The Forsaken

but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore.
    Then I hear a noise halfway between a thud and a pop, and we start to slow even more. “What was that?” I ask, panicked.
    “Wing flaps, maybe?” Liam’s body tenses, preparing for whatever lies ahead. “Grab on to me hard.”
    “I already am.”
    “Harder. Keep your head down.”
    I do as he says. He moves his arm around me, trying to protect me better.
    “Alenna?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I think we’re going to crash.”
    I nod and whisper, “I already know that.”
    Maybe Clara is responsible, or maybe the pod finally sensed we weren’t frozen and the entire aircraft is doing some weird self-destruct thing.
    I feel our altitude and speed decreasing. We can’t be far from the ground now. I wish I could see what was happening. We’re probably going to hit one of those sand dunes soon. I brace for the impact.
    “Liam,” I say.
    And then we hit.
    The airplane smashes down against the sand with such force that I black out for a second, cracking my head against the plastic hull of the pod as my teeth snap together.
    Then I’m conscious again, and the plane is sliding over the sand, out of control. Sparks shower onto us as hidden wires short out inside the pod’s shell. Liam is calling my name.
    We hit the ground again and bounce hard. My head whips back and then forward. The plane is spinning and sliding as the engines scream. I smell acrid smoke as more sparks shower down on us. I can’t tell if we’re airborne again or still on the ground.
    There’s a jolting thump as we hit something. Then another. Must be a ridge of dunes.
    I know we can’t withstand much more of this. The aircraft is going to tear itself to pieces and fling our pod out of it. We’re going to die!
    But we don’t die. That would be too easy.
    We just keep bouncing and getting pounded. The padding on the interior of the pod is all that keeps me from hitting the hard siding. That and Liam’s protective body wrapped around mine.
    The crash landing seems to go on forever, every second elongated into an hour. But it probably hasn’t been even a minute since we clipped the top of the first dune. Time slows down and everything moves at a crawl, like it did in the awful, unearthly barrier around the gray zone.
    But eventually our journey comes to an abrupt end.
    The plane careens sideways, losing power, like it’s slipping down one side of a dune. We just keep holding each other.
    Bruised and battered, we finally come to a dead stop. I’ve lost all sense of direction inside the pod. I can’t tell what’s up or down. My whole body hurts. Even though I know we’re stationary, my balance is screwed up, and it feels like I’m still moving.
    “We’re alive,” Liam says faintly. Then louder, as if to reassure both of us: “We’re still alive!”
    We lie there for a moment, gasping. I still smell something burning. It could be fuel. I realize we need to get out of the pod and off this aircraft. Liam does too. He starts grappling with the door of the pod, but it’s broken now and doesn’t budge.
    He starts kicking at it again, but there’s no room for him to get enough leverage. The frame doesn’t give way.
    “We’re stuck,” I say. In a pod, inside a crashed airplane that’s probably leaking fuel, in the middle of a desert.
    Liam suddenly stops moving and grabs my hands. “Did you hear that?”
    “What?”
    “Voices.”
    I don’t hear anything other than the crackling of the cooling engines and the settling of the aircraft into sand.
    I dare to whisper, “Should we—?”
    But then I hear something else too. A faint swooshing sound, right outside. I hold my breath. The noises increase, sounding like rapid footsteps, as though people are already boarding the wrecked plane. Can that be possible? I put my lips against Liam’s ear. “I’m scared,” I whisper.
    “Be strong,” he mouths back.
    Then we hear a clank, and I flinch. It’s the sound of something metal hitting the base of our pod. Like someone’s trying to free our pod from the plane.
    “What’s the plan?” I breathe into Liam’s ear.
    “We’ve got the element of surprise,” he whispers back. “Whoever they are, they’ll think we’re frozen.” Both of us are as still as corpses. “Just stay behind me if the pod gets opened.”
    “I’ll fight too,” I whisper.
    “I know. I’m counting on it.”
    The noises outside grow louder, but I still can’t make out any words. Another clank comes. Then