**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 7
As I sit in the window seat of Row 5, the memory circles in my mind, becoming clearer with every passing moment.
It was late at night, about a week earlier. I was sleeping in my budget motel room when I suddenly woke to a loud commotion somewhere outside.
I rubbed my eyes and blinked, peering at the clock sitting on the wooden nightstand. The red digital numbers read 3:47am. I sat up and turned on the lamp, taking a second to reorient myself from dreamland back to the waking world.
Motel room. Big Island of Hawaii. Keck Observatory internship. Still have cancer.
My roommate, a guy around my age named Hudson who was also in the program, hadn't returned yet. We were friendly, but not really friends. Just rooming together to cut costs more than anything else. Earlier in the night we were at some karaoke joint that lots of locals frequent. He hit it off with a girl he met, and went with a group of others back to someone's house to hang. They invited me to join, but I didn't have it in me. I was just too tired.
So I came back to the motel room, collapsed into the creaky bed and fell into a deep sleep. Until loud voices woke me.
I swung my feet off the bed and stood, inching towards the sliding door at the far end of the rectangular room. The room desperately needed repairs. Water stains speckled the ceiling and the paint was peeling. One wall – the one behind the two full beds – had wallpaper of bright green leaves, but it was bubbled in areas and had a dark yellow taint in the corners.
The voices grew louder as I side-stepped Hudson's strewn clothes and towels, and passed the tiny desk wedged in the corner. I pulled back the curtains and peered out.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the dark night.
My room was on the second floor of the three-story motel. The building was shaped like a horseshoe, each room with an attached patio that faced out to the courtyard, where an amoeba-shaped pool sat in the center.
I couldn't see the pool from where I was standing but I knew it was glowing with underwater lights, even though it was closed for the night. Not that it was crowded even when it was open. It looked, and smelled, remarkably like a gutter. With the ocean only a couple blocks away, there's no way I'd be caught dead in that pool. The plaster bottom was peeling, and the water had a cloudy, greenish tint to it. Stepping into that water would be like wading right into a bacteria infection.
I squinted into the dim lighting. I didn't see anything, but I could still hear the voices.
My body begged me to return to bed, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep with this going on, so I unlocked the sliding door. When I pulled it back, the glass door got caught on its track, and I had to use all my strength to crack it open wide enough so I could slip through.
