From Luton to Forever

Jarg slowly stirred from his coma. His hearing was buzzing still, but he could make out his surroundings. Yes, he was still on the plane. Miserable and lifeless, as always. There was a shadowed figure standing next to him, expectantly staring at him. For the moment, Jarg ignored the figure, and pretended to not have noticed it. He peered through the aisle— Or at least, as much as he could see of it from here. Everyone else was still in the same seats as before, trapped in their own comas. Jarg was probably the only passenger on the plane who was awake at the moment. If there was anyone else awake, they wouldn't be for long, and their thoughts were somehow deader than when sleeping. Not that Jarg could say he was any better.

A few wakefulnesses ago, he began keeping track of what positions the others slept in. As far as he could tell, everyone's was still the same. The middle aged blonde woman on the next row was still slumped forward, leaning only against the chair in front of her. The scrawny boy with the gray scars under his eyes, at the other side of the row, was still curled up in his seat, looking like he was trying to hide from everything.

Jarg's ears slowly cleared up and he could no longer ignore the man standing in the aisle.

“Sir?” the flight attendant asked again, his voice slow and deliberate. This was the first time Jarg heard it this wakefulness, but he still knew the attendant had been standing there a while, repeating the words over, and over, and over again, since before it had even woken him up. They always did that. Like a ringing phone.

“Yes?” Jarg asked, feigning a genuine intrigue with his raspy voice. Like he didn't know what came next.

The attendant held up a small, limp, gray bag. “Peanuts?”

The attendants were horrifying beings. Like all the other attendants, this one was thin, and lanky, and wore a bleak, white robe, and large black glasses with a perfectly circular rim, which prevented you from seeing anything behind them. Pretty much everything below the eyes was shrouded in darkness, except for the man's shoulders. It was as if the minuscule amounts of light refused to touch these people. The man was bald, which was weird. Jarg felt as if he'd seen hundreds of attendants, but only this one had that distinction. Jarg knew he'd seen this one before; He was one of the more frequent ones who came to wake Jarg. The attendants often picked favorite passengers. Jarg wasn't sure how to feel about this.

“Yes, I would love some peanuts,” responded Jarg, drily. The attendant said nothing and, with a reverent precision, opened the bag of peanuts and dumped them out onto the small pop-out table in front of Jarg. He didn't even give Jarg the bag. Giving a passenger something to entertain themselves with, while not 'dangerous,' was 'undesirable.' After that, the bald man walked back through the aisle, tucked himself away into an employees only room, and locked the door. Locking the passengers back into their misery.

In the past, some passengers had tried to follow attendants back there, but all of them were swiftly stopped and placed back into a coma. Those passengers also don't seem to ever be awoken anymore. Others had also tried the obvious thing, and going out through the main exit, and even the emergency exits, but those doors were also shut tight. Jarg was left with nothing but his peanuts, and his thoughts. He had reflected on his situation a million times before, but he had nothing else to do. There was nothing to do as a passenger.

He knew this had been normal at one point. It was all fuzzy in his head, and he could recall only some elements, but not quite how they fit together. Gloomy night sky. Drying off. Running late. Doors closing ahead. Admission. Serenity. Thunder.

And then it turned to this. He struggled with remembering things from the before, but he could remember everything from the after clearly. Clearer than he wished to.

***

Everyone on the plane woke with a start. Thunder sounded out through the plane, and gave way to an ocean of confused, uneasy chatter between the passengers. Jarg was sitting alone, so he had nobody to talk to, but he had an aisle seat, so he could look around and see the various people on board. Had they crashed? He tried to look out the window, but no light came in at all. The plane also seemed to have stopped moving. He tried to listen to hear any sounds coming from outside, but he couldn't tell over all the talking. His mind was racing, but his body felt strangely heavy. Usually when Jarg was worried, he couldn't help but pace around for hours.

Everybody hushed at once when a tall lady with long, deep gray hair and olive skin came into the aisle, staring over everybody dully. Jarg was pretty sure he recognized her as the flight attendant who had welcomed him on board. The strangest part was that she no longer wore the pretty blue dress as when she was welcoming the passengers onto the plane, but rather, long, dirty white robes, alongside a pair of large black glasses.

“Everybody,” she said, “calm down. Rest assured, there is nothing to worry about.”

