I’ve Been Flying for almost Thirty Hours and The Flight Attendants Won’t Stop Crying [Part 3]

After another dozen hours or so, I opened the bathroom door. The lights in the cabin were back to normal and I couldn’t smell any sulfur.

I cautiously made my way back to my seat and almost cried when the grinning crying flight attendant came by offering a meal. That crappy airline food was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten.

When I’d finished, my mind immediately turned to Mary. What had happened to her?

I crept down the aisle towards first class, trying to keep a low profile. Surprisingly, the flight attendants were nowhere to be seen. They’d almost seemed to ignore me, almost as if they wanted me to find her.

She had a row to herself and was staring down at her phone in the window seat. I slid into the aisle and shook her arm.

“Mary!” I hissed.

She pulled out her headphones and stared at me with a surprised expression. “Yeah? What’s going on?”

“Are you ok?” I asked. “What did that thing do to you? What did they do to you?”

“I’m sorry, remind me how I know you?”

“What do you mean? We just-” I realized with sinking horror that she had no idea who I was. I fought back tears. “Mary, how long have you been on this flight?”

She checked the watch on her wrist. “Well it’s 4:03 AM so a few hours at least.” She stared at me the same way you’d look at a person claiming they were the second coming of Christ. Her tone was low and reassuring. “Hey, don’t worry so much. Look on the bright side; we’ll be landing in about an hour.”

I felt an iron grip on my arm and looked up to see two flight attendants. “Sir, this area is for first-class passengers only.”

They were still crying and grinning, but just with tears this time. I could still see streaks of blood staining the front of their uniforms though.

I was escorted back to my seat where I spent the next several days. Attendants continued to stop by with food, I would use the bathroom, and soon was going absolutely crazy with the monotony.

In retrospect, those few days weren’t so bad. There’s a lot of content on the internet after all, even with crappy plane WiFi. No, it didn’t get really bad until around ten days later when the WiFi failed.

It was sometime a week later that I lost control and began screaming for a flight attendant. They didn’t come for several minutes, but eventually one did.

“Just...just let me see the Captain,” I asked.

The flight attendant bent low and spoke with that same customer-service voice: “I’m sorry sir, the captain has made his decision regarding you quite clear. You didn’t answer his call, and will, therefore, wait.”

“How long?”

“Quite a while I’m afraid. Don’t worry though sir, we’ll be landing in about an hour.” She straightened and walked away.

I started making notches on various parts of the seatback to keep track of different things. One notch for each time I used the bathroom, one for each meal, one for every time I watched a given movie, that sort of thing.

It was hell. I watched every movie in the seatback a dozen times over. If I ever acted out badly enough, I would be escorted back to my seat by one or more flight attendants. Any attempt at conversation with other passengers was met with confusion by them followed by a quick escort back to my seat.

I’d guess it was on or around day thirty that, in a moment of panic and psychosis, I broke my laptop and phone, screaming at the top of my lungs. No one around me reacted in any way.

Two months later, I stunk. The muscles in my legs were tight and cramped constantly. I finally concluded that suicide was my only option after my hundred-and-twenty-eight rewatch of Thor Ragnarok.

I got to my feet and limped towards the emergency exit. I knew normally the pressure inside the airplane forced the doors closed, but I figured that nothing about my situation was normal. If this didn’t work, I’d find some other more painful way to go.

I grabbed at the handle and swung it up. To my shock, the door opened easily, though no wind of any kind whipped around the cabin. It remained the standard slightly-too-cold temperature that it’d been for the past who-knew how long.

The open door called to me, a black portal out of the plane. I stared at it for a long moment, almost too long. An attendant’s hand grabbed my shoulder, pulling me away. In a fit of anger and strength that surprised me, I wrenched away and jumped out of the plane.

The wind whipping past my face was almost magical, a new sensation after so many months of the same. The ocean below me grew closer and larger, and I realized that suddenly, I didn’t want to die after all.

It grew larger and larger and larger until it seemed that all I could see was darkness and waves.

I impacted the surface of the water so fast and hard that my entire body jerked around in the seat. I pulled my hand back, sucking at my bruised knuckle. I’d hit it on the seat in front of me.

“No,” I whispered. Then shouted. “NO! NO! NO!”

A flight attendant ran down the aisle, kneeling beside me. “Are you OK sir?”

I clenched my hands into fists, almost swinging at her. But then I realized.

She wasn’t grinning.

She wasn’t crying.

To be honest she looked a little scared of me.

I reached my right hand down to my pocket where I could feel my now-unbroken phone.

4:04 AM.

“Sir, if you can calm down we’ll be landing in about an hour.”

My mouth tasted like ash. “Thank you,” I managed. “I will.”

I stared unblinking at my phone. It now displayed 4:05 AM.

Then I looked out my window and began to cry at the sight of city lights below me.

We did land in about an hour.

Moving through the terminal, I’m thinking I’ll never go flying again. That once I get out of this airport, I’ll never look back.

Then, I catch a glimpse of those eyes in the crowd—wide, alert, haunting.

They were staring back at me.

It was her. The lady on the plane, Mary.

Not a smile. Not an expression. Just that look on her face. Like she was half-aware.

As she passed, she leaned in, lips barely moving.

“Don’t believe them.”

This time she wasn’t heading to the bathroom.

She became one with the crowd.

I looked behind me and spotted a dark figure in the distance. Two flight attendants approached with smiles. But as they got closer, I saw blood leaking from their eyes.

"The Captain wants to meet you, Sir"

I took a step back.

The blood started dripping faster.

"Don't resist, Sir. You asked for the captain"

Before I could turn and bolt for the exit, the crowd stopped and turned to stare at me.

"The wait is over, Sir. You're at your destination"

I pulled out my phone to call the police—only to find 4:05 staring back at me.

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