𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧

[ ₁₉₉₆! ]

There's a sound the soul makes when it's trying to come back into the body.

It's not sweet. Not gentle. It's the shriek of metal carving through itself. The splinter of bone against bone. The ragged gasp of something essential breaking, not all at once, but piece by piece. Then there's a pause—just a breath of silence long enough to wonder if you've died—and then the screaming begins.

Crying. Wailing. Not all of it human. Some of it animal, guttural. A girl's voice, high and cracked, begging for someone—her sister, maybe. Another voice—older—reciting the Lord's Prayer through sobs. Then a boy, repeating the same name over and over again like it's the only word he knows.

"Travis? Travis—?"

Annie Jo didn't know if her eyes were open. Didn't know if she still had eyes. The world was all red and black and pain that came in flashes, like lightning behind her eyelids. Everything pulsed. Her body felt packed with stone, like someone had poured concrete into her chest. Her limbs were too heavy to lift. She couldn't tell where she ended and the wreckage began.

Then the pain found her.

It bloomed like fire at the base of her skull and radiated outward, white-hot and sickening. Her ribs flared with each breath. Her nose was clogged—blood, she thought. Blood and smoke and dirt. Something sharp dug into her side. Something wet and warm trickled into her ear. She couldn't feel her hands. She couldn't feel anything except the burning, the pounding, the horrible knowing that she was still alive.

Around her, chaos emerged.

Voices moved in and out like radio static. Shouting. Crying. Clawing at the metal. And then—

SLAM.

Someone was throwing themselves against something. Again. Again. There was a raw, animal grunt with each impact, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting steel.

SLAM.

"Molly!" someone yelled, probably Taissa. Annie Jo's brain caught the word like a fish hook. Her mind, slippery and rattled, clung to the name of her best friend. She tried to turn her head. Couldn't. Her neck gave a warning spasm and she froze, afraid to test it again. Her mouth opened, but her throat felt like it was packed with gravel. No words came.

SLAM.

"I said stay there, Javi!" Molly's voice broke through the smoke and screaming, sharp and terrified. She sounded exhausted, hurt. Terrified. "I mean it! Don't move, don't come over here—I'll get the door open—"

Annie Jo's eyes flickered. A light. A shape moving.

And then she heard it.

A voice—clear and close, desperate in a way that made Annie's stomach twist.

"God, please. Please—"

Natalie.

Annie blinked hard, and the world shifted in a lurch of light and movement. Natalie was fighting through the tangle of duffel bags and cleats and straps, her jacket torn at the shoulder, her lip split and bleeding. She was shaking. Her arms shoved through the pile of debris, clawing things away like it was her own body buried underneath.

She was crying.

Natalie Scatorccio was crying and praying. She was talking to God.

"Please don't let her die," she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges. "Please. Please, not her—"

Annie Jo's heart stuttered. It hurt—God, it hurt—but it moved.

She tried to speak. Just Natalie's name. A breath of it. All that came out was a whimper. Her whole body trembled. The smell hit her next—burning fuel, electric and thick, curling around her ribs like it wanted to squeeze.

They were still in the plane.

And the plane was going to burn.

"Annie?!"

Laura Lee's voice. Distant. Choked. "Molly—where's my sister?! I saw her—I saw her and then she was gone!"

Another crash—this one louder. Metal screaming open.

Fresh air exploded into the cabin like a gasp. Cold and harsh and alive. The emergency door had given way.

Molly stumbled back into the cabin, her face soaked with sweat and streaked with soot. Her right arm hung at a grotesque angle, bone likely torn from socket, blood blooming across the fabric of her sweatshirt in slow, heavy patches. Her shoulder was visibly misshapen, jutting wrong beneath the collar. Her good arm clutched Javi to her chest, shielding him like a second heartbeat.

Her eyes were wild as she looked at the rest of the team.

"Go—GO—GET OUT!" she shouted, her voice cracking with strain. She let someone take hold of Javi as the ran out of the plane, standing between seats and looking around frantically. "Where's Travis?! Where the hell is Travis?!"

She looked like she was seconds from collapsing. Her knees buckled and caught. But she didn't go down. Her face folded in pain, but she didn't stop moving.

Natalie was there in a flash, pushing through the last tangle of gear, dropping to her knees beside Annie Jo. "Annie," she breathed, already reaching for the straps that pinned her in. "You're okay. You're okay. You're here. We have to go, okay? Just—just breathe for me."

Her fingers worked fast, untangling the cords wrapped around Annie's chest, her ankles. When she slid a hand behind Annie's neck, the girl cried out—pain like lightning slicing through the back of her skull. Her ribs protested every breath.

