Call of The Wild [The Frontier event]

A golden disc hung half-hidden behind painted white mountains, and snow sparkled like samite with every catch of the light. Even when you were stuffed like a sardine in a tiny flying can, Alaska had a way of making you feel small. When you looked at the mountains rising in the distance, the trees that stood sentinel over lands no one had ever touched, it was hard not to feel insignificant. There were other students coming here too, spread out by hundreds of acres, but even with that information in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but feel lost and alone.

The pilot took a swooping downward curve, looping around the way they'd came, and Kayla could feel her stomach being turned inside out. She'd been sitting ass to ankles with these people for hours now, and the whole way, the plane had shook and rumbled and rattled, and for half the time she was afraid her power had blown something off in the engine, but the pilots never looked concerned, so neither did she. Or at least, she tried. It was hard to mask the sick look on her face as they looped around again, lower this time, their wings almost brushing the treetops.

There was a river just below them, a wide and twisting thing that curved through the snow and trees like some great shimmering snake. At places it foamed, coursing and frothing like a wild animal, other places it was wide and fat and lazy, streaming slow and easy through the ice. They'd followed it all the way since Fairbanks, and she'd had plenty of time to get acquainted with it. Apparently, it didn't have a name. Most of the hills and mountains out here didn't have a name. It was just wilderness, a wild patch of snow and trees and sloping valleys that had never been charted.

To call it a patch though was an understatement. Even from the window, it had all looked endless, and with a sickening pit in her stomach, she realized they were getting even closer to the ground. Suspiciously close. She could hear the crash of the river below them as they swept past, the plane wobbling like it was about to break apart at any moment.

"This is where you get off!" the pilot called behind him, having to shout over the rumble of the plane. "It's time to jump!"

"Jump?!" she shouted back, glancing out the window to the snow banks. It was a long fall to the ground, even from this height. Enough to sprain an ankle, at least.

"Yes, jump! Just roll when you hit the ground, the snow won't kill you!"

There was a click that made her stomach, drop, and the door Kayla was leaning on flung open. Wind roared in her ears, fierce and cold, and without so much as a yelp, she went toppling out of the plane. The riverbank spun dizzyingly below her as she twisted and turned in the air, arms flailing, falling, falling...

It was less of a roll when she hit the ground and more like a tumble. Kayla went bouncing through the snow on her side, arms wrapped around herself, before she finally lurched to a stop by the riverbank. She was staring up at a milky Alaskan sky, arms and legs splayed out like a snow angel, and her head was still spinning. The air was crisp and cold on her face, and when she sucked in a breath, an icy sweet chill filled her lungs. Her breath billowed back out in a frosty cloud.

A blue current rippled down her arm as she sat back up, snow falling off her shoulders. She was wearing a plain dark button-up jacket over an undershirt, with skinny jeans and black leather boots that came up to her shins. Her backpack was still attached to her, thank god. It was bad enough they wouldn't be showering for a week, she didn't need to lose all her spare clothes too. I'll kill that man when he comes back.

The only question was, how had the others fared?

Jump?! Was he kidding himself?! That was all Penny could think about when the pilot finally spoke to them after hours of silence and clinging on to any little piece of the plane that she could so she wouldn't have a panic attack for riding in a giant rust bucket. Planes nor heights really scared her... at least, she didn't think they did until today. This was insane! "You're crazy!" she yelled at the pilot before the door swung open and Kayla fell out of the aircraft. Well, she guessed he wasn't kidding. This was happening. This was totally happening and she couldn't stop it. It was too late to back out now. Crawling over to the door of the plane, she looked out at the ground speeding by below. Just roll... Taking a deep breath, the blond jumped out, letting out a terrified scream as she fell, rolling terribly off to the side onto the snow below. "Owww!" she cried as she tried to stand up and shake off the sudden change from moving for hours to standing still in the cold wilderness only wearing a pair of jeans, some fuzzy boots she had in her closet, and the thickest pea coat she owned. Plus what was in her bag. Looking around for a moment, she found Kayla not too far off next to the river. The best thing to do was to group together now, but as Penny took one step with her right foot, a throbbing pain shot through her side on her hip where she must have landed when she tumbled. Yep. That was going to be a bad bruise. Great...

This was at least the second-worst idea she'd ever had. Why she had decided to go to the freezing Alaskan wilderness was lost on her mind now as she sat huddled and pressed between two other students. There were five of them, but one in particular had made Grace's stomach churn even before they'd taken off: Kayla. Were they forever fated to be linked together, tormentor and tormented, throughout their entire time here? Maybe the older girl would graduate and leave.

And now they were to... jump? Wait, what? Grace let out a tiny squeak of surprise as the door to their aircraft suddenly opened and Kayla unceremoniously tumbled out. Unconsciously, she gripped the straps of her backpack tightly as she watched the girl next to her reluctantly jump out. She was next. A wave of nausea began to crash and break over her stomach as she tentatively moved forward and, with no desire to do anything close to this, jumped out of the aircraft.