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then the tall lady turned around, and began walking back out of the aisle. But before she could leave, someone spoke up— a large Scottish man, who sat Northwest from where Jarg was.

“But where are we now? Hell, why aren't we moving anymore?”

The lady paused for a second, and replied saying “You will all be okay, as long as nobody leaves their seats.”

“What in the bloody arse? I want to hear answers straight from yer mouth, lady.”

“Trust us, and you'll be glad you did,” said the woman, a smirk tightly stretching across her lips, as she continued walking and swiftly left the room.

“What do you mean we aren’t allow—” began the man, before suddenly collapsing and falling fast asleep in his chair. There were a few outcries at that. But before anyone could begin to ration out what happened, all of the other passengers began slowly falling asleep too. One by one. A tiredness came out of nowhere and washed all over Jarg, like a tidal wave. Within a matter of seconds, nearly everyone had slumped over, in a quiet slumber. Jarg was one of the last to be overcome, but it was not long before his mind gave in, and his eyelids fell. And then there was silence.

***

And that was it. Since then, everything had just been lying in a dreamless coma. Unable to wake up on your own, nor were you able able to wake the others. The only ones who could wake you up were the attendants, who did it for no evident reason other than to bug you with peanuts and ask if you ‘need anything.’ Need a life, that’s what I need. Nobody knew why they did any of that. Why they even offered you peanuts was a mystery beyond solving, too; everyone was stripped of any and all needs. No hunger, no thirst, no need to go to the bathroom. You didn't age. It was much like being a ghost, Jarg felt. At the same time, perhaps that metaphor wasn't quite so ridiculous. It felt like nobody on this plane was human anymore.

And then, you fell back asleep, into your coma, just to be woken up again for no reason god-knows-how-much later. Repeat. On and on. Even if you weren't always so tired, the sleep would just take you. The only way to stay awake was if you had something entertaining, or exciting, or something, anything to cling on to. But such things were few, and far between, and short lived. You couldn't wake up anyone next to you to start a conversation with them, and the attendants made sure to never wake up two people too close to each other. Not that Jarg had anyone sitting next to him, anyway. The attendants had also taken your under-seat bags, so you couldn't take out anything to distract yourself with, either. From what he could make out in the darkness, it looked like the cabin bags were still stowed away above the passengers, but you'd be damned if you could muster enough energy to pull one of those down.

In the end, it boiled down to two options. Either you stay in your seat and do nothing for the rest of eternity, or you take off your seat belt, and explore the plane, trying to find an exit. If they caught you doing the latter, though, you would be shortly put into a more permanent coma. So far, Jarg had gone with the former, but he'd always known he was eventually going to try to make an escape, like that. But he'd been waiting for the perfect moment to try it, to strike. You only got one shot at it, and he did not want to blunder into it. He sensed now wasn't his moment, either. So, he ate the flavorless peanuts, and let himself fall back asleep, until the next moment came. Eventually, it was going to be the right one. Not now, though.

***

A few more wakefulnesses passed, in the exact same way. What else was there to say? Nothing changed, at least nothing that mattered. A few different attendants had checked in, but otherwise, it was the same meaningless moment it had always been. His senses were slowly clearing up yet again.

This time, it was the bald attendant, again, but now he didn't have any more of those peanuts with him. “Is everything alright?” the attendant asked insistently. It sounded weird, though. Their voices had always had something mocking in them. Soft and not aggressive, but at the same time uncaring. But this time Jarg felt like he could hear the tiniest tinge of emotion in it.

Jarg felt something stir within him. A soft surge of rage. Yes, this was it, the moment he'd been waiting for. It was now or never, and so he asked, “May I use the bathroom?”

After a few seconds, the attendant spoke again; “You may.” The tinge from before was gone, and the voice had gone back to being unreadable. Obviously, none of the passengers ever needed to use the bathroom anymore, so anyone who asked that was clearly just trying to get away from their seats, even if for one moment. Regardless, both of them ‘played along.’ The attendant stalked back down the aisle to wherever it was the attendants spent the rest of their time. That place was separated from the aisle by a door which, again, only attendants could open. The only way to get through would be to tail right behind an attendant and try to sneak in, which would work for about one second.

