Chapter Text
Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg
Screams. Laughter. All around, and then– silence and darkness.
I can’t move. My legs are pinned by something crushingly heavy, and I can’t really feel anything below my knees. I try to open my eyes, but it’s too much effort and the sun is blindingly radiant. My whole body seems to be on fire. I roll my head to one side and try to remember where I am. Who I am.
The last thing I remember is being in the warehouse with Karnak and the choir, singing with Constance… and choosing Jane. I chose Jane. Over myself. The girl without memories, without a life to keep with her. And… it feels like the right choice.
The pain prickling my upper legs and torso intensifies, and I’m suddenly very aware of something piercing my forehead. It feels like it’s penetrating my very thoughts, digging into my core with ragged edges that pull and tear at my mind.
I can feel myself going out, just like last time. I can’t die again. I need to stay awake. I need to keep myself conscious. Something warm and soft brushes my arm, barely there, just enough to let me know I’m really alive. I try to speak, but my throat is parched and there’s a strange pressure at the base of my neck that makes it impossible to choke out a sound.
And suddenly, I can’t feel anything at all. I’m just sailing through space…
Noel Gruber
I’m struggling to breathe, but I keep pushing my lungs to work. Even if there’ll be no reward for my efforts. I have to try.
I always dreamed I’d die dramatically. Just… not quite like this. I feel vulnerable, more than I ever have before. It isn’t like when I get up on a stage and sing for a crowd, or like when I came out to my mother. I could really die, and it’s not in my control whether that happens.
I look down, my hair falling into my eyes and shading my face from the sun. Struggling to comprehend what I’m looking at, I wince as I stare at the metal safety bar protruding from my chest, and the blood pooling around it. It feels like a dream, like I couldn’t really be sitting here in this cart, impaled through the chest.
I almost laugh, but instead I cough up blood– all over my new white school-issued shirt. I suppose I have bigger issues at the moment. I try to lift a hand to the safety bar, but I look to the right and realize it’s intertwined with another. I look further and see a blurry face, coated in dust and dirt. His bright blue eyes are striking against his dirty face. I try to hold the moment forever, his sapphire eyes blinking at me and my hand locked in his.
Mischa tries to lean toward me and winces, struggling to shift his weight. I glance down and see why.
The cart’s door has been ripped mostly from its hinges, and so has his right leg. Mischa’s blood gushes in a gory, never-ending waterfall into his lap, and the skin is torn where his leg is detached near his hip. His slacks have been ripped up and do nothing to stop the flow from the wound. I scream, blood-curdling, for an ambulance.
He needs help. I can see the light in his eyes fading as I cough up more blood and he squeezes my hand. I need help. This time, I do laugh. I’ve just been impaled. Mischa’s free arm wraps around my shoulders and pulls me to him. When the ambulance finally does come, he won’t let go. My vision blurs, and I don’t know up from down.
Mischa Bachinski
The first thing I see is his face. I’m glad– I don’t want to look down and see what I can feel is true. I try to focus on him, rather than the excruciating pain in my thigh. I feel his cold hand clutching mine, and I try to think about that. I don’t want to think about what comes next.
He stares at me for awhile, unmoving, and at first it scares me– I think he’s dying again. I try to shift closer, to check his wounds, but the bit of my leg still hanging on screams in protest and I retreat.
Noel begins to scream, and I don’t try to stop him. I don’t think I could talk if I tried, and someone has to summon an ambulance before we die again. I hear sobs– no, laughter, shake his chest, and I give his hand a squeeze.
Ignoring the pain in my leg, I scoot over and pull him to me, trying to ground myself and let him know I won’t allow him to die this way. The blood has stopped flowing from his chest, but I can see the entrance wound of the safety bar, clear as day. Looks like he’s impaled a lung. I try to let that give me hope, that maybe he’ll recover.
Finally, I look down at the gruesome mess that is my leg. I’m not sure if I’ll recover. I hope I will. When the ambulance comes, they try to pull me off of him and onto a stretcher. My arms lock around his thin frame and I hold him tightly. I refuse to let go of him, though I feel a little strange, the world seems to be spinning around me…
Ricky Potts
I hear screaming. Noel. Of course he’s screaming. I feel weightless, so unlike how I normally would, the weight of my body on my spindly legs almost impossible to carry. I think my neck may be broken. It’s alright. It couldn’t do much in the first place. I can’t move my aching head, and my forearms feel bruised, but I’ll be okay. I have to be.
I was working on a drawing before the ride started. I always keep a sketchbook in my backpack, but now I’m not sure where that is.
The Cyclone had stalled for quite a while before beginning, and I was seated next to a girl who had joined the choir just days before. Her eyes were greener than I’d ever seen, like emeralds or jade. I had been trying to capture her delicate face on paper when the ride finally began, and I had to put my book away before I’d finished.
Now I know why the girl in the warehouse had seemed so distantly familiar… Penny was her name. Ocean had chosen her to live, but now here I am… alive.
