Chapter Text
Abed smells smoke.
He opens his eyes, looking around. The plane is on fire, and tree branches fall in through holes in the plane. Behind him, a tree trunk has cracked the plane in half. Pierce, Annie, and Troy are attempting to get the doors at the front of the plane open. Jeff emerges from the cockpit, which is where most of the smoke is coming from. Shirley is still behind Abed, attempting to grab a bag from the overhead bins. Abed helps her, grabbing any bag he can as he does. The three at the door finally push it open, falling into the leaves and dirt outside. Abed and Shirley rush for the front, exiting after them. Jeff and Britta are about to follow when a voice is heard from the cockpit.
“Help me!” It’s Chang, who’s stuck in the seatbelt of the pilot chair. Britta rushes forward to help him, but the smoke is strong. After a failed attempt to get Chang out, Jeff grabs Britta by the arm.
“We have to leave now!” Jeff yells. Britta yanks one last time before being dragged off the plane by Jeff.
“FUCK YOU WINGER!!!” Chang yells as they leave, and the smoke obscures them from view. He continues to yell as they stumble out the door. They’re in the middle of the forest, tall trees surrounding them on every side. There's wreckage all around them, pieces of the plane and suitcases strewn about.
“Where are they? Where…” Shirley frantically says to herself as she digs through her bags. She finally finds what she’s looking for, two small robot toys, presumably from her sons. She holds them both to her chest, relived to have found them.
Pierce is standing staring at the plane in disbelief as Annie gets sick behind him.
Abed does a quick head count, besides Chang, only Radison and the Dean are missing.
“DEAN?” He yells. After a moment he hears a voice respond.
“HELP!” Abed runs off after the noise. Troy is the first to follow, the rest follow behind. The voice continues to yell until Abed eventually comes across the Dean, who’s leg is stuck under the wing of the plane.
“My leg is stuck, can you guys lift that up?” He asks shakily. Abed motions for Troy to help him pull the Dean as the others attempt to lift up the planes wing. They lift on the count of three, only managing to lift a small part of the wing. Abed and Troy pull, but the Dean’s leg too stuck. They hear a sickening crack from his leg as the planes wing falls back down, crushing the Dean’s leg again. He passes out, bald head dropping to the dirt below. As the fire rages, it starts to light some of the trees around them. Abed runs off towards the plane as the others step back. Jeff and Britta turn, only to see a disheveled Chang, covered in ash walk past them. Chang stops to glare at Jeff, before walking towards the rest of the group.
Abed has the plane’s fire axe. He’s running with it grasped in his two hands, and when he gets to the Dean, he lifts it over his head and chops. Everyone screams, as blood sloshes from the Dean’s now cut leg. Surprisingly, the Dean doesn’t wake up. Abed drops the axe, kneeling down and removing his belt to tie off the stump left behind. He looks up.
“I need disinfectant.” Annie recovers first, rushing towards her bag.
“I have some nail polish remover, that could work right?” She begins to open her suitcase, screaming when a monkey pops out of her bag.
“Annie’s Boobs!” Troy exclaims. Annie lets out another scream as Annie’s Boobs exits the suitcase, flipping open the suitcase with her hand (paw?) and an ungodly amount of purple pencils and other stolen school items fell out behind her. Annie, dumbfounded, can only point at the pens with her jaw on the ground, remembering the “incident”.
“Oh, she just loves those pens.” Chang says, Annie’s Boobs climbs up his leg and sits on his shoulder. She wiggles her eyebrows with a smile.
“She took out all my stuff!” Annie yells.
“Okay, who else has disinfectant. Alcohol would work. Is there a bar cart?” Abed asks.
“I got nervous while we were crashing and chucked them all out the emergency door,” Pierce says quickly, looking around him as if to blame the air itself for his blunder. “That’s crazy… who said that?”
“Did anyone bring any alcohol with them?” Troy asks. Britta turns to look at Jeff. Troy grabs Jeff’s bag, emptying out the contents and finding a bottle of whiskey.
“Oh, come on, serious-” Jeff stops as the rest of the group glares at him. “Okay. Sure, whatever.”
Abed pours the contents of the bottle onto the Dean’s leg. The Dean screams, attempting to sit up. Shirley and Annie attempt to hold him down as Abed wraps his sweatshirt around his stump.
“Oh my god… Oh my god! Abed! Is my leg okay? Is it bad?” Everyone exchanges glances.
“Well, the good news is I-”
“You’re going to be okay Dean.” Annie cuts Abed off, glaring at him. “You got injured in the crash, but… Abed is doing a great job fixing you up.” The Dean looks relieved, and Annie grabs Abed by the arm, dragging him away. “Do you really want to tell him you just cut off his leg Abed!” She whispers to him with a hiss. Abed doesn’t respond, his eyes are fixed on the remains of the Dean’s leg. Now that the situation is… calmer, they start to collect any stray bags and materials they can find. Chang and Annie’s Boobs stand together at the pile, Chang deliriously whispering to the monkey.
“Holy shit, Chang is trying to make the monkey hate me.” Jeff says to Britta, she stares at him, then stares at Chang and the monkey.
“Maybe just give him some time.”
“Britta, I was trying to save you.” Jeff says, Britta simply continues rummaging through her bag. Chang turns and glares at Jeff, stalking off into the trees.
…
“Has anyone seen where Professor Radison went? Dean, do you know where he went?” Shirley asks, lightly shaking the Dean by the shoulder.
