“Are you okay, Miss? Do you need anything?”

You looked up at the handsome young flight attendant standing above you.. His black gelled hair glistened in the light of the overhead compartment, his head almost touching the top. He stood tall and proud, a caring yet y smile sprawled across his face. Blushing, you looked at his name tag. Seunghyun.

“I’m fine thanks, Seunghyun,” You replied as you looked back down towards the vomit bag you had in your hand. You clenched the bag closed with embarrassment, hoping he didn’t see the remains of your lunch that you very obviously couldn’t digest. “Just a bit of air sickness; it’ll pass soon.”

Peeking back up at the man, he flashed a sympathetic smile. He’d obviously had to deal with many passengers who were unlucky enough to have a weak stomach such as yours.

“Okay, if you insist, ma’am. But at any time if you need assistance, don’t be afraid to press the call button and I will be right over.”

Seunghyun flashed a wide friendly smile that made butterflies pound against the walls of your stomach. You returned the smile and thanked him before he bowed and walked away. You leaned to the side to get one last peak at his silhouette. The corners of your lips peaked up – he had absolutely perfect proportions!

Your lips curled upwards.

“Anytime I need assistance huh?”

You looked down at your neglected nails and sighed. A manicure would be nice, you thought, but quickly shook your head at the absurdity of asking the steward to give your nails some love. Long flights made you think ridiculous things sometimes.   

Just a week ago you won the lucky draw at a carnival—tickets for two to an island resort at some island you had never heard of before, located in the Pacific Ocean. Geography wasn’t your forte back in high school so you weren’t surprised you hadn’t heard of it. Too many long hours reading fashion and gossip magazines in class to remember anything else that might have been going on.

Looking out the window, you marvelled at how beautiful the sky looked from up here. It’s vast blueness, empty and never ending. You sighed, feeling that exact description on the inside – blue, empty and never ending. 

You hadn’t had any close friends back home. Everyone from high school had gone on to university, found jobs and moved on with their individual lives. Everyone at your school were very career focused, something that you never were. You were more of a, always live in the moment kind of girl. You wanted to have fun, didn’t think about what you wanted to be when you grew up. But because of growing up with that mindset, you were now stuck in a rut of never ending, pointless job interviews; all of which you were not suitable for. And even when you had been accepted for trial runs, it never worked out. You never belonged.

Now here you were, 20 years old, jobless and on a private jet to some resort—by yourself. To have fun—by yourself. You couldn’t even ask either of your adoptive parents to come with you because both your mum and dad had their nose so far up their careers that they didn’t have time for you anymore. 

Heavy turbulence brought you back to reality. The entire jet shook and the lights flickered twice. You felt your stomach clench, your back stiffening, glued to the back of the chair. The pilot’s voice boomed through the intercom, assuring you that everything was okay and to stay seated with your seatbelt on. Your hand found its way to your seatbelt and squeezed it tight, as if doing so would secure it even more. Your heart pounded so hard in your chest that you swore your ribs were going to break from the impact. Bile rose up into your throat and you put your free hand over your mouth—you were going to be sick again.

You quickly reached forward to grab your vomit bag when the jet shook once again, only this time, the lights turned off and you heard the engine give out. A deafening silence stopped your breath as you felt the jet halt for the smallest of seconds before plummeting. The air in your lungs got caught in your chest, your insides did backflips. The sound of the jet falling deafened you to high pitched buzz. You grabbed onto the arms of the chair, scared that if you let go, your seatbelt will give way and you’d go flying off to God knows where. As thoughts of how you wasted your life ran through your mind, you felt yourself slowly feeling lighter and lighter and eventually, you felt your hands loosening their grip, your body went limp and your vision became dark.

Pain shot down the left side of your head as you slowly gained consciousness. You lifted your head, wincing at the pulsing discomfort. You opened your eyes, only to be met with darkness. The emergency lights in the overhead compartment dimly lit up your surroundings.

Fear stuck, your eyes bulging when you'd realized the feeling had disappeared from the waist down; the numb coldness biting at what felt like an empyt void. Your body trembled with the idea that if you looked down, you may see that you might be severed from your legs.

Your hands traveled down your torso, exhaling in relief when your fingers felt the curve of yout thighs. You looked down and glazed over your frozen legs, feeling that a second opinion from your eyes was necessary. That fear was replaced with another when you saw the actual cause of your numb feeling. Freezing cold water was flooding the crashed plane and it had risen to hip level. Your breath became strained as realization hit you. You turned to your left to look out your window and your fears were confirmed. The jet had landed in the ocean and had begun to sink very quickly—you had to get out and fast!

