Young Writers Society

A flash of green light, screams, a wailing baby. Twisting, turning, spinning, the bus is riviting out of control, slipping against the rain streaked high way, heading towards the visable shadow of an ever closer ravine, wheels gripping desperatly to the gravel. Some one screams, fear I have never heard so great nor so strong before....and then it happens...with one fatal leap the bus is tripping over the edge of the cliff, my heart falling a thousand feet....

Adrenaline, and vertigo, both things ive never so potently experienced. Everyone else is crying, slipping, flipping, dying. So why am I so calm? The bus rolls through the air, and I fall repeatedly from surface to surface. I don't know what is right from left. A child grabs my arm as he falls, wideyed and flailing through a window and into the open air. He's got a better chance than us right now, there is water underneath us.
The screams become muffled suddenly, and soaked in the splash from impact, the bus bobs slightly before is becomes completely submerged.

Upon making contact with the water all other noise ceased. I can no longer hear the crying babies nor the screaming mothers, now the silence is so deafening that i want to scream. When i open my mouth it quickly fills with icy water reminding me that i will die if i dont get oxygen soon. Looking for a way out i see several people that have already died mothers, babies, complete strangers, each too late to escape. Seeing a light to the left of me i turn, there i see a window that had broken in the fall, shards of glass are still connected to the sides and i can just barely see a thin stream of blood coming from one of the shards.

My eyes are bulging, begging me for air, but I can't move. I am staring at the child, the little one that had seemingly escaped our fall. His arm is caught among the shards. I do not know how i managed to move, but I can see myself swimming, pushing that poor boy away from the window. He does not move, but floats away from my tomb. I see myself struggling, gasping... is that air?

not stopping to think i quickly open my mouth and draw in a big mouthfall of water.
choking i swallow the water, my eyes are begging to burn.
i look for the child,
he is no where to be seen,
suddenly i spot him,
he is gently drifting towards the bottom of the river.
his eyes are closed and he looks peacefull.
i turn my head back towards the surface and begin to push my arms away from my body, hoping to propel my body upwards. As i exit the window my legs scrape the glass. Even though i am wearing long jeans i can feel the glass piercing my skin.

Somehow finding my way from this hellish ordeal, I struggle to find my way to the top. Almost there and feeling faint, feelings of dread and life I could leave behing make me push further. Just in case I say goodbye to those I love and send a silent prayer to my father above to give those streangh in my leave. A light above gives me hope as my head bursts above water, it is still raining and I dicover another person has escaped and pushing towards the surface a child. Is it the child that was crying or it one that was quiet intill the end. My feet now find the ground and I collaspe in a heap with my eyes shut heavy with sleep and let the rain fall upon my face.

Waking up was a nightmare I never want to experience again. I was cold, I was stiff and bruised in a hundred places. I think my right wrist was broken. Prickling pain shivered over my skin like goosebumps, and I opened my eyes to a feeling of such fear and isolation that I almost threw up. For a second, I didnt know where I was. Then memory returned. The bus. The storm. The ravine - and then, the water.
Limping to my feet, I sucked in a breath of still-damp air and tried to orient myself. I was on the bank of a large river, which flooded between two sheer cliffs and thundered off into a green-lit distance. Around me, a huddle of other survivors was forming, and I saw that only a quarter of those on the bus were still alive.

among them was the child i had seen walking away. Some of the survivors had wadded back into the river, trying to locate the rest of the now dead passengers. Clutching my arm gently to my body i began to walk toward the huddle. My legs hurt, i looked down, my jeans were covered in blood. I could see my legs through the rips the glass had made. Struggeling to walk across the rocky ground i looked out at the river. The surface was still, peaceful, as if nothing had happened. If you haden't seen it, you never would have known a bus was under the chilling waters. I looked away from the river, i didn't want to remember. The fall, the glass, or the child. The child, i looked up he wasn't among the group huddled on the bank. He was below, sleeping on the river floor, never to awake.