"I can't—I can't feel my—" Annie gasped, her voice breaking apart like glass.

"You can," Natalie said fiercely, her own voice shaking with tears. "You're in shock, Annie. You're hurt but you're not dead. I'm right here. I've got you."

She looped her arms under Annie's shoulders and back, slow and careful, bearing most of the girl's weight. Annie's legs didn't work at first. They buckled, then locked, then buckled again. But Natalie held her steady. Whispered to her as they moved. Steered them toward the open door.

Outside was louder than inside. Wind and fire and sobbing. The moment they stepped onto solid ground, Annie Jo collapsed against Natalie like a broken puppet. She couldn't hold herself up. Natalie didn't flinch. Just tightened her grip.

"You're safe now," she said. "You're safe. I got you."

Laura Lee burst from the trees a second later, scraped and bleeding, eyes swollen with tears.

"Annie Jo—thank you, God—thank you—"

She wrapped both arms around them, pulling her sister and Natalie into the tightest embrace she could manage. Annie let her. Couldn't do anything else. Behind them, smoke climbed in thick black plumes, curling into the pine trees like warning signals. The air smelled like gasoline and death.

Off to the side, Misty crouched beside Javi, having taken him from Molly. Her fingers moved with practiced calm, checking his pulse, inspecting a gash on his forehead. "Mild concussion, at the most." She noted to herself. "You should be fine."

Misty looked up at Molly, who appeared beside them, still keeping her eye out fro Travis, but she didn't want Javi to worry. Her arm was now clearly limp and dangling. The shoulder had gone from swollen to almost purple. Blood dripped from her fingers.

"I should set your arm," Misty said, clinical.

Molly didn't answer. Her gaze swept across the wreckage, her face unreadable. Then her eyes caught on someone in the trees.

Travis.

He stood like a ghost, soot-blackened and blinking slowly, lips parted but silent. His hands were torn up, knuckles raw.

Molly moved.

Her legs barely worked—one knee buckled, her steps uneven—but she kept going. Her jaw trembled. Her arm was useless. But she still walked straight to him and threw her good arm around his middle, pressing her face to his chest.

At first, his arms stayed frozen at his sides like he didn't know what to do with them. His dark eyes landed on her arm, hesitant and not wanting to hurt her. But then—slowly—they came up. One looped loosely around her back. The other hovered, then finally rested on the back of her head. He didn't speak. Just held her, blinking like he was waking up from a bad dream and still hadn't figured out which parts were real.

And still, Molly didn't cry.

She didn't look at her shoulder. Didn't say a word about the blood soaking her sleeve. She just gripped him tighter and whispered something too quiet to hear.

Behind them, small footsteps crunched through the pine needles. "Dad?" Javi's voice was almost lost in the wind. "Dad?" He tugged at Travis's jacket with one hand. "I can't find Dad..."

Travis didn't move. Didn't speak.

It was Molly who bent, pulling Javi into the crook of her good arm, her hand shaking as she smoothed his hair down. "We'll find him," she whispered, sure and soft. "I promise."

Javi buried his face against her side. Travis stared straight ahead.

And then—a scream.

It cut through the woods, shrill and inhuman, and everything stilled.

‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧

The scream was still ringing when they all started to run.

It cut through the air like something alive, like metal tearing flesh, like a soul being wrenched out of a body. Annie Jo didn't know whose voice it was, only that it was filled with something primal. Something final. The kind of scream that pulled people toward it—because it could only mean one thing.

The forest rushed at them, cold and breathless. Branches clawed at their faces, the earth uneven beneath their feet, every impact jolting up Annie Jo's already battered legs. Her lungs ached. Her heart was a drumbeat gone wild. The sound vibrated in her chest before she even reached the clearing.

And then they were there.

Everyone had stopped. Frozen in place, clustered together in a loose ring beneath the trees. Faces turned upward. Silent.

Annie Jo slowed, instinctively reaching for something—someone—to hold onto. Her shoulder bumped into Natalie. She didn't mean to, didn't plan it, but the contact steadied her. She let it happen. Let it anchor her for one breath, then two. Then she stepped forward.

Something warm hit her cheek.

She froze. It slid slowly down her skin, thick and slick. Not rain. Not sap.

Blood.

Her breath caught. She blinked and looked up—and the world tilted.

"Oh my God."

The words tumbled out before she could stop them, barely more than a whisper, like a prayer cracked in half. Laura Lee didn't correct her. No one even looked her way, surprised. They were all staring up.

High in the trees—caught in a cruel tangle of broken limbs and snapped pine boughs—hung Coach Martinez.

