Fangs & Graves

FANGS AND GRAVES

Crashing

Manda grabbed for my SEGA gamegear, I shoved her mousey digits away and continued smashing Dr. Robotnic’s hover craft. “Quit it! Brat.” I said, she whined. My father was flying his plane and telling us some childhood story.
“Then, Rosco grabbed the mit off my hand and buried it in the yard!” that’s about all I heard. We are on our way to Russia to have Christmas with grandma.
My mother was playing co-pilot, but she really had no idea what anything inside of the plane did. My father owned Cool-Air, an air conditioning company back on Long Island. His business did well, and he traveled a lot, it wasn’t often we all took trips together in his plane.
Dr. Robotnic was exploding; I was on my way to the next stage.
Suddenly my hands were thrown from the game and thrashed around violently. Loud piercing shrieks darted through my ears, I tried looking up, but the plane was skyrocketing toward the ground. All the weight inside was being thrown in opposite directions. A collage of my parents, my sister, and myself screaming and swirling sky stammered through me.

Sunset

When I woke up, I coughed very hard, and rubbed my eyes. I was still strapped into my seat. I jiggled my body around and got loose. The nose of the plane was pointed downward. My pack lay on the back of my fathers seat. I got free and slipped down next to father. His face was completely smashed in by a branch of a tree. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t think. A breeze blew through the wreckage and I began to shiver. My mother was gone. Then I heard Manda start coughing. She was strapped in her baby seat, it had saved her. I saw her pack lying on the back of my mothers seat. We retrieved them and snuck out my mother’s side window into the snowy forest.
We stared down a snowy hill leaving the mangled aircraft behind us. I had no idea where to turn or look so I decided to look for the biggest tree I could find and would figure out how to get out of the freeze. Manda and I were gripping each other’s hands, tightly. “Jakey, it’s to cold.” She whined. I said nothing.
I hurried to construct an igloo, the sun was escaping. I learned in science class that igloos keep Eskimos pretty warm and that’s how they live in such cold places. Manda was crying, she wanted mom and dad. I told her they were coming, and that we just had to do this by ourselves for a while. She kept saying how cold she was.

“Look,” I bent down and put my hands on her shoulders, “I know it’s cold but we have nowhere to go right now, if we build this ice house we will be okay and people will find us soon.”
She was scared, so was I, as if lions and tigers and bears, OH MY, were lurking around each snow sheeted tree. I wasn’t concerned with any of the above, but I wouldn’t be surprised if wolves were somewhere in these woods. Our plane couldn’t of picked a harsher place to crash. With our parents dead, I had to work fast.

If God does exist and he’s almighty, and brought this upon me and my kindergarten sister, then he is a Fuck. We were supposed to be in Novgorod, visiting grandma playing with her dogs, drinking hot coco, telling stories, and having Christmas dinner.

I bunched up another hand full of snow and pack it in with the others. I finished our snow house and told Manda I would go in first to make sure it was sturdy and wouldn’t cave in on us.

“Come on in, its way nicer then outside!” I yelled.
Manda scurried in, her bright pink and green ski jacket illuminated the walls of the igloo like a watermelon being hit by the sun. She huddled close to me shivering.

“Still cold.” She said buried under my arm.
I didn’t blame her, I had found my pack in the debris, but not my jacket, all I had was a thin burgundy sweatshirt, khaki pants, and sneakers. None of which was cutting it.

There was only one blanket and it belonged to Manda. It was her baby blanket she had been clinging to since she was 2 years old. It was a royal blue color with pink flowers on it. We were lucky enough to find our packs in the debris of the plane. I figured tonight we’d sleep because the night was now heavy over us and being rescued was not going to happen.

Manda, bundled in her jacket with her blanket over her, was sound asleep. I was getting colder. This sweatshirt wasn’t cutting it; I felt was if my veins would frost over. I looked over at Manda and started thinking. She is sound asleep, I could take that blanket, I built the igloo, and I deserve it. If Manda ever found out I took that blanket she’d scream. She would scream until the wolves came and swallowed us whole.
I took it anyway. I couldn’t help my self.
The blanket provided little extra warmth, but enough that I could close my eyes and fall asleep.

Sunrise

A shiver startled me, and I awoke in a cold dome, half layered in snow, and a stiff thin cloth draped over me. I wrapped my hands around my arms and began to rub quickly. Manda was still asleep. I had no idea what time it was, but I could see it was daylight.

“Manda, we should get moving now.” I said in shivered, quivering speech.

She said nothing.
I moved closer to her body and pulled her pink hood back from her face, she was white washed, completely pale, lifeless. I brushed her ice crusted golden curls from her small cheeks.

Nothing.

I began to scream, “Manda, QUIT FOOLING AROUND!”

She kept fooling around.

I thought CPR, like on T.V. that has to work.

I pounded on her tiny chest, and poured my lungs out into hers. She didn’t need my lungs, she was frozen. She needed my blood that for some reason still flowed through my selfish veins. If she had her blanket, would it have saved her?

Why wasn’t I frozen to death?

I held her half-sized hand in mine and cried, wiping the tears away so they would not freeze on my face. The frigid space had become a deathbed. I wailed and sobbed with snot coating my lips and swinging from my chin.

She was gone now. I franticly crawled out of the ice casket and took a few steps back. I gazed at the igloo in disbelief with the blanket over my shoulders, bluish-pink bursts of color flashing and flapping in the brisk wind. The snow was ecstatic with bright white.

A twig snapped behind me.

I turned and was now looking straight down the snout of a hungry wolf.

End