Chapter Text
The desert is an unforgiving place.
This one is called Death Valley for a reason.
Every living thing there has to fight for survival.
And we would have to fight, too, or else we were as good as dead.
__________
The blurry view Marc awakens to is rosy-colored sand.
A sea of dunes, shining under a burning yellow sun, stretches far past the horizon, farther than his eyes are able to pinpoint. Half-conscious, his hot skin, definitely partially sun-burnt by now, acknowledges the heat. Sweltering with each passing second, he feels as if the sun will make him melt like snow.
Marc tilts his head, much to the complaint of his sore neck, and catches sight of his twitching fingers, chipped inked nails and all. The itchy feeling of sand against skin makes Marc realize that one of his fingerless gloves is missing. Briefly, he mourns the glove.
Somehow, he wires his brain to send signals to move his aching arm and shoulder muscles into a propped-onto-his-elbows position. He then scans his surroundings in all four directions as best as he can.
Matc groans and blinks at the dust clouds weakening his vision only for his eyes to water at the amount of effort it takes. The urge to rub his itchy eyelids is strong, but he restrains himself. He thinks it would be beneficial in the long run to not inhibit his eyes further and conserve his energy lest he loses consciousness.
As Marc takes a closer look, for miles beyond his line of sight, there are only barren deserts. Its sand shimmers to outshine crushed specks of gold, but its beauty is finite in the face of Marc’s dilemma.
A wave of confusion fills his system, but Marc is too worn-out to think. To him, the thought of another nap seems mighty appealing. He purses his lips and closes his eyes, expecting his exhaustion to take autopilot, but the opposite happens. A pounding headache runs over him as forcefully as a freight train, and suddenly, it rushes back.
The answers to his questions all lie in his hazy memories.
A montage of flashbacks shocks his brainwave as suddenly as planets colliding. The eardrum-shattering sounds of a plane engine exploding in sparks of white, to which the plane catches fire. The other passengers’, flight attendants’, and pilots’ mixed panicking as the plane was due to crash-land. The blaring of alarms. Passengers desperately pulling on the hatches of the exit doors mid-fall to save themselves. Others call their loved ones only for the signal to fail to connect each time. Others went so far as if to lock themselves in the bathroom. Marc saw families hugging. Marc saw crying. And he went numb.
Tearful eyes of cerulean. Tangled red-orange hair, the color of the spreading flames. The screaming, the screaming, the screaming. Fire consumed his vision until there was an explosion, and the world turned black.
Not a moment later, Marc’s eyes shoot open. He flails his limbs and pushes his body into a sitting position. As his breath is shaky, he clutches a handful of his tattered shirt to calm his racing heartbeat only to have the sudden urge to hurl.
He coughs out a mouthful of burning hot sand and grimaces at the blood residue mixed in. The raven-haired boy continues to spit out more grains of sand if only to be rid of the uncomfortable powder lingering much to his distaste. Attempting to seize control of his numbing tongue, he licks his chapped lips, but is forced to hold back the moist tears threatening to spill.
Marc remembers it all. Under Madame Bustier’s recommendation, he entered an international liberal arts competition, and his short story somehow miraculously won the first place prize. He as well as the second and third place winners were expected to travel by plane to California to receive their trophies and rewards. Not to mention, there would be a once-in-a-lifetime meet and greet with some of the greatest modern-day artists, novelists included, of the century.
Marc looked forward to attending.
Only for a malfunction in the plane’s engines to occur near the border of California, causing the pilots, flight attendants, and other passengers beside him to crash-land in the middle of a random wasteland with no supplies, food, nor water.
And Marc might be the only survivor.
He shivers at the thought. He thinks of his friends and teachers back in Paris, anxiously awaiting his return. He conjures up thoughts of his family. He tries to remember the streets of the city of lights, a place he is proud to call his own. Is anyone worried? Will he see them again?
At the queasy thought, Marc resists the urge to hyperventilate. The dark-haired boy harshly tugs at the ends of his mussed-up hair. He feels like vomiting his insides out, but he holds out, forcing his lungs to inhale and exhale at a steady pace.