“Seunghyun! Mr Pilot, sir!” you yelled, hoping to hear a response from either of the only two other people on board, “Is anyone there?”

There was no response. Letting out a loud sob, you unbuckled your seatbelt and forced yourself to your feet. You grabbed your backpack from the top compartment with shaky hands and waded in the water towards the emergency exit. Following the instructions on the door, you grabbed the handle and tried to push it open, but you were too weak. Your tiny muscles couldn’t win against the force of the ocean. You started to panic as the water had reached close to chest height. You began to hyperventilate, a panic attack of a claustrophobic nature hitting you. That’s it—you were trapped—doomed to die a long and uncomfortable death.

Suddenly, amongst the panic and stress, a thought popped into your head. If the plane was filling up with water this fast, there must be an opening somewhere.

You looked down towards the front of the plane and pulled yourself against the current of the water that was flowing into the sinking jet. You followed it all the way into the front compartment, which was almost to the roof filled with water. The water had risen to your chin and you had to make a quick decision. If you were going to die here, you might as well die trying to break out. You held your breath as the water buried your head and you ducked down into the water. You looked around you to see that there was a broken window at the far end of the compartment, jagged bits of glass sticking out at the edges.

You were most likely going to cut yourself up badly trying to squeeze through, but it was your only choice left of survival. You hoped that if you did make it out, that the sharks wouldn’t get you afterwards.

You didn’t know how to swim but in an adrenaline filled emergency situation, you managed to kick yourself towards the window. You grabbed the sharp edges of the window and pulled yourself through, squeezing your way out of the tight window. The water’s current tried to drag you back into the plane and one of the sharp edges slashed at your stomach. Your skin ripped open, blood seeping out of your new wound; painting the water red. Your body had a quick spasm as the sharp pain hit you, but you tried your best to ignore it and kick up to the surface – which luckily wasn’t very far. You burst through the surface of the ocean, letting out a large gasp, in all the oxygen you could.  You held on to your backpack to keep yourself afloat as you felt a faint feeling wash over you. Using all the energy you had left in you, you doggy paddled to a decent sized piece of debris that had broken off from the jet. 

You got on top of the makeshift ‘raft’, lay on your back and grabbed on to the sides for your life. The strong current rocked you back and forth, taking you to wherever the waves wanted to. But at that moment, you didn't care where you ended up as long as you ended up on land. Because shocking to you, you were alive.

However, you wished you could say the same for the handsome flight attendant and the old pilot. Tears pricked at your eyes as you thought of the two people whose life had been taken away because of you. If you hadn't have won those tickets, they would still be alive. 

You cried for what seemed like hours as you lay there wallowing in both self pity and blood; both as painful as each other. The scorching sun tingled your cheeks as you felt them slowly burning, your eyes becoming heavy from exhaustion and blood loss. You heard a high pitched cry of what sounded like the clicking of a dolphin, but you couldn’t be sure if you had dreamt it or not because your eyes had shut and you drifted out of consciousness for the second time today.

“…it’s all up to you now…”

“W-what? Who’s there? ...what do you mean?”

You looked around in search for the source of the deep voice of a woman, but all you can see was a bright white light, blinding you.

“…just be yourself. You’ll be fine”

A slight warm breeze greeted you as you regained consciousness from your short and cryptic dream. Your eyelids fluttered open, squinting as the bright sun penetrated your retinas. You lifted a hand above your eyes to shield the scorching rays.

Using your free hand, you pushed yourself up to survey your surroundings. You were currently sitting in a small rock pool on the shore of a beach. The ground was hard and uncomfortable, rocks and pebbles poking your behind. You in a staggered gasp, finding it hard to believe that you were actually alive.

Either that or the afterlife was completely different from what you imagined it to be.

A small pinch at your ankle caused you to yelp in shock. You shook your leg and the tiny crab that had attached its self to you let go, leaving behind a claw shaped mark. You heaved yourself up with a grunt, stumbling in pain against a large rock.

You looked down at your current state and cursed under your breath at the sight of yourself. A large gash on your stomach was seen through your now ripped white singlet. The congealed blood clotted your wound, stopping it from bleeding any further. You touched the left side of your head, a stabbing pain shooting through your touch where you felt a similar clotted gash on your temple. 

