First-place Story for 2006

It Was Only One That Mattered

By Ryan T., Head Royce School, Oakland

“Aaron? Aaron? Aaron, are you all right? Aaron?”

He groaned, and then his eyelids fluttered open. “Jenny? Is that you? What happened?”

Jenny didn’t seem to hear him. “Aaron, are you all right? Where did mom and dad go? Aaron, where are we?” She shook her brother.

Aaron slowly sat up, gripping his back. There had been a fire on the plane. All he could remember was a strange voice. Or had he imagined it? There had been smoke, smoke everywhere, and he had fallen. And then this. He looked around and saw sand. Sand, stretching as far as the eye could see, dunes rising and falling like waves on an endless sea. “Jenny, what happened to the plane? Did it crash? There was a fire, wasn’t there?”

Jenny started to sob. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. We’re all alone, all by ourselves.” Her small voice was soon swallowed up by the desert, leaving the two children in silence.

“There’s a man over there.”

“Aaron started and spun around, following Jenny’s finger. A tall man with a shock of black hair and hard, clear, blue eyes was striding over the sand towards them.

Aaron backed away, clutching Jenny. “Where did he come from?”

Jenny twisted out of his grip. “I don’t know. I just looked and he was there.”

Aaron’s mind was racing. If this man had been on the plane, he would know whether it had crashed, and maybe where his parents were -- if they were still alive.

“Are you all right?” The man was standing a little ways away. His voice was strangely high. It was oddly familiar to Aaron, but he could not remember where he’d heard it before.

“Who -- who are you?” Aaron stuttered. “Do you know where our parents are? Is everyone all right? Did the plane crash?”

The stranger shook his head. “I wasn’t on your plane.”

Aaron stared at him. “How did you get here?”

The man didn’t seem to hear. “You’ll die here, without food or water. I can show you the way out.”

Aaron shuddered. He couldn’t stop thinking he’d heard that voice before.

The stranger stepped forward, his deep blue eyes seeming to bore into Aaron’s skull. He reached out and gripped Aaron’s hand. “You’ll die soon out here, you know it. I’m your only hope.”

And Aaron knew he was.

They walked all day, rarely stopping. The man, who called himself Rob, hardly spoke. Sometimes Aaron’s legs ached so badly that he felt he could not take another step, but Rob insisted that they continue.

At last Aaron collapsed on the sand in exhaustion, setting Jenny down beside him. Rob made as if to pull him up, but then seemed to realize they had to stop and sat down beside them. Aaron noticed for the first time that he was wearing gloves.

“Why,” Aaron panted, “why couldn’t we have stopped before?”

“We have—,” Rob began.

But Aaron didn’t hear the rest. Suddenly, he had remembered where he’d heard Rob’s voice before. “You were on the plane. You caused the crash. I couldn’t see you, but I heard you. You were telling the passengers they’d be all right if – if you could have …someone.”

Rob nodded, his face a mask. “I did.”

“You… you probably killed them all,” Jenny whispered, her voice barely audible. “All of them.”

Rob appeared not to have heard her. “I did. I lit a fire there; it spread. But I doubt they all died. You two survived, others will have too. It doesn’t matter. It was only one that mattered.”

Aaron backed away, pulling Jenny with him.

But Rob had no eyes for them. He was facing away. Aaron followed his gaze, and gasped. Walking slowly, almost reluctantly, over the dune toward them, was his father.

Rob ran toward him, a mad gleam in his eyes. Aaron’s father tried to back away. “Rob, I didn’t do it, I swear. Jake pushed you, it wasn’t me.”

“You know you did it,” Rob snarled. “You always hated me, you were just waiting for your chance.”

“It was an accident, I was just playing, I didn’t realize you were so close to it….” His voice trailed off.

“Playing?” Rob laughed maniacally. “Look what happened to me when you played!” He pulled one of his gloves off.

Aaron gasped. Rob’s arm ended at his wrist.

Rob drew a gun. Aaron’s father leapt at him, and the gun slipped from Rob’s hand and fell on the sand. Without thinking, Aaron ran forward and grabbed it. “Just go away,” he said, pointing it at Rob. “Just leave.”

Rob’s gaze flickered from Aaron to the gun to Aaron’s father. Then he turned and fled over the sand.

Aaron’s father waited until he had disappeared, then he turned and led Aaron and Jenny away.

Three people had died. Aaron’s mother was not among them. She had several cracked ribs, but would live.

It was only the next day, when they found the canyon that led down to water, and then, eventually, out of the desert, that Aaron realized where Rob had been leading them. It was only then that he realized what Rob’s intentions really had been -- that he had crashed the plane to get revenge on Aaron’s father, and yet when he found Aaron and Jenny lost in the desert, he had tried to lead them out. It was only then that Aaron wondered why he had so suddenly picked his father’s side, and only then that he realized that he could never really trust his father again.

And although Aaron often wondered what had become of Rob, he never knew. Rob had vanished like the smoke of the fire he had set, like Jenny’s pitiful voice when they had first found themselves alone in the desert: echoing briefly, but soon swallowed up by the sheer immensity of the world.

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