His body was twisted, slack, draped over a branch like a discarded doll. One thick limb of the tree had run clean through his torso. His arms dangled down, lifeless, bent in ways no human arms should bend. His head tilted sideways. His face was ghost-white, mouth open slightly, like he'd tried to say something before the end.

Annie Jo couldn't breathe.

It wasn't just the sight of him—it was the finality. The brutal silence. The way the blood still dripped, slow and steady, like the tree was weeping. Like it would never stop.

Then came the sound that broke it all apart.

"NO—no no no—Dad!"

Javi's scream was pure agony. He tore himself from Molly's grasp, stumbling forward, arms flailing.

"Javi!" Molly surged after him, her legs unsteady, her right arm useless and dragging at her side. She caught him with her good arm, yanking him back against her chest even as he kicked and thrashed. "Don't look—don't look, Javi, please."

But it was too late.

Javi collapsed into her, sobbing so hard his body shook like a leaf in wind. He buried his face in her shirt and screamed into it, a sound that didn't seem to belong in this world. The Serrano girl held him tighter, rocking slightly, whispering into his hair.

Her face was wrecked.

Tears ran clean paths through the soot on her cheeks, but she didn't wipe them away. Her jaw clenched against a scream of her own. Her eyes never left the tree.

Behind them, Misty stepped forward, wide-eyed and trembling behind her glasses. "Holy macaroni," she breathed, voice small and high. "Is... is that...?"

Natalie was still holding Annie Jo. Her arm had wrapped more fully around her waist now, fingers curled in the hem of Annie's shirt, gripping tight. When she spoke, her voice was raw. "He's gotta be dead, right?"

Annie Jo opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Her stomach turned over. She looked at Natalie instead. The girl's eyeliner had run in messy tracks down her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She looked younger like this—softer. Scared.

A rustle came from behind them. Jackie pushed her way forward, her face pale but determined. Still the captain she always was. Her eyes darted from face to face, reading the group like she was assessing damage. "Okay," she said, sharp. "Who has the best arm?"

Everyone turned toward her, appalled and confused. Mari raised her hand, hesitant. Her face was tight with confusion. No one spoke.

"What the hell, Jackie?" Molly snapped from where she crouched with Javi still clinging to her side.

Jackie winced, backing toward the rest of the group. She looked at Molly, then at the others, lowering her voice slightly.  "I was thinking we could...try to throw something. At him. To see if he... y'know... moves."

Taissa flinched. "You want to throw rocks at Coach? Who fell out of a fucking plane?"

"I didn't say rocks," Jackie said quickly, defensively. "A shoe or something."

"Stop. We need a plan," Shauna snapped, stepping in between Jackie and Taissa.

"We could lower him with ropes," Laura Lee offered softly.

Annie Jo's head snapped toward her sister. Laura Lee stood just behind Shauna, clutching one of their childhood teddy bears to her chest. Annie Jo didn't even want to ask how it survived the crash. Her brain jumped instead to her suitcase—to the leather jacket stuffed at the bottom of it. Where was it? Had it burned? Flown into the trees?

"Vines, then," Laura Lee added when everyone stared at her. "I don't know..."

Natalie let out a bitter laugh. "For fuck's sake, Laura Lee. We're not going to Tarzan him out of a tree."

Annie Jo gave her a look. "Natalie..."

Jackie was already gesturing again. "You got a better idea?"

Natalie squared her shoulders. "Yeah. Than shoes and vines? Let's just cut the fucking tree down."

Then—shouting. A blur of motion.

Travis broke from the group, running for the tree like he couldn't hear anything but his own blood. His face was carved from grief, twisted in a way Annie Jo had never seen before. Like something inside him had already split. He didn't speak. Just ran—and started climbing.

"Travis!" Molly's voice cracked, pure panic. She stood up, staggering forward."Don't—don't climb! Travis, please!"

She passed Javi off to Shauna and rushed to the base of the tree, clutching the bark with one hand while her useless arm hung at her side.

"Come down!" she cried. "You can't—your dad—Travis, please!"

He didn't hear her. Or maybe he did and didn't care. He was halfway up, scaling like the branches weren't even there. The others scattered, watching him. Misty dashed into the trees and came back with quilts, blankets, anything soft she could find.

"In case he falls!" she shouted, frantic.

Molly stood frozen at the base, one hand braced against the trunk. Her whole body trembled. Her arm throbbed with every heartbeat. She couldn't climb. Couldn't stop him. She whispered his name again and again, like if she said it enough, it would reach him through the bark.

Above, the branches creaked.

Blood stained the side of Travis's shirt—her blood. It gleamed red in the sunlight as he inched out along the limb. His fingers reached toward his father's jacket.