Seaweed plastered itself to your high waisted denim shorts, bruises were patterned up and down your legs and your feet were swimming within your slip on flats. You were surprised they even stayed attached to your feet throughout this whole ordeal. You thanked your lucky stars for the person who invented elasticated flats, shuddering at the thought of standing in a rock pool bare footed.

You hobbled your way out of the small pool and on to the sandy beach shore. Looking up ahead, you saw a small mound of sand sticking out of the ground. Your eyes widened when you realised it was your backpack, which was half buried in sand.

“No!” you exclaimed loudly as you ran up to one of your most cherished bags, your body pain temporarily forgotten. You collapsed to your knees and pulled the backpack onto your lap, dusting off all the sand that was plastered to its wet surface. You whined out loud as your sand dusting got more violent by the second.

“I paid a lot for this bloody bag and now it’s ing ruined!”

Your tantrum continued for a little while longer until you came to the conclusion that a ruined designer bag was the least of your problems right now. You forced yourself to push your feelings for your bag aside. Standing up, you threw your battered bag over your shoulder and looked around.

A grand array of tall trees swept from left to right, vines hanging and tangling themselves through the branches in a somewhat strangling fashion. Different types of bushes lay at the feet of the trees, some blooming flowers that you’d never seen before.

The far left side of the island stood a large cluster of tall, grey tree skeletons. Not an ounce of life could be seen. However, to the right of the dead forest the trees were blooming, bright green leaves full of life.  The sight was unnatural. Such sinister looking deadness right next to the green forest of life. It was as if someone drew a straight line separating part of the forest and removed all the life in only that one section. Something about it sent shivers up your spine. To be honest, something about this whole island made you feel a little uneasy.

Shaking off your anxious feelings, you decided it was wise to look around for signs of intelligence. You needed to somehow get home  and there was no way you could do that without finding some people to help you.

Being outside of the city—away from civilisation, away from technology—made you uncomfortable. Dirt, mud and insects were totally not your scene. And forest animals…you couldn’t even begin to think about what could be lurking around in that forest. Not to be misunderstood, you loved animals—adored them. You had a pet cockatoo back home waiting for you and have always adored dogs and cats. But other than the domestic animals you were used to, you preferred any other type of wildlife far, far, far away from you.

You took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly. You had gotten nowhere standing on this beach debating all the possible ways you could die in that forest. Defeated by your own conscience, you made your way into the dense, green forest.  

“Ouch! Son of a—“ you bit down on your lip to stop yourself from cursing. You looked down at long raised pink line on the side of your thigh where you were just scratched. You glared at the outstretched twig that scratched you and snapped it off angrily in retaliation for scratching your leg.

You let out an ugly grunt as you turned your glare to your newly formed injury. It wasn’t bleeding but it stung like no tomorrow.

Biting back yet another source of pain on your body, you pushed forward and through the impenetrable vegetation. You barely walked for 20 minutes and already you were huffing and puffing with exhaustion. Your foot snagged under a sneaky ninja tree root and sent you flying forward, landing on your hands and knees. You balled your fists, grabbing a handful of the fallen foliage scattered on the ground.

“I HATE THE JUNGLE!” You yelled, birds in the nearby tree fluttering away in a very movie-esk manner. You pounded your fists against the forest ground in frustration as you felt tears starting to form in your eyes.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” The tears finally gave way and dripped down your scrunched, slightly sunburnt, face. Your body shook as you sobbed silently, losing more and more hope with every minute. 

The crack of a branch cut your little tantrum short. Your head snapped up in the direction the sound had come from. You scanned the cluster of trees and bushes ahead, unable to see anything beyond the greenery. Fear coursed through your veins. That was a loud snap; only something of weight could have caused a branch that thick to break.

You very slowly got back on your feet, your eyes still scanned the area for any sign of movement. Holding your breath, you backed away in hopes that whatever was behind the bushes would not be disturbed.

The sticky feeling of being watched could not be shaken. You felt eyes on you, staring at you, watching your every move.

You walked backwards into a tree, your foot stepping on your own branch; snapping under your weight. In panic, you tossed the idea of trying to sneak away slowly and instead, you ran around the tree and sprinted off as fast as you could. You ran through bushes, jumped over logs and dashed around trees until your legs could not carry you any further. Slowing down, you wobbled over to one of the many trees, holding on to it to steady yourself. You collapsed at the base of the tree, resting your head on your knees. The world seemed to be spinning so fast; you felt like you were going to pass out.

