Tales of the Gobi Desert
CIS, Abigail Smith, Fiction: Group 3
I
was awoken by bawling murmurs. I woke up at once and turned my attention towards the
woman across the aisle, staring out the plane with a petrified look on her face. I peered
through my window to get a glimpse of what she was freaking out about, but all I saw was
the faint purple- orange sky and vast barren landscape of a sandy desert.
I shrugged and laid my seat back down, closed my eyes, and thought about the place I would
be in 8 hours, my university. Just when I was about to drift off again, the voices of worried people
got me on my feet. Everyone walked towards the other side of the cabin, where something odd
was happening outside the plane. I had realized what happened without having me walk over
when the speakers announced, “This is the captain, take your seats and brace for impact.”
The plane rollicked back and forth and there was a smell of burning machinery. My first
initial thoughts were, “OK, one of our engines has gone out, but we still have another one right?
It’s alright, the pilot has got everything under control, we’ll definitely make it to New York.”. But
when the plane made its first sudden drop, my thoughts changed completely. My mind was full of
questions and worry, “What if I don’t make it out alive? What if I die a horrible death? What about
my family and friends? Will I ever see them again?”. Scared stiff to think, I adapted the brace
position and sang a song to calm my mind down. The sound of the engines stopped for a second.
It was utter silence. I looked up, scanning the cabin. A loud explosion bursted from the engines,
then we dropped.
Dazed, I sat up and heard the hurling sounds of wind. For a moment, I felt completely
lonesome. I had almost forgotten that we had crashed, if I had not seen the plane split in three,
the head completely broken off, and the tail not in sight. I unbuckled myself, and discovered an
unbearable pain in my lower stomach. A piece of glass from the cup had been stabbed into my
rib cage. Crying of frustration and fear I tried pulling it out to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn’t
budge. Not being able to locate my shoes, I walked out of the plane bare feet, and became aware
of the fact that I was standing in sand. “Am I on a beach?”, I wondered aloud. My assumption was
wrong once I noticed that there was no sea or... anything at all. “Oh no, no no no.”, I said, “This
ain’t no beach, it’s a desert.”.
I scrambled back onto the middle part of the plane in search for any survivors in need of help.
I let out a sob when my eyes met the dead eyes of a little girl still in her seat, holding her mother’s
hand and her teddy bear, covered in blood, frozen with fear. I swallowed hard and decided not
to go any further as I know more of this was ahead of me. Just when I turned around, I heard a
muffled “Help.” from the next aisle. The guy, seemingly my age, had a bleeding head, and couldn’t
get up from his seat. Being aware of my stomach and not to crouch too much, I went over and
steadily helped him up. “Are you feeling alright?”, I asked. He was stunned by the twist of events,
but he eventually said, “I think so. We need to go find help, now.”. Nodding in approval, I looked
down on my stomach where the piece of glass was, “Well, it’s now or never.”. I pulled it out with
all my might and let out a sharp scream.
We gathered all items we needed in order to survive from the belongings of people on the
plane. That included water, food, scarfs for covering our faces, first aid, stuffed it in a backpack,
secured the cloth tied around my injury, and we were on our way. The sand was so deep it covered
our feet every step we took, the wind was so strong it blew our scarfs away, this was the worse
