Fear of Flying

Chapter 1: The Quiet Orders

Flight Officer Thomas Merrin received his assignment in the rain.

A folded letter. Three stamped words. “REPORT FOR SORTIE.” No explanation, no map—just coordinates and a time. The war didn’t need clarity anymore. It needed obedience. It needed bodies in planes and prayers in engines.

Thomas had flown only twice in combat. Both times, he returned with trembling hands and silence in his mouth. His CO called it nerves. But Thomas knew it was something else.

It wasn’t fear of the enemy. It was fear of the sky. Of how the clouds swallowed you whole. Of how silence came just before the scream of an engine going down.

And yet, he buttoned his coat and walked across the tarmac like a man walking toward a memory.

Chapter 2: The Sky is Never Empty

The old Tiger Moth biplane roared louder than memory. Its frame rattled in protest with every gust. Thomas sat in the cockpit as the mechanic shouted checklists he didn’t hear. His co-pilot, Lewin, was nineteen, fresh from basic, still grinning like this was a sport.

“First night op?” Lewin asked, voice muffled through his scarf.

Thomas nodded, though it wasn’t. Not really. But it was the first night he knew he might not come back. There was a weight in the air. Like something unsaid hanging between the clouds.

They were to fly over the coastline, scout enemy movement, and return by dawn. A simple flight, they were told. Like mail delivery, someone joked.

But the clouds had their own intentions. And the sky is never truly empty.

Chapter 3: Altitude and Memory

At 4,000 feet, the world vanished into fog. The ocean below was just a shadow. Thomas tightened his grip. The stick vibrated like a heartbeat. Every muscle in his shoulders ached with memory.

He remembered his brother’s letter from three months ago.

“Up there, you’re either free or you’re nowhere at all. There’s no middle.”

His brother never returned from his last flight.

Lewin tapped his shoulder. “You alright?”

Thomas nodded. But his breath caught in his throat when the first lightning flash illuminated the clouds—silent, white, like ghostlight. His eyes stayed wide long after the sky went dark again.

Above them, the clouds swirled. Below, the sea waited, indifferent.

Chapter 4: Contact

Radar wasn’t reliable this close to the Channel, but the Eye—what they called their low-res spotting system—picked up movement west. A blip, then another. Fast. Closer than expected.

Lewin squinted through his goggles. “Could be one of ours.”

Thomas knew better. The silhouette was wrong. Wings too sharp. Too low. Too purposeful.

Enemy scout.

The Tiger Moth wasn’t built for fighting. It was barely built for wind. But orders were orders. And instincts were older than fear.

They gave chase. Or tried to.

Clouds closed like curtains. The scout disappeared. The wind thickened.

Chapter 5: Between Wings and Flame

Turbulence hit like a fist.

For a moment, the world tilted. Thomas saw the stars above and the sea below in one dizzying turn. Lewin shouted something lost in the engine’s scream.

Then—the flash.

A tracer round shot past them.

The scout hadn’t disappeared. It had looped behind them. Smart pilot. Patient pilot.

Thomas banked hard. The old plane groaned. He heard fabric tearing. Wind screamed through the tear like it wanted to pull the wings off.

He didn’t feel fear.

He felt clarity.

Every line, every sound, every choice—the world shrank to a single moment of action. He became breath and reaction. Nothing else.

Chapter 6: Fire in the Sky

A lucky shot.

Not theirs—the enemy’s. Their rear rudder caught flame. Orange bloomed behind them like a second sun.

Lewin shouted, tried to reach the extinguisher, but Thomas shook his head. He banked again, nose down, used the dive to smother the flame.

It worked.

They leveled out at 1,500 feet.

And there—just before them—the enemy scout again. Slower now. Damaged too.

Thomas had a decision.

Fire. Or fly past.

His hand hovered over the trigger. His breath slowed. He could almost hear his brother whispering.

Chapter 7: The Choice

He thought of his brother. Of the letter. Of the flight where no one saw him again. He thought of the silence his mother carried like a scarf, wrapped tight around every word she never said.

He pulled the trigger.

Bullets struck the scout’s left wing. It spiraled—not exploded, not shattered. Just descended, crippled. Thomas didn’t watch it hit the sea.

He pulled upward.

Lewin cheered, breathless.

But Thomas said nothing. He didn’t feel victory. He felt... release.

And something else too.

Not guilt. Not pride.

Something quieter. Like recognition.

Chapter 8: Landing

They touched down just before dawn.

The base was silent, save for the wind.

Thomas stepped out of the cockpit and looked at the sky. It was just blue now. Empty.

A mechanic asked if everything went smooth. Thomas said yes.

Lewin joked about breakfast. The usual bacon and beans.

But Thomas just looked upward.

He realized he wasn’t afraid of flying.

He was afraid of what flying showed him: that up there, in the fragile space between death and grace, he could become someone else.

And maybe he already had.

He walked to his bunk. He didn't sleep. He wrote a letter instead.

“The sky never forgets. And sometimes, I think it remembers better than we do. But I flew. That’s what matters. I flew.”