ANDREW


You look out at the water. It looks so clear, so beautiful...

"Enjoying the view? A girl asks as she slides up to the seat next to you.

"Yeah, actually," You say, looking at the pool. "I just wished I had brought my swim trunks down, you know?" She laughs.

"You could always borrow mine," She says jokingly.

"No thanks," You say. "I don't borrow clothes from strangers." You wink, wondering why you're being so out of character. Usually, you're really shy around new people. So why do you feel so confident around this stranger? Whatever you're doing, you seem to be doing it right, because she laughs and extends a
hand.

"I'm Megan," She tells you.

"Andrew," You introduce yourself, shaking her hand. Megan smiles at you, and you smile back.

"So, how long are you staying here?" Megan asks you.

"My flight leaves tomorrow morning, actually," You tell her, frowning. She's cute, red hair to her shoulders, nice figure... if only you had more time!

"Really?" Megan asked. "Me too...which flight?"

"Oceanic flight 199," You say.

"Sydney to Los Angeles?" you nod, and she smiles broadly. "Well, maybe we can get to know each other a little better on the flight over, hmm?"

"What's saying we can't get to know each other right now?" You ask, hopeful. Megan gives another broad smile.

"My room number is 1990," She says, and hops off her seat. "See you tonight." You stare as she walks off, amazed.

"What the hell did I just do?" You ask yourself.


MEGAN


You walk out of the small pool side bar and back into the hotel. Andrew seems like a nice guy, you decide, but you don't see anything happening past tonight. Which is too bad you have to stand him up after tonight, and you just know that if he finds you on the plane, it's going to be a very awkward flight. But it's not that you don't want anything to go farther because you probably live in a completely different part of the country, but because you aren't ready for a relationship yet. You're only nineteen, you've got plenty of time to find someone to settle down with. You don't need a long term relationship.

Which would be fine, you think as you walk from the elevator and to your hotel room. If Andrew didn't seem so... So, what? What was so special about him?

"I don't know," You whisper out loud.


Later that evening, you hear a knock on the door, and you open it, smiling at Andrew.

"You're late," You simply say.

"Sorry, I wasn't sure which – Woah!" He exclaims as you pull him in.

ANDREW


You wait in the boarding area, anxious. Last night, you had the time of your life! But... you remember waking up in her bed, alone, with the cleaning service knocking on the door because Megan had already checked out f her hotel room. Quickly getting dressed, you rushed down to the front desk and asked him how long ago she checked out. The receptionist told you that Megan had left only half an hour before. Hurried, you ran up to your room, packed, checked out, and hopped into a taxi and arrived at the airport half an hour later.

Your eyes snap open wide as you watch some... thing walk in through the boarding area. It looks reptilian, or insect like, you're not quite sure. You shake your head, doing a double-take as who should walk in soon after, but Megan! You quickly stand, walking briskly over. You call her name, and she turns to see you, and you can tell she isn't really happy about that.

"Andrew, not now," She says, walking away.

"I just want to know where you went this morning," You say, following her.

"No, you don't," Megan says. "You want to know why I left." You agree silently, and she continues. "I left because I'm not ready to take whatever you think there is between us past the bedroom, okay? I thought you might have understood that, but clearly, you don't." Megan readjusted her bag, walking towards the gate entrance.

"Now calling rows 42-23 for Oceanic flight 199 en route from Sydney to Los Angeles," Someone says at the desk, and Megan finally stops, turning to you.

"I made a mistake," She says as the receptionist repeats the instructions. She sounds sincere, but you can tell Megan's troubled by something. She leaves, joining the queue, and you remain frozen to the spot, your stomach a knot of freezing cold and the feeling of being sick.

MEGAN


You sit in your seat, staring out the window as you fly at an altitude of thirty thousand feet. You're troubled by your run-in with Andrew earlier, and you don't know why. You really aren't ready for something more than a one night stand, right?

What if you are ready? A small voice asks in your head. And what if it's with Andrew?

Long distance relationships never work out, You answer silently. The voice falls silent, as if it had no response.

Or, as if it knew what was going to happen next.

The plane shakes violently, and you jump, suddenly alert. What was happening, turbulence? The plane shakes again, and a second, third and fourth bump increases your worry. What is going on?

Suddenly, there's a metal scream and the sound of metal on metal as the canopy of the plane flies off and the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling. You grab yours, and a final thought runs through your head before everything fades away. You regret that you never told Andrew how you really felt.


ANDREW


"I thought you said we got everything out of here," A voice says. You groggily open your eyes to find yourself in the dark interior of the plane. What happened?