I can’t move my head, but if I roll my eyes to the far right, behind the cart, I can see a body on the ground. Her head is barely attached, and her long brown braids are matted with her own blood. Oh my God. She’s dead. There is no way she could be alive now.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to erase the image from my mind, but her headless body will forever be burned into the back of my eyelids. I hear a siren, and now I really wish I could turn my head. Noel’s screaming turns to laughing, and I’m confused. At least I know I'm not the only one alive.
I have to open my eyes, let the paramedics know I’m still alive. I try not to look at Penny again, but I can’t help myself. This may be my last chance. Her eyes, still the greenest of greens, stare blankly, but they don’t yet have that glazed-over look like they do when someone is dead. Penny blinks.
At first I think I’ve imagined it, but then she does again. I think she’s looking at me, trying to give me a signal. Thank Zolar. I can’t believe she’s somehow alive. If I could call out to her, I would. I try to smile, letting her know I see her. Then, the paramedics cart me away. I see them ignoring her body as they rush the rest of us into ambulances. I want to scream. She’s not dead. Not yet. No one hears, because no one ever does. I realize, finally, that I could really die. Everything I loved, and everything I dreamed, seems far behind me, on the ground.
Penny Lamb
I lie on the warm ground for a while, just soaking in the sun, lost in my own thoughts. I know I’m injured. I can tell by the numb prickling in my neck and my calm yet ragged breath pattern. I don’t mind. If it’s my time to die, then I’ll die. There’ll be nothing I can do to stop it, if this is my fate. I only hope they recognize me. There’s really no one left who knows me well enough to pick me out of the crowd of students on the roller coaster.
I feel like I’m whirling, totally weightless, through the sky. Their faces flash through my mind. Ocean, Constance, Noel, Mischa, and Ricky. Ricky had always been kind to me, though we’d only really met officially a few days ago. I hope he lives through this and recovers. He deserves a long, happy life.
My eyes blink open at last and I see the roller coaster, shredded apart, and the kids sitting in it. In the very back, a boy sits still, his curly brown hair matted and his head twisted at an odd angle. Ricky appears to be conscious, and I try to get his attention.
It’s hard to move much, but I manage to blink once. Ricky’s face contorts as he strains his eyes to see me. I blink at him again, meaningfully. He grimaces and his hazel eyes crinkle in the corners as the paramedics lift him roughly. He maintains eye contact with me as long as he can.
I wish I could hear his thoughts. I think he’s trying to tell me something. The doors of the ambulance close and they start to pack up and leave. Don’t forget me, I think. I’m still here.
Just as I’ve accepted that they have really left me for dead, a young female EMT sprints over to me and sees me staring at her. I close my eyes. She sees me.
The lady gives a shout to her comrades and then all is quiet and I’ve gone under again. If I die today, I will not be remembered. I will be another Jane Doe, another mystery no one pays mind to. I’m spinning again, earth is sky and sky is ground. Have I finally left this town?
Constance Blackwood
A cool breeze across my face. A sharp pain all over my torso, arms, and face… My legs, I can’t feel at all. I’m hyperaware of everything around me and every sensation in my body. I’ve got shards and bits of metal stuck all over me, and my legs have been nearly flattened by the crushed front of the cart. I’m okay. I’m alive.
But what about the others? Are they alive? I start to panic, twisting my head this way and that. Four kids behind me, in various states of consciousness and with a variety of injuries. I don’t see Penny. She was supposed to be the one who lived. And what about– Ocean. I gasp, turning to my left. I don’t see her breathing, and she seems to have taken on more serious injuries than I have. No, no, no. She has to live. I can’t let her die. I reach out to her, and suddenly her head lolls to the side and I see an unsteady rise and fall in her chest.
I can hardly contain my sigh of relief as I brush the back of my hand lightly over her arm, letting her know I’m here with her. We’ll be okay, we’ll recover together. We’ll be okay. I repeat it in my head like a mantra.
Ocean’s body spasms a little and suddenly goes deathly still. But she’s still breathing. That girl’s too stubborn to die so quickly. I know she’ll hold on with everything she has. I just hope it’ll be enough. The paramedics arrive and I hoarsely give them my thanks.
They shake their heads solemnly, as if this is an unusual thing. I don’t see any reason not to thank them for attempting to save our lives. I hope they know how much I appreciate them and their jobs. I stay conscious as they lay me onto a stretcher and I am awake the whole ride to the hospital. It’s a long ride. Uranium has no hospital of our own, the nearest is two towns over. As they rush us into the building, I can’t help asking about the condition of the other choir members.
They’re all holding on. I breathe a sigh of relief at the news, finally allowing myself to succumb to the sleep that’s been trying to take me away all along.
I dream that I’m back in the warehouse with Karnak and the choir, and the whole room is spinning round and round until everything is a blur of color, spinning light… my heart is racing, pounding in my ears. Falling through the air, I wonder, How can this be fair?