**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 399
As I hurry to the back of the plane, I can't help but realize there are so many potential flaws in this plan. It's not really even a plan, just a vague idea. So much can go wrong.
But, at the same time, I know it's the best we can do. It isn't the sort of thing that we can really make a plan for. There are too many moving pieces, too many other people involved that even despite the hundreds of loops, I can't always predict how they'll act. So many things can change in the finite moments, the little shifts that can have enormous impacts. We just have to do our best and give it everything we have.
Rion's following Heather as she approaches the front of the plane. She'll soon grab the intercom and relay the warning to the cockpit, and then Jerry will open the bathroom door hearing the very last part. About the drugs – his drugs – and her request to alert the authorities. The plane will change direction, and shortly after that, Janelle will collapse. And in these precious minutes, in the last remaining seconds, we'll have to do something that will change the future. Something that will change everything.
But I don't have much time to figure it out.
I run back, and call for Lydia and Cheyanne. They appear from the back galley and rush out to meet me, until the urgency on my face stops them abruptly in the aisle. "What is it?" Cheyanne asks as she eyes Lydia in concern.
I don't have time to think through what I'm going to say, so I just speak from the heart and tell her the abridged truth. "Heather needs your help up front. She just told the cockpit that she found a bag full of drugs and someone's threatening her with a knife."
Lydia springs into motion. She hurries back a few rows, grabs some sort of a small bag from a low sliding compartment, and rushes towards the front bathroom. But Cheyanne is frozen in place.
I step forward, peering into her dark eyes. "This can't happen without you, Cheyanne. We need your help." But I don't have the time to convince her. I have to keep moving. "Think of your grandkids. Those beautiful twin girls," I call behind me as I head further into the cabin. "They're counting on you. We all are!"
I don't stop to see her reaction, but when I steal a glance back seconds later, I see her running to join Lydia. At the very front of the cabin, Heather's just about finished with her message in the intercom. Lydia is nearing her, and Cheyanne isn't far behind. Any second now the bathroom door will open.
But I can't focus on that.
There's too much to get done with virtually no time to do it.
I have to get Mason, the retired general, and Bryan, the daytime accountant and evening martial arts instructor on board. They sit in 23C and 28E so I position myself in the middle, in row 26, and call out to them.