She couldn't voice her screams, as she felt silenced by the sheer audacity of what she was doing. A voice in her head, which sounded strangely like a certain electrified female she did not particularly enjoy being near, suddenly spoke casually, even crassly: 'Try using your powers, idiot.' There really wasn't much time between jumping and landing, but quickly Grace shot out her arm and tried to form a shield of some kind between herself and the ground. The darkness performed its favorite dance across her hand, but she couldn't get anything to form concretely beneath her, and she pulled her arm back right before landing. The young brunette tucked and rolled as best she could, but she ended up splayed awkwardly like a broken snow angel on the ground, no worse for the wear but somewhat sore. Slowly standing up, she brushed snow off of her normal black jacket attire, though the rest of her clothing was new-ish: some rather unflattering and baggy cargo pants and boots. The clothing in her backpack wasn't quite as baggy, or as big, but they would have to do; it was all she'd been allowed to bring. As she slowly made her way towards the other two girls, the thought crossed her mind: are you crazy? Yes, probably.

They'd been sitting in this flying tin can for hours on end. Somehow, Amelia had been able to sleep for a few hours as they flew across the Canadian border and again into Alaska. The plane was only slightly  rougher than a school bus, which actually was a fair comparison to what they were doing now. It hadn't been great sleep, but at least she'd been able to skip the awkward flight that probably happened. The short girl had still been asleep when they'd been told to jump. Then, someone yelling as they fell jolted her awake. When she opened her eyes, the plane was short three people, and another scream, muffled from the sound of the plane's engines, came from below. When she scrambled to the open door, she felt herself being thrown out by her unsteady footing with a surprised yell.

She fell rather ungracefully to the snow below. "Roll? I don't know how to do that!" was her panicked thought during the few seconds she was airborne. The air was so cold as it whipped her hair into a storm, whistling in her ears. She curled into a ball, hoping not to land on the rocks, or the water. PUMWF. Her overly large coat had protected her from any bone damage, but she could tell where some bruises would appear on her back. While she laid there, winded, but mostly unharmed. In the corners of her eyes she could see the other girls in her group. The only student left on the plane seemed to be Preston. "Great..."

Every other student on the plane was practically curious out the pilots for the shit crazy idea of jumping out of big hunk of metal with a roll and/or tumble. Honestly, that was the thing least bothered him about this entire trip over. It was fucking cold up in the metal hunk of junk. He was stuck between the zombie-deer chick and the crude wall. His ass was hurting after being stuck in the same position for hours. Some crazy adrenaline stunt like this might've made the terrible ride worth all the wild, though.

Funny, how he was the last one to go up, though, and a shame he couldn't see how everyone else fared when they hit the ground. It must've been a pretty amusing sight. Once it was his turn, he didn't seem scared in the slightest, grabbing unto the side of the exit and looking, waiting for the right exact moment to jump. Back in Maine, in that lame old town he'd used to live in, he'd do shit shit like this all the time - except into freezing cold waters off of rocky, neck-breaking cliff edges. Jumping into large piles of fluffy snow didn't even seem half as bad.

Preston took a few steps back in the plane, waving the pilots goodbye with a stupid smile and rushing out forward - even going as far as doing a flip, completely showing off for the others. The wind was cold and bitter, but it felt great, and his landing wasn't all that bad, unlike the others. He'd landed the farthest from the river, popping up above the snow a few moments later. "Shit." He laughed, "Can we do that again?"

And just like that, they were stranded out here. The plane pulled back into the air and shrunk into the horizon, the rumble of the engine faded into silence, and then it was gone. Just a black speck somewhere in the distance. She grimaced and pushed herself to her feet, dusting the snow off her pants and pulling on the straps of her backpack. Now they were stuck out here for real.

"Sure thing," Kayla said when Preston finally made his... arrival. Fucking show-off, as always. Her voice cracked like a whip. "When that plane comes back, I'll make sure to push you out." When they were three hundred feet off the ground, maybe he'd have time to do three backflips. Did they know what they were doing when they put him in a group with four girls?

She glanced around. They were hemmed in by thick forest on both sides of the river, and snow crunched under her boots despite it being mid-summer. This would be a fun week. "So who's got all the supplies?" Tent, hatchet, knife, flint, mugs. The tent most of all. If they'd somehow left those on the plane, things would take a turn for the Donner Party all too quickly for her liking.

Looking at the four others surrounding her, Penny blinked for a moment, completely forgetting that they were supposed to have supplies. After jumping from the airplane, that was the last thing on her mind. "Uh..." she said before taking her backpack off of one shoulder and slinging it around front to open it up. She knew that it had clothes in it, but she didn't know if there was anything else. It had been packed up for so long before the trip. "I know for sure that I do not have the tent..." she muttered as she pushed everything around in her back to try to find some of the items. Looking at the bottom of her bag, she found the flint and the knife they were supposed to have and breathed a small sigh of relief. "I have the flint and the knife, but that's it."

