Short Stories, Tall Tales

Mayhem in the Sky

"What is that?" I heard one of the passengers to my left inquire. It was a small child with blonde pigtails, squirming about in the window seat across the aisle from me. She sat up on her knees with her face and little palms pressed firmly against the glass. I rolled my eyes. The rest of the plane quietly ignored her curiosity until a gut-wrenching screech came from four rows down on the same side. Almost simultaneously, the cabin erupted with horrified shrieks and gasps and the plane lurched to the right and down two meters. I was already out of my seat, though, and had just started a fist fight with gravity when it reminded me I was way out of my weight class by dropping pigtails on top of me as the plane lurched again. She was crying and I hated tears. My sentiments were visible on my face, along with urgency and a total loathing for my current predicament.

"Seriously?" I spat, forgetting the 60 lbs body that had all but flattened me against the window on my side of the cabin. I slid out from under the screaming child and pushed her down into the seat that had been mine not five minutes before. "Shhhh." I hissed at her just before an explosion behind me tilted the plane on its opposite side. I had managed to click the seat belt around the waist of the child. It's a good thing I did, too, otherwise I would have had a serious case of deja vu on the opposite side of the cabin. 

My head reeled and my shoulder screamed at me to stop as I rolled, but I didn't. I was on my chest now with my face pressed against the same window pigtails had when she first spotted it. She had been the first. I knew this was the window because the fog from her breath was only now dissipating in the presence of my own. It took me a moment to re-orient myself; switching from passive reaction to proactive action. That's when I saw it. The what from the beginning of this nightmare. I swore under my breath. I hadn't even felt the warm trickle of freshly drawn blood until the bright red streak caught my eye as it rolled across the circular window where my face had taken up residence. I was momentarily distracted by mentally accounting for all my appendages. It was only until I found they were all intact did I realize I was lying a freshly pooling stream of someone else's blood.

Disgusted, I pushed myself up against my better judgment and my swelling shoulder. Part of me just wanted to lie there and pretend I was dead, but the rest if me knew that would only result in my actual-and final-demise. As I climbed my way towards the back of the plane I ignored the carnage that was once a cabin full of dozing passengers and I pretended not to notice that pigtails wasn't crying anymore. I focused on the roar of the plane's decent as I neared the butt of the plane...or rather, the place it should have been. In its stead I found a massive hole that made the twisted iron of the air craft's body look like ripped paper. I took a deep breath before taking the most elegant swan dive out of the falling fireball of despair.

If there had been judges they would have given me a 10. But there weren't any. The only thing that would be judged was my soul at the end when I have to account for every life I've never saved. I righted myself and watched as the rapidness of the wreckage's decent far surpassed my own. The twisting ball of heated steel impacted the earth below me with a devastating rumble. I couldn't help but smirk when the plume of rising smoke parted to make way for an upward pouring of souls. My eyes lifted and across the clouds and sky and ascending souls I made eye contact with it. Him. The what from before. I gave a nod and my gaze redirected as souls rushed past me. My stomach growled. There's nothing sweeter than a batch of pure, unsuspecting souls.