1 The Wreckage

I somehow always ended up at the wreckage. I often found it hard to believe that anyone could survive that plane crash, but somehow I managed to survive. I can't explain what happened or how it happened. I could only deduce that we ended up crashing in some desolate desert. There was no known desert that one had to cross between South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The cockpit of the wrecked plane was so damaged that one could not salvage any helpful devices that may help in determining the desert location. The campus on my wrist watch's band was spinning nonstop.

It's been fifteen days since the plane crash, somehow I managed to survive with neither food nor water until now. No matter how far I wandered, I always went back to the wreckage. There were days when severe sandstorms would come and go. Something must have happened to my watch during the crash, the digitized numbers sped nonstop, but the day and night cycle were normal enough, so my watch was useless under the circumstances in which I found myself.

The crash itself is a mystery that my mind could not comprehend, I could conclude that everybody perished and I was the only survivor, but I never found any remains no matter how far I traveled from the crash. I kept searching, but I found nothing. I often looked on the horizon hoping that I would see someone approaching, but I started feeling hopeless, so one day I decided to venture and go a little further from the wreckage. I could determine the directions from the shadow of the wreckage in relative to the position of the sun on its daily journey across the sky. That morning I decided to head in the direction I assumed to be east using the wreckage as a reference point.

I never thought my time in the army was worth it, but only during those days did I start realizing the worth of my military basic training and every experience that I assumed to be worthless.