Line of Fire

[love_the_lost]

Summary: Ember Kenneth is one of the crash survivors of Flight 815. Discover her past and see her future revealed in this story that is just as mysterious as any episode of LOST. If you're a real fan, you'll pick up the details, hints, and clues in the story that will help you answer some of the questions of Ember's story...or make you ask even more!

1. The Crash

The high pitched droning of the broken engine was the first thing Ember Kenneth heard when she aroused from her dazed state. Many other sounds quickly followed. Screaming, shouting, the crackling of flames. They all seemed in tune with one another; together they played the sickening song of the plane crash.

Flight 815, from Sydney to Los Angeles. That was the flight Ember had been on. That was the flight that had crashed.

Ember felt her head throb, and instinctively put her hand to it. Her dark brown hair was thick with sticky blood. Opening her golden brown eyes, she found her vision out of focus. Blurs of people moving, pieces of the plane, and smoke from several small fires filled her sight.

Ember managed to sit up and tried to get a grasp on her surroundings. She was on a beach, very near the shoreline. It was sunny out, and the intense heat beat down on her, making her thirsty and tired almost instantly. She could see now that most of the screams were coming from an attractive blonde girl, who was standing in the middle of the wreckage. Ember couldn’t help but think how stupid the girl looked, just standing there screaming while everyone around her was on the move, helping one another or getting out of harm’s way. Was she hurt? She didn’t appear to be.

Deciding to go over and help the girl, Ember attempted to heave herself off of the sandy ground, only to fall back as a dizzy wave washed over her. She felt nauseous. Her mouth was dry, and her stomach seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Her head throbbed harder and harder and the sounds seemed to be closing in on her. The screaming girl and the engine’s drone swirled together in a frenzy and became one horrible sound ringing in Ember’s ears. She clutched her head and covered her ears, wanting it to stop.
The world around her went black, and the sounds finally ceased.

She woke up a few hours later in the blue tinted shade of a makeshift tent. A piece of blue tarp had been tied across two trees. Sitting up, Ember felt something cool and damp fall off the back of her head. A wet white t-shirt, stained with blood, had been very loosely tied to her head.

Ember jumped slightly, startled, as a large man with bushy hair stooped under the tarp.
"Oh, hey, you’re awake." He said, friendly enough. It was obvious he hadn’t been expecting her to be conscious. "Uh, yeah, so a doctor was in here earlier. He took a look at your head. He said you’d hit it pretty badly. You’re lucky Claire saw you move earlier, or else we probably would have thought you were...well, dead."

"A doctor?" Ember repeated, her voice so dry it cracked. The man took this as a cue to hand her a bottle of water he had been carrying, which she took and sipped gratefully before setting it on the ground beside her.

"Here, I brought this for when you woke up...which, you have. I’ve been passing out drinks and food and stuff from the plane." He held up his other hand to reveal a pre-made meal in a foil box.

Ember held out a shaky hand and received the meal, placing it in her lap. "Thanks." She said. "This doctor, where is he?"

"He and Kate and that guy Charlie went out to look for another part of the plane in the jungle and I just realized you have no idea who any of those people are." He said in one long sentence.

Ember gave him a half smile. "Nope, sorry."

"Well, I’m Hurley." The man introduced himself.

"I’m Ember." Ember replied, shaking his extended hand.

"Cool. Well I have to go finish passing out the food and stuff. If you need anything, I’ll be around the beach. Just give me a shout." Hurley said before disappearing outside the tent.

"Ok, thanks Hurley." Ember said after his retreating back. She took another sip of water and struggled to her feet, stretching her arms and legs. Her head was feeling better, but her muscles were now sore and aching.

Poking her head out of the tarp’s flap, Ember quickly scanned the beach. Right outside her tent there were a few other tarp structures, the occupants of which all appeared to be wounded. Some were sitting and talking, others were asleep. Further along the beach, people were scattered among the debris of the plane.

The crash survivors were already set to work gathering luggage, building signal fires, and clearing the wreckage from the beach. Ember noticed a piece of fuselage with a large portion of one of the plane’s wings right in the middle of the beach. Everyone seemed to be avoiding it. Ember wondered why only for a moment before she realized how many dead passengers there must be inside of it.

Turning away from the giant coffin, she walked over to the packaged meal Hurley had given her. Hastily ripping it open, she snatched up the plastic fork inside and began to wolf down the food. She hadn’t realized how hungry she had been. She took another swig of water and allowed herself to let the first several bites settle.

