The metallic hum of the jet engines vibrated softly beneath Blake Kennedy's polished shoes as he stepped aboard. The flight attendant greeted him with a polite smile, clipboard in hand, perfume crisp and sterile. He offered a curt nod, brushing past into the cabin, eyes already scanning the rows without meaning to. Habit. Observation was second nature.

Halfway down second class, he saw her.

Curled against the window, head tilted slightly, a book in her lap she hadn't yet started. Eyes distant. Young, maybe mid-twenties. Windbreaker zipped halfway, backpack crammed beneath her legs, earbuds tucked in but not playing. Something about her looked... untouched by the world. Untarnished.

Cute, he thought.

Then he looked away, stepping into first class with the sharp, clinical detachment he wore like a second skin. He didn't have time for cute. Not anymore.

Seat 1A.

He lowered himself into the leather, spine straight, posture precise. From his bag, he pulled a weathered copy of Meditations—Marcus Aurelius. The corners were creased, ink smeared in places from rain on a tarmac years ago. He opened to the bookmarked page and began to read, the words grounding him better than any sedative could.

The flight lifted into the sky, slicing westward across the Atlantic.

+ Five Hours Later

Altitude steady. The cabin had grown quiet—the lull of long-haul drowsiness settling into the passengers like fog. Someone coughed behind him. Ice clinked in a plastic cup. Blake glanced at his watch. 3:08 a.m. GMT.

Then the sound of movement.

Two men stood up.

They weren't together when they boarded—he remembered them sitting rows apart. One had a jacket too heavy for the climate. The other's eyes scanned, not drowsy like the others, but alert. Wired.

They moved with intent.

Blake's hand tightened slightly around his armrest. His mind had already begun calculating. Vitals. Pressure points. Damage control.

But before he could rise, they were at the cockpit.

And then the screaming started.

No one could stop it.

Not with a knife at the pilot's throat. Not when the oxygen masks dropped ten minutes later. Not when someone tried to stand up and was shot dead in the aisle.

Blake couldn't move. Not out of fear—no, he'd felt that and fought through it. This was worse. Helplessness. He couldn't cut his way out of this with scalpels or certainty. He could only watch, seatbelt biting into his hips.

Fifteen Hours Later

The world crashed sideways.

The screams had long since turned to static. Metal tore like paper. Fire bloomed behind his eyes. And then—

Silence.

A roaring, absolute silence.

Then an island.

When Blake came to, he was half-buried in sand and smoke. His head was pounding, his shirt torn and soaked with salt and blood—none of it his. Around him, the broken ribs of the plane jutted from the surf like the carcass of some fallen beast. Bodies lay strewn like discarded dolls, unmoving.

His breath came slow. Controlled. He checked his limbs. Bruised, but nothing broken. Somehow, the universe had let him live.

Why?

A sound to his left.

He turned.

There, half-conscious in the tide's reach, was her.

The girl from second class.

Blood streaked down her thigh, soaking into the sand. Her hands twitched weakly, as if trying to stand but too far from the world to remember how. She wasn't dead. Not yet.

He ran to her without hesitation, sliding to his knees at her side. His palms skimmed over her body, checking for breaks, wounds, breath.

"Hey," he said, voice low but sharp enough to cut through the haze. "Stay with me."

Her eyes fluttered. Recognition barely sparked. She mumbled something, a sound more than a word.

"You're alright," he said, already tearing cloth from his own sleeve to press against her leg. The gash was deep but not fatal. Not if he stopped the bleeding.

He looked her over again, then met her eyes fully.

"I'm Dr. Blake Kennedy," he said. "You're going to be okay. I've got you."

Above them, smoke rose into a sky that didn't care.

But Blake did.

And he wasn't going to let her die.

Not her.

Not this time.