“It’ll be fine,” he keeps repeating. Perhaps there are others who made it out like him.
Taking advantage of the positive surge of adrenaline in the hopes of finding another survivor, he attempts to bend his knees to shift to a standing position. As soon as his wobbly legs find their balance, an electrifying burst of pain shoots through his thighs and spreads to his ankles, causing him to collapse onto his back once more.
His ears are buzzing. Marc cries out and his vocal cords let out an unrecognizable wail. Due to the lack of usage, his voice comes out hoarse. Instead, the veins in his hands and head viciously throb, leaving Marc agonizingly choking on his spit. His attention goes to his left leg, and it is then, he is tormented by the amount of searing discomfort. Marc gasps; it hurts to the extent he’s on the verge of blacking out, but he bites his tongue till he draws iron blood in distraction.
Frightened at the distressing state his leg is in, Marc figures his bones and the seams of some of the ligaments were either twisted or severed after he harshly landed a good distance from the plane wreckage upon the accident. He fights his tears’ persuasion, opting to check the condition of his leg.
Marc steadies himself in preparation for the pain that would definitely arise from his stupid course of action. After a few seconds of hesitation, he gently twists the stiff ankle, and promptly screams. His voice cracks, ringing across the desert.
As the pain fades, and he takes the brief respite to catch his breath, he diagnoses the bones in his leg were not broken. There was no doctor in sight to check for sure, but his leg is still able to follow simple commands other than the side effects of pain spasms.
Breathless, Marc nearly weeps in gratefulness to the deities above. While it is badly sprained and not fractured, it still renders Marc immoveable without crutches for at least a couple of weeks. The thought of having to crawl around a desert hits an emotion close to frustration inside of him, dragging his chances of survival further down.
Upon establishing a secure and comfortable method of sitting, he checks the pockets of his ripped jeans for his phone, only to come up empty. Marc groans; his luck is bound to run out fast out here. Not only is he stranded in the middle of a desert, he lost his only hope of contacting someone.
Marc relinquishes himself to another groan. He knows he’s a drama queen at heart, but his situation only seems to worsen by the second.
Close to falling further into a pit of despair, the pungent smell of smoke permeates the humid atmosphere out of nowhere. Puzzled, Marc follows the trail of smog until it collects more and more into a storm of smoke and fire, and it leads him to some dipped mounds in the otherwise flat sandbeds. He peers over the mounds to see, and his eyes widen to the size of saucers.
He clasps his blistered hands over his mouth, muffling his urge to scream out. But his eyes see it all. His eyes engrave every inch of the airplane’s ruination into his memory. As the remnants of the plane continue to burn in a blaze of hellfire, Marc is certain he won’t ever forget the remains of pure destruction.
Shards of glass from the demolished windows of the plane glitter utop the sand. The white frame singes in splotches of black from being buried underneath the raging conflagration. From the rings of fire circling the plane, storms of smoldering smoke rise into the air as if the destroyed motors of the plane were fuming from rage. At heart, Marc compares the wreckage to be a result of a Sun God enacting judgment by raining fire on the world until it’d burn into an inferno of holy fire.
Marc is helpless from tearing his eyes away. His tears drip over his blotchy cheeks, and he is nearly consumed by the graveyard of now burnt bodies and machines until his eyes catch onto the familiar color of red-orange laying still a few feet away from the cremation. As it was the same shade of color as the fire, Marc nearly overlooks it until he is taken aback, and then his attention is drawn to the bright color.
There is only one person Marc knows who has hair that exact color.
“Nathaniel,” the writer’s voice croaks as his memory registers the color of hair and facial features.
A rush of relief runs through Marc’s body as he comes to the realization that he is not alone, and his classmates’ body looked thankfully intact. His memory sparks as he recalls his classmate was one of his competitors and the aforementioned second place winner of the competition.
Unhesitating, Marc drops to his hands and knees. He does not want to affect the healing process of his injuries, and promptly rolls down the mound of sand as if he is a tumbleweed. Reaching the bottom of the hill, he sprawls onto his stomach and uses his arms to pull his body toward the unconscious redhead. As he moves closer, the tips of the flames grow taller and hotter in temperature, but Marc persists, beads of sweat trickling from his forehead to his clammy chin and neck.
