River of Red

XXXII

My hate for airplanes was completely overwhelming.

Fate seemed to think that me and my fear of heights went great together.

In an airplane.

35,000 feet in the air.

Fun.

Domitius said it wasn't safe for us to stay in Greece anymore, that the creature who grabbed me had friends, and those friends would want vengeance. The freak out factor had oficially reached levels over ten million. With everthing that had happened, including the kidnapping, multiple deaths, blood drinking, crazy people who want to kill me, a dark, handsome vampire, learning I was some part of a prophecy, and, yeah, the part where the crazy water creatures want to kill me.

Fantastic.

Note the sarcasm.

Domitius had bought two first-class tickets to some city in Europe, I think the London-Heathrow airport. I had, of course, got some new clothes. We also retrieved a sleeping Gravel from the hotel. Gravel, being the good little...thing he was turned into a little boy for part of the duration of the trip. The room was small, though definitely not smaller than the bathroom. The walls were sterlie white, with leather seats to match. It was fitted with two personal TV's. Somehow, he had reserved a room for two, two seats, two tables, and two TV's.

It was actually nice.

The only downfall was the turbulance that seemed to come very, very often. The pilot said there was nothing to worry about, but when you have a fear of heights in a rattling airplane you tend to not listen as well. We were going to have to go onto multiple airplanes, just as we had done on our way to Greece because the journey was too long.

I was, in no way, looking forward to that event.
Gravel had turned into tiny, gray mouse, and slept lazily in the palm of my hand.

Domitius sat beside me, his head back and eyes closed, his posture showed how relaxed and at ease he was with a full belly this time around on a plane. As for me, I could eat a horse. I had already had five plates of airplane food, and I wasn't slowing down anytime soon. Hunger was stuck in my belly like a rock, and it didn't seem like leaving anytime soon. Domitius hadn't said a word to me since we boarded the plane, he just sat and fake-napped. His hands were placed behind his head, his black hair disheveled. His legs were lazily perched on the wall, his shirt was rumpled and careless. His dark eyes were covered by his long lashes, his pale skin whiter than a sheet in the harsh airplane lighting.

I longed to run my fingers through his soft hair, but stopped myself before I could.

Just as I was about to look away, his eyes flew open, and his hands grabbed the armrests faster than the eye could see. I flinched away from his suuden outburst, when his eyes met mine. Gravel's tiny head poked from my hand in fear.

They were panicked.

"Domitius? Whats wrong?" I asked, with thinly veiled fear.

He slowly shook his head, "I don't know, but something is wrong. I heard a noise, a noise that shouldn't be on a airplane." he explained, it took me a few moments to realize what he meant.

Something was wrong with the plane.

I sucked in a breath, "What do you hear?"

He tucked my hair behind my ear, "Listen, dove."

So I did.

Voices filtered from the cocpit, and they weren't, in no way whatsoever, calm. I heard word snipets like, weather, radar, unexpected, down, control, and the worst word anyone could say on an airplane: fall. I looked at Domitius, my own feeling feflected in his black orbs.

Not five seconds later, a giant shudder ran through the airplane.

Gravel switched into a gray rat.

I went to stand, but Domitius laid a hand on my shoulder. I looked down to see him shaking his head.

"What do we do?" I asked, fear like a leach in my throat that I couldn't rid of.

He pulled me to sit beside him once more.

"Calm down for one. We don't know what's happening, it could be nothing." He explained rationally. I nodded, trying to convince myself, just as Domitius was.

Ominous thunder resonated through the plane, louder than the engine. Butterflies erupted in my stomach as gravity was momentarily suspended. A scream erupted from my throat, the suddeness of the fall enough to make my body react. Countless people screamed with me, the sound making my heart pound in my ears with the stillness and volume.

Fight or flight?

Did I really have an option?

No announcement blew through the speakers, but the shaking continuously grew worse and worse, until the oxygen masks popped down from above.

Someone stepped out of the pilots room, I guessed the pilot, and tried to yell over the sudden pandemonium. His voice couldn't be heard. It would have been similar to having a conversation with someone at Times Square on New Years Eve.

Gravel switched from rat to mouse, and I hurriedly let go of my death grip on the seat to unceremoniously stuff his tiny, fuzzy body down my cleavage.

I felt him squirm, but I whispered in his general vicinity to calm him and tell him to not move. Domitius grabbed my hand, and stood. His hand was braced on the luggage rack, his feet planted firmly on the slanted ground.

He yelled over the screaming, somehow reaching my ears, "We need to go to the tail end!" He explained, "Less impact!"

I nodded and stood next to his tall, lean frame.

He bent down next to my ear, "Grab onto me, I'll hold you up."

My arm latched around his waist, his arms on the seats. The airplane was now at a fifty degree angle with the ground, and the angle raising minute by minute.

He led me to the back of the plane slowly, my feet barely gripping the short, blue carpet. About five feet away from the door to the bathroom, the plane lurched downward and to the left. I lost my grip on Domitius, and flung my hand to grab the closest thing, a chair. Luckily it was unoccupied, so while I gripped onto the chair for dear life, the plane plummeting out of the sky. I frantically looked for Domitius, but found no trace of him.

The whole way down I screamed, my voice mingling with my fellow passengers.

I heard the pilots screams stop first, then came the first row of seat, second, and so on.

Then came the fireball that unfurled.

Next came the terrifying shredding noises.

Finally, came the blackness that engulfed my vision.