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dead in seconds. There was no way they could remain flying after being in a midair collision.
    Donovan pulled one of the oxygen masks to his face, tugged the lanyard to start the flow, then held out a second mask for Audrey. He breathed deeply into the yellow plastic cup, drawing the oxygen into his lungs.
    Audrey squeezed his hand fiercely and Donovan looked into her widening eyes, then turned to the ghostly scene in the cabin. It took him a moment to comprehend that many of the oxygen masks had failed to drop. Those that had were being fought over by panicked, hysterical passengers. Some were up out of their seats, trying violently to yank the masks off the people who had them, but their struggles only reduced their time of useful consciousness. People dropped in the aisle and some thrashed in their seats before their oxygen-starved brains caused them to black out.
    In the middle of the chaos, Donovan saw someone with a portable oxygen bottle. It was one of the young flight attendants, her long blonde hair whipped by the wind. She moved into the fray, trying to help. As she neared some of the panicked passengers, she was knocked off her feet, her shoulder slamming sharply into the seat frame. Her mask was ripped from her face. Two men then proceeded to battle for her oxygen bottle. She screamed in pain and collapsed helplessly into the aisle.
    “Stay here!” Donovan yelled to Audrey. He felt light-headed, but steadied himself on the seat in front of him. The cabin was a whirlwind of blowing insulation and debris from the ruptured fuselage. He waited a moment, trying to calculate his movements.
    Donovan forced himself forward, his walk unsteady. He made his way to an overhead bin marked “OXYGEN” and opened it. He could tell he was already suffering from the effects of hypoxia as a detached sense of euphoria fell over him. He strained to discern the simple commands on the oxygen tank. He had experienced this once before while training in an altitude chamber. If he was going to save himself and the young flight attendant still lying in the aisle, he needed to hurry. He pulled the green cylinder down and fumbled with the valve, his fingers numb from the cold. His vision began to fade, the blackness beginning at his periphery and moving inward. He tried to work faster, but the apparatus perplexed him. Somewhere in his befuddled mind he knew he had only seconds before he, too, would black out. His actions bordered on frantic, yet he was strangely calm. With a final twist he opened the valve and pressed the mask to his face.
    Donovan felt the cobwebs evaporating as he drew deeply on the 100% oxygen. His strength and clarity returning, Donovan knelt and picked up the mask the two men had been fighting over. Neither had won the battle. He slid the mask over the flight attendant’s face, her lips already a faint blue. He removed another portable bottle from the overhead bin and headed back to where Audrey sat. He repeated the process of opening the valve to start the flow of oxygen, then secured the mask around her face.
    Surveying the destroyed cabin, Donovan tried to make sense out of what had happened. A torrent of frigid air hit him with the force of a hurricane. The temperature neared 40 below. Tears froze to his cheeks and his exposed skin had become almost completely numb.
    To his right he caught a flurry of activity. A young woman in a window seat was fending off an assault from another passenger. Donovan instantly moved to help. Her mask had dropped and she’d secured it around her mouth and nose, but a man in the aisle seat, whose mask hadn’t dropped, was attempting to rip it from her face. In one quick motion, Donovan restrained the man and pointed across the aisle to a vacant seat with a mask dangling from the overhead panel. But instead of understanding, the crazed passenger reached out and began to wrestle the oxygen bottle from Donovan’s hands. It was a losing battle as the man’s efforts finally caused him