"Molly..." Annie Jo whispered, barely aware of saying it.

Molly didn't move. Her eyes locked on Travis, pleading.

"Please," she whispered. "Please come down."

He hesitated.

Their eyes met—just for a second.

She didn't say anything this time. She just shook her head, pleading silently.

Another creak.

And then—

Snap.

Coach Martinez's body dropped. The branch broke, splintered mid-length, and what was left of him hit the forest floor with a thud that echoed into silence.

Travis didn't move. He just crouched there, perched on what remained of the branch, his shoulders shaking as he stared at the ground. His breath came in short, sharp bursts

Molly collapsed to her knees, gasping.

Not in grief. Not entirely.

She dropped in relief.

Because it wasn't him.

‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧

They hadn't gone far. Maybe twenty feet from the edge of the clearing, just enough to duck behind the first few trees and lose the smell of burning metal. Behind them, the others moved like ghosts—blurry shapes around a weak fire, voices dulled by exhaustion and distance. Someone was crying again. Someone else was coughing. Misty was still pacing around like a metronome, muttering under her breath, her hands covered in blood as she finally finished setting Molly's arm.

A new kind of quiet had settled over everything—the kind that only comes after screaming stops.

Annie Jo couldn't sit up straight anymore.

She crumpled at the base of a tall pine, her back bowed, one hand clamped tight to her side like she could hold herself together by force. The pain had moved in behind her ribs and unpacked its bags. It throbbed hot and wet, a pulse that lit up every breath like a warning. The rush of the crash—the fire, the running, the shock—had all drained out of her system, leaving her hollow and shaking. Her body felt borrowed, mismatched. Every bone in her ached like it had been unscrewed and jammed back in crooked.

Natalie followed without hesitation. Not like she was watching Annie fall apart—more like she was orbiting her, pulled in by some gravity neither of them had named. She dropped beside her, close enough that their knees bumped. Her shoulder brushed Annie's, light and warm through the threadbare fabric of her shirt. She didn't speak. She didn't try to help.

She just stayed.

The silence stretched. Annie stared at the dirt. Natalie picked a pine needle off her sock. The space between them felt like a glass bubble—fragile, sealed off from the wreckage behind them.

Above, the sky had turned the same shade as blood in bathwater. Bruised pink, veined with smoke. The trees cut black lines through the light. It was beautiful in a way that made Annie's stomach twist.

How could it still be beautiful?

Not after the plane tore itself apart.

Not after Coach.

Her vision went fuzzy. Her teeth clacked once, hard. The pain in her side spiked—sharp and certain.

"Don't pass out," Natalie said, without looking at her. Her voice was dry, like the edges of a torn-out page. "You already scared the shit out of me today."

Annie Jo breathed out through her nose, something ragged and broken in it. "I'll try not to."

"I mean it." Natalie turned her head slightly. Her eyes were lined with ash. "You really scared me."

"I'm not trying to," Annie whispered. She winced. "I think something's... wrong. Inside."

Natalie stilled.

She didn't answer right away—just looked at her. Not in that quick, panicked, injury-checking way. This was slower. Closer. Like she was trying to see past the blood and dirt, trying to understand something that wasn't entirely physical. Her eyes tracked over Annie's face, then down—watching the sharp rise of her breath, the way her arms curled inward like she was trying to hold something in.

Not just pain. Not just hurt.

Something else. Something cracked open.

Natalie's fingers twitched against her thigh. Then she rubbed her hands hard down the legs of her jeans, like she was trying to ground herself. Or wipe something off.

She looked away—just for a second.

"Your ribs?" she asked, when her voice was steady again.

Annie nodded, biting down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

Natalie didn't reach for her right away.

She just sat there, knees bent, fingers twitching against the earth like she didn't trust them. Her knuckles flexed once, then again. Like maybe her body already knew what she wanted before her mind could stop it.

Then—slow, deliberate, almost like it hurt—she leaned in and wrapped her hand around Annie's wrist.

"Okay," she said. "Then don't move. Just... be still."

Her grip wasn't tight. But it was steady. Grounding. A thumb rested just under Annie's sleeve, pressing lightly into the skin above her pulse. Not bracing. Not comforting. Just there. Just real.

Annie let her eyes slip shut.

She felt everything all at once: the cold worming under her skin, the bruised throb behind her ribs, the sharp grit of smoke still lodged in her throat. Her whole body ached like it had been turned inside out, scraped clean of anything but pain.

She wanted to curl up, to sob until her stomach cramped. But she stayed still.

"I thought we were dead," she whispered.

