"Ladies and Gentlemen, please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. As you can probably tell we have hit a lot of turbulence and may need to make an emergency landing," the pilot spoke over the intercom in a tense-sounding voice.
It's okay, just some turbulence, I thought to myself as I quickly made sure my seatbelt was on and tightened.
I gripped my seat's armrests as I looked around.
The flight attendants were practically yelling at people to buckle up while they ran to the back of the plane to buckle in themselves; not that anyone would have chosen this particular moment to act rebellious and not fasten their seatbelt.
But it was slightly disconcerting to see the flight attendants not behaving in the calm, collected, and professional way I had seen before in-person and in movies. If they were freaking out enough to be yelling and running towards the back, there had to be something more going on than just turbulence.
The plane suddenly jerked to the side, and my head slammed against the small window by my seat. I groaned, suddenly wishing I had not gotten the window seat. I could already feel the pounding in my head that would for sure lead to a killer headache.
Often when I had been on planes before, window seats were the seats I liked the best. But not this time.
Just my luck.
Blinking out the black spots and rubbing my head, I realized people were screaming, crying, and even praying all around me.
I didn't know what was happening. I had not been paying attention after I hit my head. But I obviously missed something. I mean, I'm not having a great time and just had my head bashed into a window. But as far as I could see, that was still simply a serious case of turbulence.
"Oh my God! We're all going to die," the person sitting next to me sobbed.
Looking over at the person who addressed herself earlier as Clarisse, my eyes widened. Yep. I had to have missed something.
My voice came out as what sounded like a part squeak, part yell. "Why would you say something like that?! What's going on?!"
I grabbed the armrests tightly as the plane jerked again and the pilot voice came back on over the intercom. His voice was a garbled mess over all the noise of people screaming, crying, and the noises of the plane itself.
I could not make out his words. Turning, I looked out the window hoping to see I don't even know what. I couldn't see anything other than the dark shape of clouds, though. No one was telling me what was going on, the plane was now feeling like the worlds' worst wooden roller coaster ride, and I couldn't hear the pilot.
"Did you hear what he said? I couldn't hear anything. What's going on?" I tried to ask the girl next to me again.
Suddenly, a loud pop and bang rang through the air. Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention fast enough for me to look out my tiny window again and see fire shoot from the wing of the plane.
The plane jerked to the side, tilting as everything seemed to fade into the background. I couldn't hear anything over the loud rushing in my ears. My head slammed into the window next to me again, and I vaguely managed to hear Clarisse next to me say, "Emilia, I think we are going to crash."
I did not reply because I did not want to voice the fact I was thinking so too. Then I heard another muffled shout that sounded like, "We're going down!" Which, quite frankly, was not what I needed to hear. It was seriously unnecessary commentary, considering my body was pushing against the seat belt at the sudden change in direction the plane was going; down.
Honestly, I can not remember anything else about what happened after the terrifying realization we were going to crash. All I could remember was the moment it dawned on me itself.
Then the night sky, which had been lit by fire in the previous seconds, was now black.
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