The morning sun hadn't yet reached its peak when Jack stepped out of the hospital's sliding glass doors, the scent of antiseptic and salt still clinging faintly to his clothes. His feet hit the pavement with purpose—he had a destination in mind: his country's nearest embassy, located deep in Manhattan.
His soaked passport, once a neatly folded document of identification, was now warped and barely legible. The embassy officials received him with a mix of surprise and urgency. After all, word had reached most major consulates—Flight 209 had gone down just off the New York coast. Survivors were rare.
Jack sat through a long verification process, explaining how he and one other had washed ashore. His story, raw but consistent, aligned with preliminary recovery data. He signed affidavits, submitted for a re-issuance of his travel documents, and made arrangements to have funds transferred to a local bank to support him during the processing period.
When asked about his reason for traveling, Jack told the truth—he was an archaeologist en route to a historical preservation summit in Washington, D.C. The embassy, sympathetic to his ordeal, arranged a temporary stay in a modest furnished apartment used for displaced nationals. It wasn't glamorous, but it was secure and quiet—a sanctuary in the aftermath.
The apartment the embassy provided was humble—a two-room space above a bakery in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. The mattress was thin, the walls a little too pale, but Jack didn't complain. It was shelter. And more importantly, it was a place to breathe.
Each morning, he waited for updates from the embassy—his identification documents were being fast-tracked, but that didn't mean fast by any real standard. Until then, he couldn't fly, rent, or legally move far. He kept to the neighborhood, took quiet walks with a coffee in hand, and spent long hours at the local library researching anything he could find about the crash, reading news updates and civil aviation reports. He wanted to know why.
Occasionally, he'd sit by the apartment window in the early evenings, watching people pass by—children with balloons, couples arguing softly in Spanish, a man carrying groceries home with a cane tucked under his arm. Life moved on. Jack was merely trying to remember how to join it again.
The embassy staff were kind. They'd checked on him twice, delivered food once, and promised he'd have everything within the week. But Jack wasn't rushing. His mind often drifted back to the boy in the hospital bed, battered and quiet, asking questions with more poise than most grown men would've managed in the same state.
The rest of his day faded into paperwork and polite reassurances. But his thoughts often returned to the boy with the broken limbs and strange accent who'd almost drowned beside him.
He hoped the kid was holding up.
---
Theophilus woke to sterile white lights and the faint humming of a nearby monitor. He shifted slightly in bed, wincing at the sharp tension in his arm and leg. His body ached, not just from injury but from something deeper—displacement, confusion, and the surreal knowledge that everything he'd brought with him was now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
The door opened gently, and the same doctor from before walked in, clipboard in hand.
"You're healing steadily," the doctor said, his tone both kind and clinical. "Your shoulder and kneecap are responding to treatment. I'd say you'll be mobile again in limited capacity within two weeks, but full strength—three to six months, depending on how committed you are to therapy."
Theophilus nodded, not shocked by the timeline. What troubled him more were the things that couldn't heal with bandages.
"This is my first time in America," he said, voice low. "I don't know how anything works here. My ID's gone. My money's in a different format. I don't even know where to start."
The doctor, understanding, pulled up a chair. "It's a lot, I know. But you're not alone in this. The hospital will connect you with social services. They'll help you with identification replacement, legal pathways to convert your savings into U.S. dollars, and find a temporary residence. You'll need to work through the consulate of your home country for certain documents, but the process is clear."
Theophilus listened, slowly absorbing every word. He hated relying on others, but in this case, there was no other way. He had nothing. But he was alive.
As the doctor checked his vitals and gently examined the wrapped arm and knee, Theophilus remained quiet. Eventually, the doctor gave him a soft nod and left.
The morning light filtered through the blinds, soft and golden, painting the hospital walls with thin stripes. Theophilus lay in his shared room, propped against a slight incline, his good hand resting on the blanket over his chest.
The doctor's words from earlier echoed in his mind: Three to six months.