Amelia still hadn't stood up and simply focused her eyes on whoever was speaking. At the mention of their supplies she got to her knees and shuffled to her half-buried backpack about a yard away. "I've got..." she began while digging through clothes. She happened upon her blanket and the tent, but couldn't tell which was which. Both were the same color. She frowned and held both up. "..the tent, maybe. It's really small though." She wasn't looking forward to having all of them cramped in the thing, even if someone was keeping watch at all times. Looking closer at both, she found a metal zipper attached to what she now assumed was the tent and stuffed her blanket back in the backpack.

Preston nearly scoffed and rolled his eyes at Kayla, shrugging the backpack off his shoulders and pulling it around, so he could peer inside and see what he'd been given. "Well, well..." He brought pushed aside a few clothes, pulling out a small hatchet, freshly sharpened by the looked of it. There were a few other things, like forks, knives, and spoons - but nothing else that he'd found particularly interesting. "Think of all the shit we could pull with this..." He glanced over at the last girl, figuring whatever was left that they'd needed, she'd had to have - unless others were hiding things of their own.

Grace felt small and out of place as the others discussed the non-clothing items they had, the important things they needed to last out in the Alaskan wilderness. She didn't remember packing anything like that. In fact, she could barely remember packing at all. Her throat tightened as she considered dropping into the snow and hiding until the others forgot she was there, but one of them - the only male in the group - was looking at her. Gulping nervously, she awkwardly grabbed the backpack off of her back and rummaged through her belongings. Huh, there were other things in there... a pot, a few cups or mugs or whatever. She really didn't remember packing all of that, but there they were. Clutching the backpack tightly to her chest, she mumbled, almost inaudibly, "A-a pot a-and c-cups..." Smooth. Maybe this was her dumbest idea ever. Her powers were starting to act out on their own upon her jacketed sleeve, causing her to feel a chill that only partly was due to the frozen tundra.

That was all of it then. Kayla already knew better than to check her own bag; it was just underwear and baggy old shirts and a musty plaid button-up two sizes too big, with a threadbare blue blanket patterned with clouds to keep it all together. If they didn't trust her enough with their supplies, then that was a-okay with her. Maybe they thought she'd go crazy and leave the rest for dead if she got her hands on their provisions.

Kayla kicked at the snow, sending up a flurry of white powder. "And now what?" She'd never been the leader type, even if she had never been too good at following orders either. With this bunch though, things were probably bound for disaster either way. Amelia had gotten a solid second in the Easter egg hunt and almost eaten Pres with a mutant deer, but the other girls looked useless, especially Grace. Preston was just Preston.

Glancing over the group, the tiny girl thought over their situation. The first thing she'd noticed was that none of them were the leaderly type. 'This will be fun.' Maybe they could half-ass it and somehow make it out alive. Taking a deep breath and getting to her feet, she grabbed her light backpack. "We should find someplace sheltered in case it snows." 'Or a predator finds us.' Amelia suggested, trying to sound more like an advisor than a leader. Not like they'd take her seriously anyway, being less than five feet. Who'd take orders from a mouse?

"Yeah. Don't they normally do that in those survival shows? Find water first, right? We kinda got that covered... So now we find a place to settle for the night?" she asked. That's what she remembered anyway. In some ways, she was kind of thankful at this moment in time that her dad watched the Discovery channel a bunch, but it didn't really help her in the real world situation. It was already getting pretty cold, and she didn't do well in the cold. Why the hell did she sign up in the first place?

This would be the time that someone who was a natural born leader with everything under control would speak and keep them all alive for the next week. This person did not seem to be there, or at least they weren't speaking up. Grace fidgeted nervously by herself, knowing there wasn't really anything she could say to be helpful in this situation. It was nerve-wracking, and Kayla's presence was at least the cause for some of her discomfort. Would they realize how worthless she (Grace) was and just leave her for dead? How long did it take for cannibalism to set in?

"I-is it s-safe to j-just drink water f-from the lake?" She asked this quietly, timidly, almost as if she wanted to voice it without anyone actually hearing her. It wasn't exactly a big proclamation, or even an intelligent one. She just definitely did not want to die here.

Kayla shrugged. A predator was the least of her concern if one did show up. It was the cold that worried her more. Nothing burned like the cold. "Why shouldn't it be fine?" she replied in a flat tone. The river looked clean, and it wasn't like there were too many pollutants out here in the middle of nowhere, so it should be good, right? She vaguely recalled something about boiling water in the water to purify it, but who wanted to drink hot water?

"Where should we camp then?" All they had were the clothes on their back and a tiny tent. She only hoped that someone knew how to set it up. It was open by the riverbank, so did they camp deeper into the forest? Kayla pulled her jacket further over her to protect against the biting cold. The hint of an embittered smile played across her lips. "Everybody tell me straight. How much experience do you all have surviving out in the middle of nowhere?"