Thread: What Might Have Been (AndNich123 & Reydan)

Damage to the right engine! The sounds. The sounds were almost deafening. Screams. Screams that a person never forgets. Lights flashing. The face of the person beside her so frantic, and yet amid all of this, for a few seconds, precious seconds, it seemed as though she was in her own bubble, contained and untouchable. Its okay. She heard the words uttered from her own lips, though she didnt fully believe them. Mayday Mayday. This is flight 4012. We are headed to..to JFK International. Flashes of light. The noise grows louder, something that was seemingly impossible. She felt a jolt, a hard.jolt. Her eyes flashed up, noting all the flashing lights. Again, a moment where everything moved in slow motion. Theres a fire! Left engine out! Madeline! Left engine out! She could see her hands shaking as she spoke softly, calmly. My plane. Her hands trembled slightly, surprising her for a moment, before control of the plane shifted to her controls. Through all of this, she could see it looming closer and closer. Her gaze shifted from side to side, as if she were checking the road before crossing. Her fingers gripped the controls tighter as she guided the gliding steel bird. Madeline! The voice was frantic. Her own came through a stark contrast as she held the microphone to her lips. This is..the pilot. Brace for impact. The plastic hit the floor, bouncing as the green in front of her grew closer still. One quick glance over to her co-pilot. She nodded, as if to silently tell her one last time everything would be okay, before looking forward again. The voice from the flight attendants filtered through to the front as they yelled, instructing everyone to keep their heads down. Head down, she thought, lowering her head slightly, as one hand left the controls to grip the belt that restrained her tightly in her seat. Then.. She sat straight up in bed, covered in sweat as the thunder crashed outside her hotel window. The lightening lit up her cold surroundings, and the reporters voice came through clearly. The ill fated flight never made it to its destination of JFK International. The right engine suffered an uncontained engine failure during the flight that resulted in a puncture to the left side of the fuselage, causing a loss of cabin pressure and damage to the wing. The flight was diverted to small airstrip in Sawyer county, but we now know that the left engine began to disintegrated due to production defects in the engines bearings, which have been found to have been caused by a misaligned counter bore within a stub oil pipe leading to a fatigue fracture. This in turn led to an oil leakage which was followed by an oil fire. With both engines completely destroyed thrust was impossible. With sizable damage to the fuselage combined with zero thrust, the plane went down in a field just shy of the landing strip in Sawyer. Out of the 128 souls onboard, the death count is at 12. the name of the pilot has not been released as of yet as the crash of flight 4012 is still under investigation. The black box has been retrieved. Accounts from the flight crew are indeed that there was no thrust, and that the pilot had no alternative. As of now, the reports that have released corroborate those stories. The surviving flight attendants have stated , that during all the chaos, the pilots voice remained calm, clearly trying to be a soothing force to the passengers as the plane went down. Back to you Tom. She rested her hands against her face, her trembling fingers covering her eyes. The scrapes and bruises still made her face tender and sensitive. Wincing she uncovered her eyes just in time to see the lightening once more illuminate her hotel room. She cleared her throat. Negative. Were not going to make it..to..Sawyer. We are going..down..now. I have..we have..no..thrust. The last two words repeated back to her. Yeah. AFFRIMATIVE. I mean affirmative. No thrust. She heard the words that an emergency crew would be dispatched, but it was only a matter of time. Its okay, she whispered, covering her face again, realizing the voice was in her head. Shaking, she threw the cover back and slowly made her way from the bed over towards the window. The rain cascaded down it, blurring the city beneath her feet. It was a city that knew of what had happened, but that was it. They didnt the details, the sights, the smells, the sounds that plagued her mind. It was more than that though that weighed on her mind now. Even now she could see it. The green grass growing closer and her mind flashing with memories, thousands of them, of her childhood, of her teenage years, of her family, of her past, all of it. It really was true. Your life truly does flash before your eyes, and while the world around her was falling apart, on the verge of literally crashing to the ground, she seemed caught in her own space absorbed by what had happened. Now she was left with regrets, tons of them. Maybe I shouldnt have had a drink, or two, when a teenager. What if I had listened more to my parents? Perhaps I needed to apply myself more when I was in school. What could have happened if I hadnt.She shook her head, trying to push the thoughts away. Yeah. Push them away. Youre good at that, she thought before heading over towards the bar. Something caught her attention, halting her in her tracks. It was her reflection. With the lightening dancing across the sky, she could still see her reflection despite no lights were actually on in the room. She drew in her bottom lip, still split, still slightly swollen. Her eyes were littered with reds and purples. The bruises indicative of a street fight. Her forehead scraped into her hairline. Her eyes glanced down to her arms as her fingers softly grazed the tender bruises there as well. She could feel the tightness still in her chest where the belt had held her firmly upon impact. It was a startling, harrowing sight, enough to draw tears to her eyes. Water. Yeah. Water. Thats what you need. Nothing more. Coming up, our own Debbie speaks with one of the survivors of flight 4012. She snapped her head back towards the television. Her eyes were wide. No. I dont want to hear this. I cant hear this. Quickly making her way over to the set, she turned it off and switched a light on. Her face came into view in the nearby mirror once more. Sweeping her hair back it became clear to her. Water was not going to be what she needed and neither was staying in this hotel. The staff, as well as the airline, had gotten her some clothes to wear while she stayed at the hotel. Simple sweats, but it was enough. Wearing them, she made her way down the still busy sidewalk. It was one of the attractions of the city. No matter the hour, it was always busy outside. People didnt know each other, and frankly they didnt care to. Coming from a small town, she liked the anonymity it provided. People filtered out from various establishments, but once she found what she was looking for, she pushed past the ones exiting to make her way inside. Inside it was dark. Good. Just the way she wanted it. Taking a seat at the bar, she nodded to the older man behind the bar. Whiskey. He returned her nod as he pulled a glass from beneath the bar and poured her drink. I hope the other girl looks worse than you, he mused, unaware. She does, she said, raising the glass to her lips. Turn that up, a voice called from the shadows behind her. Waving his hand in their direction, he then turned and raised the volume on the television. The name of the pilot of flight 4012 has just been released. Madeline Maclean, is a seasoned pilot with an impressive zero incidents on her record. Madeline downed the whiskey. Everybody knows, she thought. 'Even him.' She thought it funny to be thinking of him now. He had been on her mind several times since that day. He was the one thing that even in being in the air, that even facing death, she could not escape from. That had been why this has become her life. In the air, everything was left on the ground, but that day, as she faced her own mortality, for some strange reason thoughts of him had come back to her. Amid all the flashes and memories of her life that played out in her mind, he had been a constant. Another one, the voice called out to her. Clearly he asked more than once. Yeah, she said, nodding her head. As she looked up at the screen, images of the wreckage of the failed flight seemed to stare back at her. Everybody knows, she thought once more. Even him.