Natalie's fingers didn't move. "Me too."

"I thought—" Her throat caught, words stuttering in the air. "I thought God was punishing us."

Natalie froze.

Not the kind of freeze that came from fear. And not confusion, either. This was sharper. More intimate. Something she didn't want to name.

"For what?" she asked—low, quiet, like she already knew the answer but didn't want to hear it.

Annie didn't answer.

She didn't need to. Her silence said enough.

Natalie shifted back, folding her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Her jaw clenched. A cut on her cheek was crusted with dried blood. The soot made her skin look ghost-pale.

She looked like she'd been through hell. She looked like she belonged in it. She looked like something holy burned down to the frame.

"I don't think I believe in hell," she said eventually. "Not like they tell us. I think it's just... whatever's left when everything else breaks."

Annie's eyes pricked hot. Her hands balled in her lap, the fingers white at the knuckles. She didn't know when the tears started. She only knew the cold of them on her face.

Natalie turned toward her again. This time, she didn't hesitate.

She reached for Annie Jo's hand and held it—not like it was something fragile. Like it was something she was afraid of letting go. Like it was something real, and she needed it to prove that she hadn't imagined surviving.

"You are..." Natalie trailed off, meeting the younger girl's green eyes. "You are alive."

Annie stared down at their hands. Natalie's knuckles were cracked open, raw at the edges, stained with ash and something darker. Her palm was warm, but her fingers trembled—just slightly, like they were still catching up to the body they belonged to.

There was nothing soft about her. Not her voice, not her skin, not the sharp angle of her jaw or the way she bit down on her own feelings like they were something she'd been taught to kill.

And still, Annie felt safer than she had in days. Maybe ever.

"You don't have to be okay," Natalie added. Her voice dropped lower, barely a breath. "You don't even have to talk. Just... don't disappear."

Annie turned her head. Slowly. Like her body didn't quite belong to her yet.

Natalie was already watching her.

There wasn't judgment in her eyes—only something bright and battered and burning. Some small flame that hadn't gone out, even after everything. Even after the sky fell and the ground came up like a fist and the world tore itself open.

The ache hit Annie Jo hard. Not in her ribs. Not in her leg.

In her wanting.

It came in sharp—wild and stupid and impossible. The urge to fold herself into Natalie's side. To bury her face in the crook of her neck. To stay there, still and small and held, until the world made sense again.

But it didn't make sense. It never had.

Wanting was the problem.

Wanting meant weakness. Wanting meant sin. Wanting meant God turning His face away. That's what they'd whispered at church, what the ladies at she and Laura Lee's party had whispered when they thought no one was listening. That's what Pastor Miller meant when he preached about choosing the light—about the narrow path, and the consequences if you strayed from it.

Wanting was how the world ended.

And yet—

Natalie's thumb moved, barely a shift of skin against skin. Not a caress. Not a promise.

Just a reminder.

And Annie Jo didn't pull away.

She just sat there, trembling and bloodied and feeling in all the ways she didn't have names for, and held onto Natalie's hand like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.

Somewhere deep inside her, something cracked—not all the way. Not yet.

But enough to let the cold in. Enough to let a glimmer of the truth in.

She wasn't ready to die.

She wasn't ready to be forgiven, either.

She just wanted to feel.

And in that moment—Natalie's hand wrapped around hers, warm and rough and steady—she did.

Not pain. Not guilt. Not fear.

Something else.

Something that bloomed low and aching in her chest. Something small and quiet and unmistakably real. A pull. A softness. A wanting that didn't sting quite the way it used to. That didn't fold itself into shame before she could even name it.

It didn't feel holy.

It didn't feel wrong, either.

It just felt... human.

And for the first time in longer than she could remember, that felt like enough.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hell is other people. Unless you're Annie Jo Chambers. Then hell is being concussed in the woods while feeling feelings you're definitely not supposed to have.

Thank you so much for reading Chapter Seven! This one was a turning point emotionally — the crash aftermath, the pain setting in, and Annie Jo starting to really ache in ways she doesn't have words for yet. Writing those soft, strained moments between her and Natalie was bittersweet (and painful), but also really rewarding. There's something so quiet and charged about grief and comfort colliding.

We're officially in the wilderness, and at the end of the Yellowjackets pilot. From here, the isolation ramps up... and so do the stakes. I'm planning on implementing adult Annie within next chapter or the one after!

If you're enjoying the story so far, it really means the world when you vote, comment, or add it to your library — I read every single note and love hearing your thoughts as we dive deeper into Annie's journey.

Question of the Chapter: What's the one thing you'd want in your suitcase if you were stranded in the woods?

Until next time,
Lyss