I gripped the arms of my seat, gritting my teeth. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't. Shouts echoed around me. The nose of the plane started pointing at an even more alarming angle downwards. I let a scream escape my mouth. People all around me were crying, shouting, panicking. I felt my chair vibrate against my body. I thought of my mother and father, my friends, my sister- who was sitting right beside me. I looked at her. She had tears in her eyes. I don't know how she mustered any joy or happiness but she gave me a smile. I wrapped her in a hug, my shirt absorbing her tears. I turned to face my other sibling. I picked her up from her seat and placed her in my lap. She wasn't crying. She wasn't screaming. She was muttering. I listened. "I love you," she was saying, "I love you I love you I love you." I embraced both my siblings in a hug. "I love you guys," I said, "more than anything." My shirt was now soaked from not just my sisters tears, but mine. I made a hurried gesture for them to tighten their seat belts. We started spiralling downwards. I looked forward, just in time to see the pilots abandoning their posts. I didn't even have time to think- I blacked out.

I sat bolt upright in my make-shift bed. My hands were cold and clammy and my forehead was dripping with sweat. The sky was beginning to lighten and I was starting to recognize the shapes around me. I saw big trees rising high above my head. My sisters were lying in a heap on a blanket fast asleep, their faces expressionless. I stood up and walked around the clearing we had fallen asleep in. The air smelt salty, as if we were by the ocean. I still don't understand how we made it. I had woken up to Chloe, my older sister, shaking me awake, pulling me by my arms out of the burning aircraft. We had only just ran far enough away before it exploded. The impact should have killed us, heck, the crash should have killed us, and yet it didn't. We had bruises and scratches, but we were alive. We had somehow made it, when all the others hadn't. Only now do I feel bad. We could have saved someone else's life, but we didn't. We just wanted to save our own skin, and nobody else's. I made a promise to myself, and I don't take promises lightly. If I was ever in a situation like that again, I would try to help someone, and not just save myself.

It's hard to think it was only yesterday that we had crashed. It seems like a life time ago, and yet only minutes ago at the same time. Suddenly something hit me. All of our friends and family must think, think that we- I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to face the facts, face reality. I keep picturing the crash, still so vivid in my mind. People screaming, crying, shouting. None of those people are around any more. Once again I got filled with guilt. I wondered if we would ever see our family again, see our friends, or our home. I somehow doubted it but I couldn't think like that, we couldn't think like that, we had to keep our minds full of positive thoughts, not negative.

I suddenly realized how famished I was. I saw the girls stirring. I went to wake them up. I could already see the sun peaking through the trees, high above me. It would've been a peaceful looking site, had I not been reminded of my reality.

"We should find something to eat," said Chloe groggily, breaking my thoughts,

"Do I have to come?" pleaded Rosie, "I'm tired."

I smiled at her, "No, you don't."

"Just stay here OK?" said Chloe,

"Yes mom." she replied, mockingly. Suddenly her face contorted into a frown at the mention of the word mom. I thought she would start crying, but surprisingly she didn't.

"We'll see her again." Chloe said, "I promise."

We started to head in what was hopefully the direction of the sea. We were flying to New Zealand from the east. Before we crashed, the pilots had said we would be landing in around half an hour, so if we were in New Zealand, we would hopefully be near the coast.

"Will?" said Chloe,

"Yeah?" I said,

"Do you really think that, that we'll see our home again? Be in our home again?" she asked. I noticed her eyes were slightly teary.

"Yeah, I think we will. We have to" I said, trying to reassure her, and, quite frankly, myself, "Just trust me Chlo. D'you not remember any of those movies we watched where people get stranded on an island and they always, always, somehow make it off, even of they loose half their limbs?"

"So... so your saying that we will make it back-" she said, before I cut her off.

"And we'll see our family again-"

"But we'll only have half our limbs?"

We cracked up at that. It felt good to laugh.

Just as we reached the top of the hill, I gasped. I saw the ocean. It was so peaceful, beautiful, wonderful and amazing. They didn't have enough words to describe it. I could spend hours just gaping at it. The way it reflected the suns rays and made them look a hundred times brighter, was just incredible.

We started to head back to Rosie, retracing our steps. The sun was already high in the sky. I checked my watch. It read 11:36.

By 12 o'clock we reached the familiar looking clearing with our arms full of coconuts. I saw Rosie lying on the ground. She must be taking a nap, I thought. I thought that until I got closer to her. I dropped all the coconuts that were in my arms. I didn't care. I didn't notice when half of them landed on my feet. Nothing mattered at this moment. The only thing I cared about was Rosie, as I ran towards her, pleading I was just imagining the blood on her face, the gashes on her arms. I felt as if it took me an eternity to get to her. Horrible, gruesome visions flashed through my mind. What happened? I thought, as me and Chloe ran over, tears streaming down both our faces.

"Ro-Rosie" I stuttered, "please Rosie, please, just, just wake up Rosie ju-."

She slowly opened her eyes.

"Roise!" me and Chloe both cried, "Rosie, just, stay still OK? It's gonna be alright, just don't move, we'll get you out of this, you'll be OK"

Even as I heard Chloe say this, I think we all new something. We weren't going to be this lucky a second time.

"Will?" said Rosie, in barely a whisper, "Just, please let mom and dad know," she paused, her head nodding off, "Just tell them I love them OK? Just please, do it for me OK?"