Once he is beside Nathaniel, Marc does a once-over and is relieved to see his classmate is breathing lungfuls of air and is externally unharmed albeit for a few scratches and bruises. He hopes there is no internal bleeding, and that the artist did not break any of his bones. Marc glances to the artist’s chests in sympathy as the redhead’s breaths are labored from exhaustion. The redhead’s body is not in much better condition than Marc’s. His clothing is shredded beyond repair, revealing his bare arms and legs, and from his forehead to his ankles, the artist is drenched in sweat.
Seeing Nathaniel’s distress even in slumber, Marc timidly reaches out to tread his fingers in locks of red to soothe the redhead’s tremors, his hand retreats quickly. While the two were in the same grade in school, they were at most acquaintances. Marc remembers he was introduced to the redhead by the host of the competition after the announcement of their respective placements were publicized.
From Marc’s perspective, a dark feeling in his gut alerted him to the fact that Nathaniel disliked the writer immediately. The hard-pressed lines of the scowl he directed at Marc sent off distinct, “I hate him,” vibes. His eyes of cold cerulean, ones full of contempt, made Marc want to shrivel til he wilted like a flower bud that failed to bloom.
Visceral hatred aside, Marc does not hold it against him.
He has grown used to people being uneasy in his presence. The writer quickly grew tired of pinpointing everyone’s reasons for distancing themselves from him. From judgements cast in his direction due to his manner of dress, his tendencies to shy away from crowds, or any other false rumors, Marc sums it up as he has the special superpower to repel people like bug spray to insects. And for the most part, the raven-haired boy was physically fine by it. He always did prefer the peaceful company of wildlife than people even if that nagging feeling of loneliness never quite left him alone either.
Gathering the courage to check Nathaniel’s temperature for any warning signs of fever, Marc tenderly pushes the mop of greasy hair from his classmate’s forehead. The redhead’s warm body temperature mingles with the heat of Marc’s fingers. Marc juts his lip out in worry. Perhaps it is the stress of the sweltering desert, but Nathaniel felt incredibly warmer than a human’s body heat should run.
Marc sweeps the area as if hoping a magical object that’d solve all of his problems would appear but no such luck. His life and Nathaniel’s life would not be saved by a common fairy tale trope. No, Marc and he would have to save themselves.
The only sliver of hope he has is that he has Nathaniel. Bad blood aside, the two boys are alive and not alone. In spite of the fact that the thought of death has crossed his mind multiple times today, Marc chooses to ignore the shivers coursing down his spine and to block out any other signs of pessimism.
For now, Marc thinks determinedly, he must focus his attention on saving Nathaniel from the firestorm threatening to engulf their surroundings.
As best as he can with an injured leg, Marc heaves his unconscious classmate from under the redhead’s armpits as far as he can from the fiery debris, loose legs dragging a trail in the scorching sand. Marc winces everytime he tugs a bit too harshly, and Nathaniel would stir from his sleep and hiss as if the sudden movements are afflicting more pain.
Marc loathes hurting his classmate more than necessary, but he does not cease from moving lest the ruins worsen Nathaniel’s fever and stress him out further. He does not stop until the artist’s voice returns in the shape of a meek whimper.
“S-stop,” Nathaniel mumbles with a slight stutter, eyes half-lidded in drowsiness. “S’ h-hurts…”
To emphasize his point, Nathaniel grips the worn-out sleeve of Marc’s red hoodie and weakly pulls at it to prevent Marc from moving. Undecided at first, Marc swerves his head back to the wildfire and then back at Nathaniel, reluctance holding him back. But at the redhead’s pleads, he exhales and adheres to Nathaniel’s wish. The raven-haired boy situates the two by resting Nathaniel’s head on his lap, countenance facing the plane wreckage. Marc allows himself a brief moment of respite and kneads through the strands of the artist’s red-orange hair with calloused fingers.
In that moment, time slows, and the two watch the flames in the plane crackle with life, and the corpses trapped inside crumble to ash.