You felt a warm trickle on your stomach. Looking down you realized that all that running had caused the slash on your stomach to open up, blood seeping from behind the dry crimson flakes.

Grabbing the edge of your white singlet, you tore off the entire bottom, exposing your midriff. ping your backpack, you pulled out a bottle of water and used it to wash your wound clean. Using the fabric you had just torn from your singlet, you tightly wrapped your stomach up, hoping that the pressure would stop the bleeding.

You looked around, still feeling like you were being watched. You wanted to run and find somewhere to hide but you lacked energy to go any further. With the amount of blood you’ve lost and the state your body was in, if you ran anymore; the result wouldn’t be good.

You hoped that whatever it was out there, if it were going to kill you, it would kill you fast. 

You downed the remains of water left in the bottle and put the empty bottle back in your bag. You looked up between the gaps in the foliage and saw the half set sun. Nightfall was fast approaching and you didn’t have anything to eat—didn’t have any form of shelter. You wished you’d taken up girl scouts when you were younger, or even just watched that Man Vs Wild show. The knowledge of Bear Grylls would have been very helpful. 

Using the basic knowledge anyone knew about the outdoor life, you picked up a stick and rested the tip of it against a thick fallen branch. You started rolling the stick within your hands, creating friction where the two stick met, in hopes that it will spark and create a source of warmth to get you through the night.

“C’mon, dammit!” you exclaimed as the friction between your hands began to burn “This always works in movies.”

Letting out miserable groan, you flung the stick down in rage.

You curled up into a ball on the forest floor, the damp ground below you staining your ripped white shirt. The darkness of the night enveloped you where you lay. Soon enough, the darkness took over completely, blinding you. The only source of light came from the moon above, peeking at you through the trees. The noises of the night echoed in your ears, the adrenaline running through your veins amplifying every sound. The hooting of owls, the chirping of insects, the growling of…something.

Your blood ran cold. 

Another growl soon followed. And then another, and another. Some of the animalistic noises came from the tree tops. Some sounded like they were on the ground. One sounded close. Too close.

You sobbed into your hands, accepting the fact that you more than likely wouldn’t make it till sunrise. Loud footsteps could be heard approaching you. You thought about using the small torch in your back pack for some form of light but decided it was best to try to remain unseen. Light would just show the monsters where to go.

Suddenly you heard the beast who had been approaching you howl in pain. Sounds of a wild fight echoed through the night. You couldn’t take this anymore. Shutting your eyes, you willed yourself to sleep, praying to the God you didn’t really believe in, that if you were going to die that night, to please make it a quick death. 

“…only you…save them…”

“You again…..who are you?”

You rubbed your eyes, getting rid of the dried up tears that had settled on your face.

That dream again. That voice. Who was that?

You stayed on the ground in your little ball, wondering what these reoccurring dreams meant. Then you realized you were awake; you didn’t die.

Sitting up from your curled up position, your eyes fell on the small fire in front of you.

Huh?! What the-

You were sure that you were unsuccessful at lighting a fire last night. Yet, here sat a small fire, burning by your side. Next to the fire there were a few berries and what looked like some species of apple.

Okay, that definitely wasn’t there when I gave up on life went to sleep!

You looked around warily for any signs of life; nothing in sight.

”H-hello?” Your voice quivered as you called out into the bush, “A-anyone there?”

After getting no response, you crawled up to the fruit and picked up the berries.

I really should not be eating random berries just because they’re here. They could be poisonous!

Your stomach growled.

Oh what the heck. If I don’t die from poisonous berries, I’m going to die of starvation anyways. So might as well.

You put a berry to your mouth and bit into it. A smile formed on your face.

“Yum! Oh my gosh, this tastes like heaven!” You said as you shoved more berries down your throat. At the corner of your eye, you saw something move. You paused your eating and looked up towards where you saw the movement.

You saw something move again. It looked like a black head of hair.

Was that…a person?! 

You stood up and walked forward.

“Hello? Who’s there? I know you’re there. I saw you. P-please come out.” You heard more movement as you got closer to the tree in front of you. “D-did you give me this food? Did you start my fire? Coz if you did, I just wanted to say thank you…”

Suddenly you saw someone slowly pop their head out from behind a tree, only showing his raven hair and cat-like eyes. You stared at him, watching the curiousness in his eyes.

