The jungle buzzed, hot and alive.
Aiden sat on a broken section of fuselage, fingers clenched tightly around his knees. Around him, steam hissed from the damaged rear engine, rising into the thick, humid air. His clothes stuck to him like glue, and every breath felt like trying to inhale soup.
Yet he barely noticed.
All his attention was on the towering trees, the massive, flat leaves, and the unnatural quiet of the forest beyond the wreck.
He didn't know where they were. Nobody did.
But one thing was already clear.
This wasn't any place on the map.
The survivors moved with the jerky stiffness of people trying not to break — dazed, bleeding, many in shock. Some paced. Some cried. A few sat still, staring into the trees. Every few seconds, someone would shout a name into the air, only to be met by silence.
Aiden had counted twenty-four survivors so far. The main cabin and cockpit had taken the worst damage. The tail was gone — completely vanished into the jungle. No sign of it, no trail of fire, just a mangled gap at the end of the fuselage where it should've been.
Some people had already started piling up supplies. Food, water, luggage, first aid kits. One man was trying to get a satellite phone to work. So far, no signal.
Aiden didn't help.
He stayed back, quiet, watching.
A tall man in a business suit stood on a chunk of broken wing, trying to take charge.
"Listen up!" the man shouted. "I don't know where we are, but we need structure. Order. We've got shelter, basic supplies, and each other. So let's—"
"We don't even know what island this is!" someone snapped. "No GPS, no radio, no rescue beacon. This isn't order, this is chaos!"
"It's a jungle. A big one. We crashed into a remote island. That's all," another woman added, wiping sweat from her brow. "We just need to signal a plane or boat."
Remote island.
That was the phrase everyone kept using.
It made sense. More sense than… anything else. Planes don't just vanish into another world. Planes crash. Survivors wait for help. That's how it's supposed to work.
Still, Aiden couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
The plants were too large. The insects too loud. The trees looked prehistoric — their bark dark and spongey, their leaves bigger than beach umbrellas. He'd seen enough nature documentaries to know this didn't look like any jungle he'd ever heard of.
A voice snapped him out of it.
"You okay?"
He turned and found a girl standing behind him. Maybe sixteen, with short-cropped black hair and a thin cut on her cheek. Dirt was smeared across her hands and clothes, and she held a roll of bandages in one hand.
"Yeah," Aiden muttered, sitting up straighter. "I think so."
"I'm Mira," she said, crouching beside him.
"Aiden."
"You've got a gash on your arm. Not deep, but it could get infected in this heat." She peeled open the bandages without waiting for permission and began wrapping his forearm with practiced ease.
"You a nurse or something?" he asked.
"Nope. Watched a lot of survival videos." She smiled briefly. "Guess it paid off."
He didn't return the smile. His eyes wandered back to the jungle. It felt like it was breathing — pulsing softly with the constant thrum of insects and the creaking of branches high overhead.
"I don't think this is an island," Aiden said quietly.
Mira tilted her head. "What do you mean?"
"I mean… the air's too thick. The plants are wrong. And the bugs—I saw a dragonfly earlier. Its wingspan was, like, two feet."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're saying what? We're in a dinosaur park?"
"No. Not dinosaurs," he said, hesitating. "Just… something ancient."
Mira looked past him toward the trees. "Well, either way, nobody else is going to believe that. Not yet."
A shout drew their attention.
"Hey!" the man in the suit again — his voice sharp. "You two—get over here! We're organizing into teams. Food, water, signal duty."
Aiden stood but didn't move toward the group. "No thanks."
The man frowned. "This isn't optional."
"I didn't vote for a leader," Aiden said calmly. "You want to play boss? Fine. But don't expect everyone to follow you."
Mira snorted softly behind him.
The man bristled but turned away to bark more orders at others who were actually listening.
"I give that guy two days before someone punches him," Mira said, standing beside Aiden now. "Power makes people real stupid."
They walked a short distance from the wreck together. Aiden scanned the perimeter. The forest loomed like a wall, the undergrowth too thick to see more than ten feet in.
"We need to find water," Mira said. "Clean water. Streams, rivers, something. You think we can get a few people to search the area?"
Aiden nodded slowly. "Yeah. But we shouldn't go far. Not yet."
"Why?"
He pointed.
A set of wide tracks ran along the edge of the jungle — not human. Something low to the ground had passed by recently. The foliage was bent. Some of the prints had stubby claw marks.
"Whatever made those… it wasn't small," Aiden said.
"Wild pigs?" Mira offered, though her voice lacked conviction.
"Maybe. Or something else."
Another voice joined theirs. A boy — skinny, mid-twenties, glasses cracked on one side — stepped out from behind a tree. "You two heading out to explore?"
Aiden tensed slightly. He hadn't even heard the guy approach.
"Name's Leo," the boy said. "I'm with the comms team, trying to get the satellite phone working. You seen anything weird?"
Mira raised an eyebrow. "Define weird."
Leo glanced at the tracks. "That, for starters."
He leaned closer. "Listen… I was a geology major before all this. That stuff," he pointed to the trees, "those species? They shouldn't be here. I mean, it's not just exotic. It's extinct. I think we're somewhere nobody's ever been before."
"Or… somewhen," Aiden muttered under his breath.
Leo didn't hear him. "Anyway, if you're planning to scout water, I'm in. I'm not sitting around waiting for Business Guy to start assigning chores."
Mira and Aiden exchanged a glance.
Three of them. That was enough to check the nearby forest without straying too far.
"Alright," Aiden said. "We'll head out and mark the trail with cloth. If we don't come back by sundown—"
"We're probably dinner," Mira finished for him.
Leo gave a shaky laugh. "Comforting."
They gathered a few supplies — pocket knives, a half-full water bottle, a flare. Then, without telling anyone else, the three of them slipped quietly into the jungle's edge.
The moment the wreck was out of sight, the forest closed in like a mouth.
Everything smelled green and wet and ancient.
And for the first time since the crash, Aiden truly understood something:
They hadn't just landed somewhere forgotten by maps.
They'd landed outside of time — even if no one believed it yet.