The best gift of all.

*For the Christmas challenge*

Growing up in Australia I had never experienced a white Christmas, but always wished to. That’s why I was ecstatic when my father told me we had won a Christmas holiday in America. For 8 years I had wanted to tough snow and now I finally would. Even though the flight wasn’t for another two weeks I packed my bag that night.

Each day passed slowly, dragging on forever, but soon it came to the big day. I had never been to the airport before. Since it was December there were Christmas decorations everywhere. It was also my first time flying, so understandably, I was as nervous as hell!

Once the plane was up and flying my heart started to accelerate. “Don’t worry,” my mother said calmly, “everything will be fine.” I believed her. I could always count on my mother to pull through. The only problem as she was wrong.

Somewhere in the air, between Georgia and South Carolina the engines failed. After that everything moved so fast. The entire plane was falling towards the ground. The pilot used all the skill he could to land the planes safely, but alas, the nose of the plane was smashed to pulp. Only those at the end of the plane were still alive. Lucky my family and I were at the back.

When I opened my eyes, all I could see was smoke. When I tried to breathe it just filled my lungs. I coughed until my thought was sore, but that wasn’t the only thing that was sore. My left leg was bleeding and I couldn’t walk on it. All around me was rubble. I could hear screaming and panic, both inside the plane and outside. “Karen! Karen!” I heard my mother screaming my name and immediately turned around. She was clutching her arm. I could see blood seeping through her fingers. I crawled towards her as quickly as I could and gave her a big hug.

“Crawl out the plane, there are rescue crews out there.” She whispered in my ear.
“But what about dad?” I cried.
“He’s helping others escape dear. Please, go save yourself.”
And with that I gave her another hug and clambered out the plane.

I was greatly disappointed when I stepped out. It wasn’t snowing. The ground was bare. After all this I still hadn’t experienced snow. A man ran up and grabbed me and pulled me away from the plane. The plane then suddenly burst into flames. “Mummy!” I cried out as tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes. “Calm down” said the man, but I didn’t listen to him. I squirmed out of his arms, and despite my leg, ran towards the plane.

It was even harder to see than before and the flames were scorching my skin. “Mum? Dad?” no one replied. I saw them both lying on the floor of the plane unconscious. I prodded them but they did not wake. I grabbed my mother’s arm and pulled her towards the exit. Once she was at the door, I turned back and did the same with my father, only I didn’t get back all the way. The burden was just too much to bear, and I too fell unconscious.

The people outside started to worry and despite the rescue worker’s wishes, returned to the wreckage to save my mother, father and I from the hell inside the plane. Eventually we were all awake, sitting around the debris of the plane. At that point I didn’t care that it wasn’t snowing, I was just glad to be with my family. All of the passengers had worked together to get us out safely. It wasn’t the Christmas holiday I had expected, but the incident had given me a new perspective on life. Then, just as if to cheer me up, I felt a snowflake fall on my nose. Then another on my hand as it started to snow down upon us.

It just goes to show that being together with your family in the best gift of all.

End