“I think… he fell out of the plane. The door just... broke off.” The Dean says, worried. Shirley gives him a reassuring shoulder squeeze.
…
“Abed, that was insane. Where did you learn to do that?” Troy asks. Abed, who had been trying to find his suitcase among the wreckage, stops to face him.
“I took a class on medicine a little while after that whole pregnancy situation. Figured it would help if my films ever took a more medical approach.” Troy is about to let out an excited “cool!” when a voice yells,
“OH MY GOD!!!” Shirley is screaming further in the woods. The study group finds Shirley quickly and is horrified at what they see. Professor Radison’s lifeless body hangs high up in a tree, a branch impaling his torso. Blood drips to the ground, pooling around Shirley’s feet, Pierce pulls her back. Annie’s Boobs scampers out from the bushes nearby, and Britta rushes forward to put her hands over the monkey’s eyes.
“Okay, uh, who has the best arm?” Jeff breaks through the crowd to ask.
“Me.” Troy steps towards the tree, hand raised.
“Troy, throw something at him so we can see if he moves.” Shirley grabs Jeff by the shoulder.
“Jeff! You want to throw rocks at our Professor who fell out of a plane?”
“I didn’t say rocks, Shirley.” He turns to Troy, “Throw a shoe or something!”
“Oh, sure, because that’s so much safer!” Annie shouts.
“Well, does anyone else have a plan?” Jeff yells.
“… We could lower him with ropes?” Annie says, looking up at Professor Radison. Jeff glares at her, forehead vein popping out. “Vines, maybe? I don’t know!”
“We can’t exactly Tarzan him out of a tree Annie.” Says Troy.
“Well, what’s your great idea?” She snaps.
“If our best ideas are shoes and vines, why don’t we just cut the fucking tree down!” Troy gestures to the tree.
“RADISON!” A voice from behind the group is heard. Chang surges past them, grabbing onto the trunk of the tree and beginning to hoist himself up. Everyone yells at Chang to get down, but he agilely scales up the tree. Britta moves Annie’s Boobs further away from the suspended body. Abed quickly grabs the pilfered fire safety blanket, urging the others to grab the corners as Chang finally reaches the branch where his coworker is skewered.
“Radison?” He asks, attempting to wake up the Glee Professor. As he gets closer, the branch begins to bend and creak. The group below is quickly broken apart as Troy pushes them back.
“Chang, get back!” Britta yells. Luckily, Chang is able to grab onto the tree’s trunk as the branch holding Radison’s corpse splinters and quickly plummets to the ground. They all scream as it crashes down in front of them. The body is drenched in blood, its jaw slack, limbs lifeless.
…
It’s unclear who speaks first, a mumbled voice suggesting they bury him. The dirt in the area is pliable, easily dug up by their hands. It’s eerily quiet, save for a few sobs and the quieting roar of the dying fire, as they dig a small divot in the ground. Troy roll the body into the pit and slowly cover it back up with dirt. When it’s done, it’s nearing night. Abed and Annie work together to build a fire. Britta and Jeff sit nearby, trying to get his phone to work. If he could get service, just maybe he could reach someone who could help. It's no use, they must be hundreds of miles from any cell towers. Pierce lingers away from the group, mumbling to himself and holding a bottle of his ‘old man vitamins’. After Shirley and Chang pull the Dean over to the fire, who has long since passed out from pain, the sun is setting. Everyone gathers around the fire, anxiously watching each other as the light leaks away.
Someone brings out their flight snacks from their bag, Chang snatches up a bag of corn nuts, others follow suit. Britta breaks the silence.
“There must have been some sort of emergency transmitter that sent out a message before we went down right? Someone will come for us by morning.” The group stirs, some mumbling agreements, when Chang loudly rips open his bag and pops a corn nut in his mouth.
“Don’t you guys think we should be rationing? You know… just in case they don’t-” Chang glares at him over the fire.
“Oh really? You want to save the CORN NUTS???” He screeches before shoving the entire bag in his mouth, a few fall to the forest floor as he continues to glare at Jeff.
“I just think it would be a good idea.” Jeff says, trying to rally the group. Chang rolls his eyes. Pierce rejoins the group, casually sitting down as if this was their study room, rather than a forest in who knows where.
“If we’re telling campfire stories, I’ve got one to knock your socks off! Now you’ll love this one Jeff. 4 Homosexuals and a Monk-”
“Goddammit Pierce will you shut up!” Britta whisper yells. He looks at her with wide eyes, then huffs. The group is silent for a few minutes, the sound of the crackling fire almost overbearing. Then, a sniffle. Shirley hugs her knees to her chest and wipes away a tear with her hand.
“Shirley? What’s wrong?” Annie asks, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“I think that I caused the plane crash!” She exclaims. “God must be punishing me because I… oh my god…” She covers her face with her hands, letting out a sob.
“What?” Troy asks.
“Well, I was fighting with Andre over who gets the kids this weekend and I called him a…” She presses her lips together and shakes her head with a mm mm. She shakes back and forth for a second before yelling, “A WHORE!” She puts her head in her hands. Everyone is silent for a moment before Britta bursts out laughing. Soon everyone joins in, Shirley giggles along with them.
"I think the plane crashed because of the whole pen situation!” Annie laughs. Everyone goes around the circle sharing their ideas of what could have “crashed the plane”.
Britta’s not paying attention when it gets to her turn, staring into the fire.
“Britta?” Britta looks up, “Have you done anything that warrants a plane crash?” Jeff says. Britta coughs, looking around for a second,
“…No.”