He took the information not as a weight but as a path. Pain wasn't new. Delay wasn't defeat. But this wasn't the academy halls, or the mountain ranges of training—it was a new world, governed by laws, IDs, procedures, and systems he barely understood.
But he would adapt.
After the morning rounds, he was helped out of bed—not to walk, but to sit in the wheelchair stationed beside him. A nurse guided him slowly into a small rehabilitation garden on the hospital's rooftop—a place meant to ease patients into fresh air and distraction.
There, surrounded by stone benches and half-bloomed flowers, Theophilus sat in silence for a while, his gaze tracing the skyline beyond. The city stretched out—too loud, too fast, but not impossible. He listened to the birds, to the sirens in the distance, and to the voice of an old woman nearby talking gently to her visiting grandson.
He asked a nurse for paper and a pen, and though his writing hand was limited, he began jotting down thoughts with slow, stiff fingers. Names to remember. Things to do. Questions to ask. He needed to reach out to a consulate, update his status, and arrange to convert his funds legally. He needed new clothes, a temporary place to stay, a phone.
But above all, he needed time.
When the nurse returned to wheel him back inside, he nodded once in thanks.
He ate what he could, read what was brought to him, and accepted every small act of kindness without complaint. He was not one to demand attention, nor did he seem afraid. Only quiet. Watching. Thinking.
That afternoon, he stared out the window by his bedside, eyes following the clouds as they drifted slowly westward.
---
Elsewhere, the crash of Flight 209 had ignited swift, thorough action. American Airlines, the FAA, and the NTSB all launched coordinated investigations into the causes of the mid-air failure. Wreckage was being recovered piece by piece along the Atlantic shore.
In the days following the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), launched a full-scale investigation. As per protocol, recovery teams had already retrieved the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the crash site, both heavily water-damaged but not beyond recovery.
The wreckage, scattered across the coastal shallows, was being carefully lifted, cataloged, and transported to a secure hangar for detailed analysis. Every piece mattered—scorched fuselage, twisted seat frames, and even fragments of the cabin wall.
A press briefing was held three days in.
"At this time, we can confirm that the aircraft experienced a severe systems failure mid-flight. Whether this failure originated from mechanical fault, pilot error, or external conditions is still under investigation," said the lead NTSB spokesperson, standing behind a polished wooden podium, flanked by experts in aviation safety.
Behind the scenes, a dedicated task force had formed—engineers, flight analysts, weather experts, and former pilots. They ran simulations, checked flight logs, contacted air traffic control, and began reaching out to survivors for recorded testimonies—anything to form a complete timeline.
As part of the investigative effort, the airline company's engineering department submitted detailed maintenance records and inspection logs, while Boeing, the aircraft's manufacturer, sent technical consultants to assist in the breakdown of onboard systems.
Meanwhile, research institutions began independently assessing crash patterns. Scholars from MIT and Stanford reached out to the FAA with interest in the flight's telemetry data, offering to model new forms of predictive maintenance software and AI-assisted route optimization systems to prevent similar incidents.
Back at ground level, families of the victims were being contacted via coordinated teams—some would visit in person, others would call, depending on proximity. Survivors, like Jack and Theophilus, were listed under "Observation and Recovery," with their consent being required before any formal interview or legal process could begin.
Though no immediate answers had emerged, the crash was sparking waves—not only in the media and across legal platforms, but also in the deep corridors of scientific innovation. Already, murmurs of a new safety symposium were surfacing, one to be held later in the year. It would cover advanced crash detection methods, pilot training enhancements, and perhaps even a rethink of long-haul emergency response strategies.
Survivors' names, when confirmed, were fed to international databases, embassies, and family services across the world. Families were notified, crisis teams activated. The world had its eyes on the incident—not for the spectacle, but for answers, reform, and closure.
Jack's story would be noted. Theophilus's would be harder to trace. But both now had a place in a system built to account for the lost and the lucky alike.