id: 330
name: Catalina
author: Guest
date: 20th March 2021
text len: 9065
views: 254

I don't know how I got here; the scaping mountains flanking me in this river-lined valley seems to have herded me in. The grass, green as ever, provides no food hidden below it's canopy, where only tiny insects roam. For four days I've made my way through, trees sparse with not a bush I would dare eat the fruit of. At least not yet. 

Something happened that led me here. I was walking at night in my local park, where I sat on a park bench, listening to the sounds and watching cars go about their secretive business. I felt a strange feeling shoot through my body and overcome me. I must have fallen asleep, because I have no recollection after sitting in the park and me waking up under a tree. I must have been taken away and left here as some cruel joke, since the feeling that this is all a dream has decidedly passed now and I am very much lost in this valley. I still feel as though there is someone watching me, eyes spying from a great distance away.

I should have climbed the mountains and made my bearings when I got here; now I feel as though my energy won't allow me to do it anymore. I rested for a short bit taking small cups of water from the flowing river. Not a single living thing in the river. I looked at the goal for today; a hill, about an hours walk away, but I had to rest, still weary from the night before. Was that a plane? It was a horrendous screech, deep in its sound with an underlying power to it. But it also sounded like there was shots being fired as well. In my bleary eyed stupor I looked up through the leaves of the tree and saw what were surely licks of flame. I hurried myself from where I perched myself, bruising myself from the impact, and raced in the tall grass after the lights in the sky. A large trailing flame developed in the night sky, like a shooting star in slow motion, backdropped by the speckled sky. I chased after it, launching myself across the grass before tripping over. I carried on only a few more steps, but I grew too tired and had to stop, watching as the light vanished behind a hill. My mind has been clouded with questions for as long as I have walked, but the valley gives no answers.

I kept the hill in my view the entire time as I trudged through the fields, sun delivering an unknown heat. Am I going to be rescued? Do any of my family, co-workers, or friends know I'm gone? The thought pursued me further still, leaving me wondering quietly what my options really are. If I was genuinely stuck here, was this some sort of limbo? Surely you don't starve in those sorts of places, so it must be real. A minor headache developed but was soon ignored when I finally made it over the crest of the hill. I looked ahead and saw an end to the valley; A sparkling slice of water framed by the near-vertical cliffs that surrounded the end. I strained my eyes at the distance and noticed a dot of blue in the sea of green. I threw my shirt off and tied it around my waist, ready to make time.

I stood a couple hundred feet in distance away still, but now I could see it was indeed a plane, though part of it's wing was torn off. Leading up to it was a shallow cutout of dirt and, some distance behind it, the torn wing, wrapped around a bent tree. It was a float plane which seemed familiar, but, unable to put my finger to it, I called aloud.

"Hello? Anybody in there?"

I received no vocal answer, but it felt like the plane beckoned me to come inside; in that strange sort of way when you see a door that seems out of place which wraps the curiosity of your mind. I walked for barely a minute toward the plane when I noticed the barrel of a machine gun poking out of a windowed-bulge on the side. It was a military plane.

"Is anyone there?"

I took another look at the plane, the playful rustle of the grass against my jeans in reply. The closer I got the more I realized that, besides the wing no longer being attached, it was very badly damaged. Massive black sear marks where the wing once was and many, many bullet holes and cracks disfigured the clean lines of the craft with most of the control surface parts being torn and holed.

Did they crash land here and escape in the night? I felt my stomach heave as the thought of my survival diminishing with every step I took closer. The more holes I noticed the less likely I would believe that anyone was alive. Either way, those who survived would have left already, and those who were left were almost certainly already dead.

I struggled to pull myself through the bulge on the side of the plane, pain reminding me of the need for food. I laid foot on a dead body. Looking about and there were lots of them. Two machineguns poked out of identical bulges on each side, and though both looked to be out of ammunition, I noticed the one on the other side still had it's gunner clinging to it, head still roughly aiming the gun now pointed to the sky. I squinted my eyes, in hopes that this made me less likely to become sick from the death around me. I slunk myself through a bulkhead, gentle steps so as to leave them peace. Still, aside from the bodies, the air exuded confusion; something just felt off, or more so everything just felt... old.

The wind whistled a fearful tune through every opening, mixing itself with the creaks of metal that threatened every step I took. I was in the middle of the craft now, austere cots lining the sides and sunlight filtering through. It occurred to me that I was standing in pools of blood that had collected itself to one side of the craft. There were lots of dead bodies that I didn't want to count in this section too. My need for food forced me to continue through the tight corridor, sharp edges and splintered sheet metal clawing at me as I moved. I climbed through another bulkhead to see a man slumped over a desk just ahead. I drew my eyes to his face, a clean bullet through the temple, dried blood crossing his forehead to papers lightly flapping on the desk. Continuing still, I noticed a shot-up radio. I took to looking around and there were a quite a few clearly marked tins of rations, some saying 'EMERGENCY' and 'US NAVY' on the sides. Well, at the very least I can say that they're American, along with the crew. I inspected them further, having to move the slumped man over.

That's when I noticed why everything felt old.

It's because it was.

I slanted my eyes to the blood-stained paper the man was slumped over. It was what appeared to be a log book for the flight. Under the header 'DATE' was 6-28-43. Twenty eighth of June, 1943. Unless something really weird was going on, the suspicions of the craft being 'too old' were beginning to bear truth. I read further.

'Sustained casualties from Jap ships.
Picked up eight survivors in bad weather. 
Return to base. 
Jap six o'clock high tailing from distance.'

Now my heart sank. This was too much. What the fuck was going on. I grabbed a nearby bag with the lettering 'U.S.N.' written over it before noticing it was already filled with items. Reminding myself of my precarious situation, I began to grab as many items of food and anything that looked like it was relevant to survival and chucked them out the bulge near the rear of the plane. As I went back for more, I was taken by a strong desire eat something, the hunger piercing me more than the shrapnel. I grabbed a tin of rations and, after finding a spot near the bulge at the back of the plane that didn't have sharp shards of metal ready to pierce me or a dead body, I took to opening the can and eating the food. Some kinds of biscuits and a few sweets, along with a bag of coffee and sugar. The biscuits went down a treat. They were a lot thicker than normal biscuits and very dry, but they were a perfect type of plain cracker, without being too brittle and having a nice salty taste to them. As I crunched away at them I ended up looking at the other tins of food that the plane had. I had become quite accustomed to the smell of the plane by now, if only because the smell of death, fuel and oil didn't deter my stomach from marching me forward to get more food.

After an hour of eating and, after reading a manual, cooking some food I finally felt an upturn of events. Whilst I may not be rescued, and, with the discovery that there was a World War Two era aircraft and it's entirely dead crew laid in the dirt ahead of me, I may not even be in my own time, I still felt like things were doing better. With the sun indicating only a few hours of daylight left, I decided that I should probably not stick around the crash-site; who knew who may have seen the crash. Throughout the time in this valley I had felt alone and watched, but never really unsafe. Now, it felt like the eyes that had me zeroed on my journey were eyes attached to predators, tigers merely watching their prey dance about. The landscape slowly turned into a hostile environment. Before it was merely neutral, holding nothing against me in my survival. Now it seemed to be out for me, the way grass blew and the skies were blue. I needed to protect myself.

I needed a gun.