"I did," Another voice replies, and there's some shuffling around as you hear
someone open the overhead compartments and look in. "Now we're searching through the baggage to find more stuff." You find it difficult to move, and look over at what you see as an anthro tigress and... a kitsune?

"Okay, I guess that makes sense," The tigress agrees. "but... let's just move fast, okay? All these bodies are creeping me out." Bodies? You think, and finally notice that the plane is full of corpses. You gasp, moving your head. The kitsune turns, moving a flashlight towards you.

"Did you hear that?" She asks. The tigress nods, taking out a flashlight of her own. They walk forward a few steps, shining the flashlight into your eyes. You blink, and the tigress jumps, her fur bristling.

"We have a live one!" She shouts, rushing to you. "Jeeze, that's fast..."

"What's fast?" You croak out.

"You'll see," She tells you, unbuckling the seat belt. "Lost, help me get him out of here, we need to get him to Leland."

"On it," The kitsune agrees, helping her carry you out. You feel a tingling sensation as you look down to see yellow fur with black markings spread across your body.

"What's happening to me?" You ask as it spreads up your chest.

"What happened to us," Lost explains, and steps outside of the plane. You gasp again as you see you're now in a jungle, but then you get distracted as you note that not only is your species changing, but so is your gender. You seem to be a female jaguar anthro from the neck down, but the changes soon cover your head, leaving you with a strange body in a strange place with strangers. The tigress and Lost set you down in the sand, while a catgirl walks up to you and introduces herself as a doctor, asking you a lot of questions which you barely pay attention to.

"Where are we?" You ask, looking up at the doctor. You vaugly note that there are other survivors. The doctor looks up at the two who brought you out, worried.

"We don't know," She finally answers. Suddenly, there's the sound of a body hitting the ground, hard, and a large commotion, and the three rush off to see what the problem is. You take this opportunity to wander off towards the shore.

You'd rather be alone right now.


MEGAN


You wake up screaming.

You look around, breathing heavily as you realize, somehow, miraculously, you have survived. Now all you need to do is continue that trend.

You stand, unsteady for a moment, and walk forward, wondering just how far off course the plane was when disaster struck. You walk into some dense brush, and something touches –

You spin before your mind registers something even happened. What was that? You see nothing around you, but... suddenly you're aware of a weight on your back. You turn, gasping as you see what it is.

There is a pair of wings on your back, and you wonder how the got there.
They feel real, and look just as such. You can feel your fingers touch them, your hands running through the feathers. You spread them experimentally, noticing that the feathers are tipped with red. You stare in amazement.

"I wonder if I can fly?" you ask yourself.

Then you grin.

Pulling your wings in close to you, you start to run as fast as you can. You don't seem to be getting as tired as you normally would, and you're running at least twice as fast as –

You run into a cliff. You don't stop running, in fact your heart leaps with anticipation as you spread your wings and jump off the edge.

Flying is just as amazing, even more so, than in your dreams. The freedom of the wind blowing past you, the feeling of your wings beating... it all feels natural, it feels... right.

You continue flying and notice the smoke rising from an area roughly thirty miles away. You twist in the air, heading towards the spot. Maybe you'll find other survivors? Quickly, your suspicions are confirmed: you not only see the plane, which makes you gasp in horror, but several moving specs that can't be anything but survivors. You dive, aiming for the spot.

Your landing is less than perfect, and you actually start losing it when you hit some trees by accident. You tumble in the sand, landing on your front before your body skids to a stop. You quickly feel others lift you up and a cat-girl runs over.

"I'm a doctor," She quickly explains as she checks you over. "Are you all right? Do you hurt anywhere, any broken bones?" You mumble that you're fine, just some scrapes and bruises. The doctor confirms that you're fine.

"Where did you come from?" Asks an anthro vixen.

"I flew," You say.

"No, really," Another vixen replies. You stretch your wings, albeit painfully. Your new muscles needed breaking in, it seemed.

"Cool," An anthro lizard (really young – no more than 10, you note) comments. "How high can you go?" You laugh.

"As high as I want, I guess," you smile, and look at the plane. You stare, noting everything. "did you find any other survivors?" You ask the cat-girl, motioning to the plane. She shakes her head.

"You're the tenth," She tells you. "Everyone else in there is dead, we checked. There might be more people in the jungle, but it's unlikely." You nod sadly.
Andrew...

"C'mon," She says, pulling you up. "Let's get you some water." You follow, looking up at the setting sun, and hope for...

What are you hoping for? Finding Andrew? A voice asks. He's dead.

No, You think. Not that.

Then what are you hoping for?

You hope.

Just... hope.