Questions filled her mind. How long would their food supply last? Why had the plane crashed in the first place? When would the cavalry be here to rescue them?

How had they survived the crash?

**********

"Bye, bye, baby,
Don’t be long,
I worry about you,
while you’re gone..."

The quiet flow of music drifted from the record player behind Ember. She sighed, and picked at her roast chicken with her fork. A single pea rolled off the edge of her plate and onto the floor. She sighed again.

The two white candles on the table had been reduced to stubs. The wicks only had a short time left to burn. Ember leaned down and picked up the pea, examining it for a moment before setting it on top of one of the candles. It settled into the dripping wax and slowly burnt into what looked like a raisin.

Ember glared at the pea with resentment and blew both the candles out. The smoke curled up in a twisting dance and disappeared into the air above, a beauty that Ember usually admired. But tonight, the exotic smoke dance only brought tears to her eyes. She knew that the hot salty drops would stain her mascara, but she didn’t care. She stood up, dropping her fork loudly on her plate, and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door loudly behind her.

She could still hear the record outside playing it’s soft, smooth melody.

"I think of you in my dreams,
you’ll never know just what you mean,
to me..."

Wyatt had always said how he liked good old fashioned record players more than high tech itunes or CDs. Ember had spent hours searching eBay for a good one, and had been from thrift store to thrift store finding good records.

Ember snatched up a towel from the bathroom floor, and swung the door wildly open, hurling the towel with as much force as she could at the record player, and closed the door again. The towel pushed the needle across the record and entangled with it, forcing the record to skip.

"I think of you night and day,
and day,
and day,
and day,
and day..."

The record continued to repeat as Ember turned on the water in the shower, letting it get hot and steamy. Stripping off her clothes, she stepped inside and felt the scolding water soak her. Breathing in the steam in the air, Ember took a look at herself in the mirror on the wall, which was quickly fogging up. Her eyes were red from crying, and her mascara was streaked all down her cheeks. Only one man had ever seen her look like this, and he had said she looked beautiful.

But he was gone now. Now she had Wyatt...or at least she thought she did. Now she wasn’t sure what to think.

Ember’s reflection had now completely disappeared in the mist that covered the mirror, leaving only a fuzzy outline. She used her finger to gently trace the outline of a heart, and kissed the mirror once for the man she had lost. A red imprint in the shape of her lips was left behind by her lipstick in the center of the heart she had made. She stared at it as the water continued to wash over her.

"And day,
and day,
and day,
and day..."

[love_the_lost]

2. Smokers

When Ember had finished her meal and drank all her water, she felt satisfied. Her head throbs had gone down to a dull ache, which was more annoying than painful. Her muscles had relaxed, and she was fully hydrated. After a few minutes of debate, she decided to go outside the tarp structure and try to be social with the other passengers. After all, what else could she do?

Far off in the distance, she saw a Korean couple, who had distanced themselves from everyone else. She had seen them earlier in the airport. They didn’t speak English. Ember could only imagine how hard it was for them not being able to communicate in a crisis like this.

There were people scattered along the beach only as far as the wreckage stretched, walking, sitting, eating, drinking, and doing other various things like sorting clothes and rinsing wounds. Ember was surprised to see that those who had survived had come out relatively unscathed. By the group of tarp tents there was one tent set aside, that contained an unconscious man, with a piece of wreckage protruding from his body. He seemed to be the most badly injured.

The closest person to Ember that was not residing in a tent was a handsome man with dirty blonde hair, standing at the edge of the jungle that lined the beach He was leaning against a tree in the shade, lighting a cigarette. Ember wondered how long he would last out here once he ran out of them, although she didn’t expect any of them to be here very long. Rescue was surely on the way.

Deciding to take her chances, she took a deep breath and headed over to the man. He watched her as she came.

"Hi." She said unsurely, pausing for a moment. "I’m Ember."

The man took the cigarette from his lips and blew out a puff of smoke.

"This is generally the part where you tell me your name." Ember suggested, feeling awkward just standing there, but not wanting to show it.

The man inhaled another lung full of carcinogens and smiled as he blew them out again. "Sorry, sweetheart, I’m not supposed to talk to strangers."

Ember rolled her eyes. She decided to move on, but not without getting in the last word. "What are you, mentally retarded or something?"

The man looked a bit taken aback, but kept smiling all the same. "Nope. I just don’t much feel like talking."

"Whatever." Ember replied, sounding like a teen in high school rather than the 23 year old she was. She turned to walk away.

"Your head." The man said as she took her first step away.

She turned back around. "What?"

