The Crash Site

[blindandlost]

It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how you were travelling. All that matters is the Island, and the Island wants you. All are drawn to the same stretch of shoreline; your plane suddenly loses power and drops from the sky to crash into the sand. Your boat runs aground. Your helicopter plows a deep furrow until the blades tangle and catch in the thick growth of the jungle.

However it happened, now you're here. You belong to the Island. There might be something salvageable in the debris, but no matter what you find, no matter who is with you, one thing is certain:

You are lost.

Comments

[awfulsentimetal]

[A dark shadow fell across the prone inventor. A warm and very familiar voice greeted him.]

Hate to say it, but I'm pretty sure you're not dreamin', Mister Walter.

[False cheerfulness, but given the situation, was there any other kind? Truth be told The Spine was worried. For one thing, Peter shouldn't have been here at all. For another, he couldn't figure out what was causing the WiFi between himself and his siblings to fade to a ghost of a signal over short distances.

Perhaps Peter could help.

That didn't change the fact that he shouldn't have been stranded on the island with them at all. Unless he had snuck aboard the jet, somehow, and why in the world and all the dimensions outside it would he do that?]

Need a hand up?

[greeterings]

[It took a few moments for that deep voice to really click. The silhouette was familiar, the hints of silver gleaming at the edges even moreso, but what would The Spine be doing here? Unless he rode in on one of the aforementioned alien cows, Peter usually only heard Spine's voice when he was being woken up... which meant...

... uh oh.]

Y'know, I was beginning to suspect as much. Usually when you show up in my dreams, you're telling me to go sleep in an actual bed, because I've drifted off at the desk again and will inevitably wake up with the mother of all neck-cramps.

[He sat up on his elbows, and began shifting his weight forward to sit up in earnest.]

That would be much appreciated. Sooo... hypothetically speaking, if this isn't a dream, then... any idea what's going on?

[He hadn't looked at the plane crash at all during their conversation. If The Spine was right, and this whole situation was somehow real, then that meant... he didn't want to think about what that meant.]

[awfulsentimetal]

Hypothetically speaking? [One corner of the automaton's mouth twitched with a hint of a wry smile. He extended his hand to Peter, intending to haul him to his feet.] We're stranded on an island with very few supplies, no shelter other than what we can build ourselves, and no access to medical aid.

[The Spine's voice wavered and dropped in volume at the last point. This was something that was weighing on him particularly heavily. He hoped that Peter wouldn't catch his vocal slip; irrational as he knew it was--and he was usually so very rational--he felt as though speaking of Miss B's injuries would remind Death that she hadn't been collected yet.]

I think the colloquial term is "up a creek without a paddle".

[greeterings]

[There was a long, long pause before Peter finally responded. Now that he was standing, he could see the full extent of the wreckage, and that combined with Spine's somber tone (he caught that vocal slip, he'd known the 'bot too long not to pick up on something like that!) was making the awful reality of the situation sink in.]


... Well, crud. Sounds more like "on the deck of the Titanic, while the Hindenburg bursts into flames on the horizon."

No medical aid? How many people have been hurt? A plane this size dropping off the radar must've alerted somebody in air traffic control, maybe some of the radio equipment survived...

[Going straight into problem-solving mode gave Peter something to focus on other than sheer horror!]

[awfulsentimetal]

That's about the size of it. [The Spine takes a step back now that Peter is on his feet. He rubs at the back of his neck, not quite meeting the inventor's gaze.] The cockpit is mostly intact, I think--let's get back to everyone else first, though, okay? I'll fill you in on the way.