"No Rosie, no, you can tell them Rosie, we'll get out of here and you can tell them OK?"

Chloe looked at me through tears. I knew she wasn't going to make it. "We love you OK Rosie, more than anything. Just remember that." I said, my voice cracking.

She nodded her little head.

I don't know how long we spent whispering to her, and crying over her. We did it for a long time, even when her eyes closed, even when we could no longer hear her breath or feel her pulse, even when her hands went cold. If only we hadn't left her, she would still be here with us, her usual cheerful self. If only we had come back sooner. We could have stopped this from happening. But you can't read the future, or more importantly change the past.

As you might expect, the next few days were the worst of my life. I didn't eat, and neither did Chloe. I kept trying to convince myself I was in some sort of horrible dream. But I knew if I was, I would never wake up from it. Finally, after what seemed like a whole lifetime without Rosie, I snapped out of whatever trance I was in. I realized she would not want us living life a misery without her. She would want us to be happy. She would want us to continue with our lives. She would want us to move on, but still remember her. And that's what we did.

Chloe seemed to have reached the same conclusion. We buried our younger sibling on the top of the hill where we saw the ocean from. She would like it there. With the breeze in her face, the smell of the sea, the sound of seagulls that were constantly flying overhead. She would point to them and laugh. A really happy, joyful laugh. I don't know how long we stood there. If felt like forever. I don't know why I never appreciated the ocean this much. About two-thirds of the earth is occupied by water and yet we know so little about it.

"She would like it here. Rosie." said Chloe,

"She really would." I said, looking up at my sister. One of my two sisters. It will always be like that. I will always have two sisters. No matter what.

As we ate dinner that night, which consisted of rabbit and oranges, I started to wander. What had killed my little sis? Was it a wild animal? It probably was. So was it a wolf? Or a bear? I suddenly had this deep desire to find out what happened. I wanted to know how my sister got killed. I wanted to know everything.

I was just about to ask Chloe what she thought. I then thought better of it as I looked over at her. She was staring at a tree. Not any tree. The tree that was closest to Rosie when we found her. My eyes widened with shock as I shifted my gaze to it.

"Those arn't-?"

I finished for her, "Claw marks. made by-"

"Bears." she said, her voice cracking, with either anger or sadness. Maybe both.

Before I could do anything she wrapped me in a hug. A bear hug. I couldn't help but think that. Rosie wouldn't want us to develop a hatred for bears. She would want us think of them as a reminder of who she was. And I would do that. For her.

Suddenly something occurred to me. If there were bears here, and one already got to us, how many more were there, and were there any near us now? For all we knew there might be one only meters away. The trees probably acted as a very handy camouflage for them. I didn't even know for sure that it was a bear that killed Rosie, but one thing was for certain, we needed to get out here, and fast.

The next few days we were constantly on the lookout. We never let our guard down for the fear of getting mauled. We were also constantly walking along the coast, trying to find any pieces of wood or rope or anything that would help us. The first day all we found was about 4 meters of rope, and a lot of scrap metal, mainly which was from the plane that had landed us here. The following days we found a lot of wood. We had walked about two miles down the coast and found an old wrecked boat, that had obviously been made out of wood, so you can imagine how much we managed to collect. We had set up a 'camp' closer to the boat so we didn't have to walk far, which consisted of a fire, a couple of blankets we had found in a metal suitcase, and some more oranges we found growing wildly.

After about a week, a hard, long, and tiring week, we had collected a lot of wood and rope.

"Will," panted Chloe, as we lifted more wood into a neat pile, "D'you think, if we end up making a boat or a raft-"

"We will end up making a raft," I said smiling, cutting her off.

"Yes, when we make a raft," she continued, "do you think we will actually," she paused. I encouraged her on with a nod of my head. "actually hit land and not just drift for ages?"

"Chlo, like I said before, we will make it back to see our family. Take 'Castaway' for example, you remember that movie? How he made that raft, and after drifting for ages this boat found him? So, even if we don't hit land," I said, " which is very unlikely," I added quickly, " someone is bound to spot us after a while. Whether it's a plane or a boat or, or Nemo!"

She grinned at me, "But in the movie, the guy did go half crazy, but to be fair, he did make it back in one piece." she said,

"Chloe, you get what I mean, we will make it back, just trust me!"

She wrapped me in a hug and whispered, "I love you bro, and I trust you."

It took another week for us to build the raft, but we did it. It was a simple design. We had just tied pieces of wood together in the center and on the edges. We then put some old life jackets that we had found on the wreck, on each corner, to make it more buoyant. We tied as many coconuts to it as we could. We also had a rain water collection system made out of a shade, some rope, long pieces of wood, and a bucket. I was quite proud of that.

We set off early in the morning, probably about four weeks after we got here. The sound of the waves splashing against the hull was peaceful. The sun was just beginning to show itself. I panted as me and Chloe rowed, pushing and pulling an oar each.

Land was now only a small dot on the horizon. We must be going with a current, I though.

We both stopped rowing. She took my hand, it felt sweaty in mine. I looked down. She looked back up at me, her eyes wide with trust. I knew we would make it. We had to. We had survived a plane crash, living in a bears habitat for four weeks, and being stranded in the middle of nowhere. We couldn't just quit now. Nothing would stop us. Not a storm. Not a reef. Nothing. We would do this for Rosie, she deserved that. We would find a way, even if things got bad.

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