Hello, Mr. Umbrella

2011: Aliyah

The plane took off in the most healthiest and positive way possible. Nothing could ever go wrong judging by the way it moved in the air. Fata Morgana could be seen by the passengers. Polite and charismatic flight attendants walked around in the plane, making sure everybody was okay—despite their efforts in disencumbering everyone's worries; a little girl still shivered as she laid her tiny hands on the laps of someone who seemed to be her mother—digging into her skin with her slender fingers.

It was her first flight.

The little girl glanced over her shoulder to take a look at the castles in the sky, setting her eyes on them she shut her eyes close—never wanting to open them again. Fata Morgana always looked horrific, but it is just an illusion created by the wind and sand; building a Disneyland castle in the sky. It is also a form of mirage caused by a temperature inversion in the atmosphere, especially one seen in the sky.

"It's just Fata Morgana sweetheart." A flight attendant said as she offered her a box of juice. The little girl looked at the woman sitting beside her, waiting for her permit, she nodded and the little girl accept the juice box. "Sweetie, Fata Morgana is just an illusion. Don't you see that one looks a lot like Rapunzel's tower?" She pointed at the mirage caused by the sand and the wind.

"More like a witch's castle. I'm scared aunty." The little girl whined as she hugged the woman sitting beside her.

The nice flight attendant smiled wryly. "Nothing will go wrong sweetie, we will be in Bangladesh in no time." She assured her.

The thought of exploring Dhaka—the capital of Bangladesh disencumbered her worries once and for all. The wonderful tales she had heard about the place, the beautiful flowers—most importantly, the souvenirs she was going to bring back home for her best friend. "Aunty, I can't wait to see Dhaka. I will take pictures of me around Dhaka for my around-the-world scrapbook and I'll show it to James. When will we arrive again?" She asked curiously.

"Aliyah just hang in there, or maybe if you sleep time might fly?" The man sitting next to Aliyah's aunt suggested in a questioning manner.

"Good idea uncle Aman, our teacher taught us that sleeping has many benefits; it makes time fly and also makes us relax." She said as her eyes shut slowly with the fluttering of her beautiful long dark eyelashes.

"Insha Allah (if Allah wills) nothing will go wrong." He said with strong assurance.

Many things could go wrong though. In nothing less than twenty minutes, every passengers' nightmare started coming to life: the weather changed suddenly and the beautiful clear skies changed into something from Flight 666. Everybody in the plane started whispering but their whispers changed into yelling as lightning struck the plane and shook it off its comfort zone. The once peaceful plane changed into hell, like the time for reckoning had came. People started mumbling prayers in the way they were taught while some of the teens couldn't take the fact that they were going to die young.

"Where the hell are you guys!" A man in his fifties yelled, even though he was ripe for death, he couldn't just believe he was destined to die in a plane crash.

"How the hell can we activate the parachute?" A teenage boy already lost hope, all he wanted to do was jump off the goddamned plane.

Aliyah was fast asleep and didn't budged even after the plane went Mumbo-Jumbo, her aunt pressed her head against her chest and kept saying her last prayer—or what she wished she would say before dying, she continued mumbling the shahada (statement of testification for Muslim) as her husband held her trembling hands. Some screeching sound could be heard from the plane's control room and groaning accompanied; realisation struck, the passengers all knew that one of the pilots was down and they couldn't do anything to help, the only hope they had was to pray to God for an easy afterlife. Another lightening struck and this made the plane lose pressure. It started falling from the sky to the ground with its nose. Everyone was shrieking like crazy, all of their baggage fell and injured some of the already-dead passengers.

This was the reality of life. Death.

The shrieking was loud enough to wake Aliyah up. Waking up, her aunt shut her eyes with her sweaty palm, all she could feel was the strange and sinister force pulling them back to the earth. Gravitational force. It felt like a rollercoaster ride but a bad rollercoaster ride. She couldn't do anything but cry. It was all the doing of the people in the sky. She thought Fata Morgana had something to do with it. The last picture she remembered was her mum's before her whole world shut down after the big bang explosion sound as the plane crashed on the earth surface with greater force. The once peaceful plane crashed.

* * * *
Happy holiday guys. I'm back, don't tell me you didn't miss me, 'cause I missed you guys. Lemme introduce the new revolution of halal-fiction stories to you. If you've read the previous version of 'Hello, Mr. Umbrella' then you're so gonna love this one. What do you think?

xoxo AuthorAladdin