**WATTYS 2022 WINNER** Seventeen-year-old Evelyn Werth is on an endless flight from hell. She's the only person onboard Aloha Airways Flight 1333 who's caught in a 28-minute time loop.
During each cycle, four things happen:
1. The Internet goes out...
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Still Loop 397
Rion grows rigid, and his eyes widen. "What do you mean? I've been completely honest this whole time."
"Is that so?"
His eyebrows pinch together. "Yes?"
I watch him closely. "Is that a statement yes, or a question yes? Because it sounded an awful lot like a question yes."
"What are we even talking about?" Rion's growing exasperated. "We're just distracting ourselves when we're supposed to be watching Heather this loop. And it's not like before, when there are endless loops." He stops suddenly, realizing what he just said. "Holy shit, we don't have endless loops anymore, do we? How many loops do you think we have left?"
An icy dread fills me. I don't answer.
Because I don't know.
"Do you think it's like a dozen more? Or less? Like two or three?" Rion's frantic now, his blue eyes no longer able to focus on anything. "What's that Velocity Point you told me about? VNE? When you can no longer level out of a nosedive?"
Panic builds throughout my body. I've been in nearly 400 of these and haven't figured out squat and now I have only a handful – or less – of these loops left until I'm squat.
If, of course, there's anything to be solved.
But there has to be a way out, my gut tells me. I didn't necessarily think so before, but with Rion by my side, it feels like everything is changing. We're onto something. I just know we are.
Heather closes the luggage compartment and she's walking by us, towards the front of the plane.
As we watch her, my patience hits a dead end."Fine, Rion, if you don't want to fess up, then I'll just come out and say it," I blurt out. "When Janelle Fiori saw you right before she collapsed, I know she said something to you. I was watching the whole thing, and honestly you seemed... I don't know the word for it... Surprised? Alarmed? Or maybe if Surprise and Alarm had a baby together, and the baby inherited Surprise's facial expressions and Alarm's temperament."
He tilts his head like he's trying to decipher what I'm saying.
"But the thing is," I continue, "I don't know what she said to you. So, Rion, I am now making a formal request. Please tell me what she said."
"Oh, that." He swallows.
"We're a team," I remind him with his own words. I point at him and then back to myself. "We're teammates. And then, once there are no secrets between us and we trust each other entirely, we will go ahead and solve the shit out of this loop."