“H-hi there! Do you understand me?” you ask the boy in a soft tone, trying not to scare him away. He stared at you for a few seconds, looking you up and down before nodding his head once. Your face brightened up like the sun, a huge smile formed on your face. “Oh thank God! P-please come out little guy. I need help. I promise, I mean no harm!”

And on request, the shy boy came out from his hiding spot only to reveal that he was not a ‘little guy’, but a full grown boy, maybe in his late teenage years. And wow was he a sight to look at! You blushed slightly as you analysed his exterior.

He was tall, had slightly tanned skin and was wearing nothing but a woven cloth wrapped around his hip, covering his…manhood. His body was toned and muscular and he held a long bamboo stick in his right hand. Around his neck looked like some kind of collar woven together with leaves and with a wooden letter “M” in the middle of it.

His cat-like eyes had dark shadows beneath them, making him look fierce and somewhat sleep deprived. He looked so confused and scared at the sight of you. You pointed towards the fire and left over fruit.

”Did you do this?” you asked the raven haired boy. You saw his eyes drift to the fire for a second before he nodded for the second time today. You flashed him a big thankful smile and sighed.

“Thank you so much! If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I would have made it through the cold night!” The boy’s face flushed pink and he looked away shyly, a small smile pricking the corner of his lips “What’s your name?”

The boy hesitated a bit before opening his mouth to answer you, only to be interrupted by a high pitched scream in the distance. Your head snapped around and you heard a loud horn blow, followed by more screaming.

It sounds like a little girl!

“What was th—“ Turning around, you realized that the boy you were with had run off and was nowhere to be seen. You heard the girl scream for help again and you forgot all about the boy and bounded off towards the sound of the girl.

You ran as fast as you could as you heard the screams getting louder and louder; you were getting close. You came to a small fence made of branches and rocks. Not thinking twice about it, you climbed and jumped over the fence.

Eventually you arrived at a small clearing to see a small girl, about the age of 5, trapped in a net high above you, stuck in a tree.

“Little girl!” you yelled, the girl looking towards you with tears in her eyes, “What happened?!”

The girl didn’t answer; she just reached her hand towards you and sobbed loudly. You looked around you to find out some way to get her down, but you came up with nothing.

Far out, I’m no good with helping damsels in distress. I’m supposed to be the damsel that needs saving! Ugh!

Finally you got an idea. Looking through your backpack, you found the pocket knife you carried everywhere with you. (mainly because there was a whole set of nail clippers attached to it as well)

“Hey sweetie! I’m going to throw something up to you okay? You need to catch it, and pull the small knife out of it and cut yourself free!” You held up the pocket knife to the girl, showing her what she has to catch, “Do you understand me?”

The little girl wiped her tears away and gave you a small nod.

You threw the pocket knife up and she caught it easily. She looked at the device with confusion for a bit, but soon figured out how it worked. She started to saw at the ropes, slowly cutting herself down to the tree.

“….big sister…?” the girl called out to you, she had the cutest voice ever, “I’m going to fall if I cut this last rope…”

You flashed a big smile at her and held up your arms.

“Don’t worry, sweetie! Big sister will catch you! I promise!”

And with that, the girl cut the last rope and she went plummeting to the ground, almost as fast as the aeroplane you were in did. She landed in your arms and the force pushed you down to the ground, onto your back.

“Ow…” you winced as you felt every part of your body ache, “You okay little one?”

You got off the ground and pulled the little girl up to her feet. She was still gripping onto your arms, her whole body shaking with terror. You wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled at her.

“You’re okay now—“

But before you could continue your sentence, she was yanked away from you and you were slammed against the ground; again. Your eyes widened to the point that they might’ve almost fallen out of your sockets. 

On top of you, pinning you down, was a handsome boy with pale skin and large angry eyes. Around him stood 5 other handsome boys, each with their own unique physical charm; all wearing minimal clothing (rags) just like the first raven haired boy you saw before.

These boys also had woven collars on, only they had the letter “K” on theirs.

You were curious as to what these letters meant and you wanted to ask them. But you thought that maybe you’d save questions for later when they were not all pointing spears and other dangerous pointy weapons at your face. 

A/N: Thanks so much for reading my first chapter!! I hope it wasn't boring :) Expect much, much more of EXO in chapter 2!!! Comments are greatly appreciated!! <3