So, Jarg decided he was actually going to go to the bathroom, and figure the rest out from there. His fingers clumsily tried to unbuckle the seat belt, and after a bit, he managed to get it off. He stood up for the first time in... months? Decades? Millennia? He didn't know. But there he stood. He remembered moments when others had stood up during brief moments when Jarg was also awake, and he'd been proud of them. Now, though, he didn't feel proud. Just anxious.

He stepped out into the aisle, and fell face first to the ground, but not before slamming his head into one of the other seats.

Pain.

Blood trickled down his face and onto the ground.

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt so good.

With that, he regained his strength and managed to get back onto his feet. He managed to stagger down the aisle, in the opposite direction from where the attendant had gone. Shortly, he'd arrived at a dead end, where there was nothing but a white door. There weren't any seats back here, he was all alone. He pushed down on the handle, and the door swung right open. It was an incredible sight to behold. There was even a tiny, faint light in there. To him, it was blinding. Jarg stepped in and looked around.

It was, indeed, a bathroom, fully equipped with a reflective sink and a toilet. Dear lord, a toilet. Sadly, there was no water in it, something he probably should have been expecting, and something that shouldn't have affected him in the slightest, but it still dismayed him a little. The imperfections slowly dawned on him. No toilet paper, no soap. Again, he wasn't planning on using them, but it still unnerved him. He tried turning the sink tap on and no water came from it, either.

Okay. He was alone. He was thrilled enough, so he felt he could stay awake for a while. Not long, but enough to hatch a plan. What came next?

...

What did come next. The toilet was of no use to him. The tap looked rusty, and he figured he could pull it out and use it a weapon, but his strength failed in ripping it out of the wall. There was nothing to do except go back out of the bathroom, or just sit here until the sleep came again. Jarg felt like a child. He was angry. He didn't care, he couldn't care anymore, he flailed his arms about, trying to hit something, anything. His hands scraped the walls, and it hurt, and led to more bleeding, and he did not care in the slightest. He bashed his fist into his head over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. With one last bout of fury he slammed his fists into the wall, and collapsed.

He sobbed into the ground for a second before his body shot back up again. He could not let himself fall back into the coma. That would be the end. He had to keep going. That's when he noticed something interesting; He hadn't slammed into the wall, but rather, the door, and somehow, he'd broken it off its hinges. Most interestingly of all, though, was that there was clearly someone crushed beneath it.

Jarg kneeled back down and inspected it. White robes, stick thin limbs... Could it be? He managed to pull the body out from under the door, and yes, it clearly was another flight attendant. This one was female, with short curly ginger hair that fell down the sides of her face. The black glasses had shattered, revealing the eye-sockets underneath. There was not a single trace of actual eyes. It was a red, fleshy tunnel inside. Jarg wanted to hurl, looking at it, but managed to contain himself.

He felt around on her wrist, and there was no pulse. Good lord, he'd killed her. Considering the weird nature of the flight attendants, it was also possible she was still alive without a pulse, but he couldn't bring himself to think about that. On one hand, she could have still been innocent, deep down, and she was just... corrupted... by some sort of force. It sounded stupid when he put it like this, but everything else about this sounded stupid. And on the other hand, if he was caught as having killed an attendant, surely they couldn't do anything worse to him than what they would do anyway.

He was shocked at how easily he'd bashed that door down, and how easily the attendant had broke under it. Jarg had always thought they hid more strength than their thin statures let on. Now, he guessed they weren't accustomed to much physicality, either. It gave him an idea. He got back up, and rushed back down to the other end of the aisle. Thanks to him having gotten up from his chair and walked for the first time since god-knows-when, his body had woken up sufficiently for him to lightly run without too much difficulty.

He slammed his hands into the exit door with as much force as he could muster. That didn't work, so he tried breaking the door to the attendants' area too, which failed as well. This was to be expected. These were probably much thicker and sturdier compared to the bathroom door. It was also true that he wasn't fueled by quite as much pure rage as before, which certainly didn't help. It was fine, because that wasn't the plan to begin with. He stood facing the attendant door, and waited. Eventually one of them would come through, right? All of the people who had tried escape before had opted to sneak rather than ambush. Well, Jarg had different plans. This will be his chance.