"Your head." He repeated, indicating the back of her head. "You’re hurt."

Ember touched her hair and felt the familiar sticky wetness of blood, completely covering the back half of her head. It must have started bleeding again. "Yeah, I know."

For a moment she thought she saw a bit of worry in his eyes, but it quickly disappeared.

"You’d better go take care of that then." He said, as if handing her an exit ticket to leave their conversation. Ember decided to take it, and started heading back to the her tent. "I’m Sawyer, by the way." He added.

"I don’t care." Ember said without turning around. She felt totally childish as she said it, but so what? When they got off this island she’d probably never see any of these people again.

Searching around the inside of the tent, which was bare apart from the trash from her plane meal, her empty water bottle, a seat cushion, and a bloody shirt, she decided that the shirt was her best bet, and picked it up out of the sand.

She walked quickly down to the shore, not wanting to make conversation with anyone else while that back of her head was red with blood. She slipped off her shoes and walked into the water up to her knees, being careful not to step on anything on the ground.

Ember wrung the shirt out in the water, rinsing it several times. Much of the blood washed out, sliding off the white shirt and disappearing into the water. When she had gotten as much as she could out of it, she pressed it gently to the back of her head, gently stroking it down her hair.

It stung badly. She winced, and let out a small whimper as the salt mingled with her open wound. She didn’t even know how large or deep the cut beneath her hair was.

"You shouldn’t do that, you know." A voice behind her said.

Ember turned around. A young black boy of about ten or so was standing on the beach just at the water’s edge, watching her.

"I’ve got a cut, so I need to rinse it out. Salt water is good for cuts." Ember replied, stopping her stroking motion to soak the shirt again.

"You should clean it with fresh water, so it won’t hurt. Hurley has some." The boy told her. He watched her for another minute as she walked out of the water and started putting her shoes back on. "Have you seen a dog around here?"

"A dog?" Ember repeated. "No, sorry."

"His name is Vincent." The boy said. "He’s a yellow lab. If you see him, will you let me know?"

"Yeah, sure." Ember nodded. "What’s your name?"

"Walt." The boy replied as he started to walk off, staring out in the distance, calling out, "Vincent! Vincent!"

There was something about him that was very unsettling to Ember, but she couldn’t quite place it. The way he talked to you, it was like you weren’t really there. Ember knew she sounded ridiculous for thinking this. He was just a kid looking for his dog.

**********

Ember walked out of her city townhouse with a garbage bag in each hand. Shifting them both into one hand, she used the other to open the lid of the garbage can next to her stoop. Her friend Ruth was right behind her, carrying a cardboard box.

"Are you sure you want to get rid of this thing?" She asked Ember. "I mean, it still works and everything."

Ember put the bags she was holding into the can and replaced the lid. "Yes, I’m sure. Just put it by the curb."

Ruth shrugged. "Okay..." She set the box down on the sidewalk by the road.

Ember’s brother Brant stood in the doorway, lighting up a cigarette.

"Brant, I thought you said you were going to quit." Ember said.

"He always says he’s going to quit." Ruth said, as Brant puffed a stream of smoke into the air. He sat down on the steps of the stoop, and Ruth leaned on the railing next to him, clicking her tongue.

"Smoking is going to be the end of you." Ember told him, sitting down on the porch steps next to him.

"Oh, not more of that cancer crap." Brant rolled his eyes.

Ember scowled at him, and snatched the cigarette out of his mouth, throwing it onto the ground and stomping on it with her foot.

"Sis!" Brant cried irritably.

"It’s not crap, Brant. You and I know better than anyone." Ember snapped. "I mean you’d think after what happened to mom you would stop..."

Brant took another cigarette out of his pack and lit it up.

Ember exhaled loudly and stood up. "Fine, you know what, I don’t care."

She walked over to her car, taking her keys out and unlocking the doors. Ruth followed her and opened up the door to the passenger seat.

"Do whatever you want. Just lock up before you leave." Ember said before getting into the driver’s seat. "We’ll be back later."

Ruth watched her friend as she started the car with a shaky hand and drove down the road.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Ember nodded hurriedly. "Yeah, fine."

Back on the steps, Brant looked at the cigarette in his hand. He tossed it down on the ground next to the first cigarette and gave it a stomp before going inside.

A few seconds later the garbage truck pulled up, and the man at the back got to work dumping the trash out of the cans. Finally, he picked up the cardboard box, and dumped out it’s contents into the back of the truck. Out tumbled a record player and several records into the mounds of garbage.

The garbage man shook his head. "Some people are just wasteful."