thought I had luckily landed on one of the smaller Cape Verde islands.  But after a few hours of fruitless calling out for other survivors and searching the water near shore for bodies, I realized that this part of the island was uninhabited. Then the thought occurred to me that perhaps I had beached on a completely uncharted and uninhabited island, and was alone. And my first assumption was that I was the only survivor of the crash. 

·      I stood up and unzipped the suitcase beside me, and discovered that the contents were damaged and soaked. I found a small black leather writing journal with some pages still dry enough and a ballpoint pen.  The few articles of clothing I left to dry out on the sand as I decided to begin to search along the shoreline for any other survivors. 

    I quickly examined the exterior of the island; there were many long sandy beaches, and what seemed to be a lush tropical forest. I could also see differences in elevation; some hills or small mountains. I knew that in the future I would want to explore the interior of the island and search in greater detail. 

·      According to my waterproof watch, it was about 2 hours before I could make out some figures moving in the distance. I shouted and ran toward them.

·      I was astonished to see other people and then I was overjoyed to realize that Jamie, Hannah, Daniel, Jade, and Sean, my peers on the plane, had all survived.

·      We exchanged details about how we had survived and found ourselves stranded on the island.

·      We all agreed that, as dusk loomed, our priorities were to find a source of clean, fresh water and some food and basic shelter for the night.

·      Each person volunteered for a task: food, shelter, materials to build a shelter with, and fresh water.

·      I think that it will be a priority tomorrow to assign individual responsibilities/ tasks and also to think about making warning signs for ships/planes to see and help us.  But now I am too exhausted and famished and thirsty to worry about tomorrow. We will sleep on the sand and use the few pieces of clothing we managed to save from the crash as make-shift blankets. I am so afraid of what will happen next on this deserted island, and I wonder if we will ever see home again. But right now, I am happy that I'm not alone.