But for now, he had to keep himself awake. Somehow. That was gonna be the hard part. His legs were already beginning to give out. He looked to his left, and there was a lady passenger, with a black mop of hair. He reached a finger down and began twiddling with it. It's not like it would have woken her up, anyway. It worked for a second, but his eyelids were slowly closing again. He was cursing under his breath, and on the verge of just giving up.

Thankfully, the door began to open at that moment, and his mind shot back wide awake. He did not waste one second. As soon as it was wide enough for him to get through, Jarg charged straight in, running into the attendant that was opening it. He didn't even spare the time to look at them. They both fell to the ground, but Jarg managed to pull himself back to his feet and continue running. He didn't stop, couldn't stop. The room was sparsely furnished, but it was much brighter in here. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see there were other attendants in here, watching him run past. He could only imagine what they looked like in the light. Why weren't they trying to stop him? What was different about him?

No time to think about that. There it was! Strangely, there was a large hole in the wall here, leading to the outside. It looked as if a giant had taken a bite out of the plane. Without thinking, he dashed for it, and ran straight through. And just like that, he was out.

He kept running for a second, but his own euphoria stripped him of control, and he fell to this knees, and sprawled out across the ground. It was soft, if a little ticklish, and slightly wet. Grass. He took in everything around him, and was overcome by nature. He rolled over onto his back and stared up not into a sky, but into thick verdant trees, which blurred in his vision, as the eclipsed rays of the sun played across his eyes. There was a soft, salty smell in the warm air, perhaps related to the sound of a rushing waterfall that could be heard in the distance.

Had the plane always been in the middle of this haven? How had nobody known? Not a single beam of light, nor a single cry of an animal had ever breached into the plane. A part of him wanted to get up and look back at the plane, and see what had been covering the windows so closely. But a bigger part of him was still content to lie in the damp grass, and another part of him shuddered at the thought of returning, and yet another part of him shuddered at the fact that he was no longer running away from it and the attendants were possibly approaching.

They were, in fact. The green swirls up above were obscured, as a bald figure, also blurred by the vague sunlight, came over to Jarg's side and leaned over him. The two of them stared into each other's eyes. Not that Jarg could see the figure's eyes beneath the black glasses. He tried to pull himself back onto his knees and continue running, but he couldn't.

Jarg didn't feel anything. Well, okay, that was a lie. There wasn't fear, but maybe there was dejection.

But something strange happened next. The attendant standing there got back up, and walked away, back towards the plane. That was it.

Jarg laid there a while longer, simply breathing. He had found Eden, and nothing else existed. Eventually, somehow, he found enough power to get up. Despite his earlier questions, he decided to not look back and just go. He made his way through the lush jungle, following the sound of the water, and before long, he did wind up at a small clearing, which housed the waterfall he'd seen in his mind's eye. He stood at the edge of the river, just before the fall itself. He looked at his face reflected in the clean, rushing water, and saw there were long red streaks across it. He'd forgotten that he was bleeding. Slowly, but still bleeding.

As he hesitantly reached out a hand to touch the stream, a few flecks sprayed onto it, he recoiled. It stung, in such a weird way. How could he describe it? It felt like being electrocuted through honey. He tried to picture honey in his mind's eye, but he couldn't see anything. That was alright, he just wouldn't drink, or bathe, for now. Considering his need to eat and drink had stopped on the plane, he assumed so had his gastronomic system, so he didn't think he needed to wash. At the same time, though, that had been on the plane. Now that he was off, he might not be under the 'curse' anymore. Perhaps it was the excitement of being free, but the tiredness wasn't looming over his shoulder anymore. Between believing he was unable to wake up and having to drink water, he decided to take that latter option. In one movement, he plunged his hands into the water and brought some up to his mouth, and forced it down. It wasn't quite as bad as before, so he managed. That was good.

What now?

Get out. Get away. Back to civilization. Help. Call for help. Make a signal. Fire. Start a fire.

He glanced around and grabbed two sticks off the ground, and rubbed them together. Fiercely, as fiercely as he could. He wasn't able to spark a flame. That was a shame. It was okay, though. He just needed another plan. So he sat back down and got back to thinking. Time began to pass, and he was afraid that he wouldn't come up with anything, and that he'd die here, lonely and pointless. Thankfully, yet another strange thing happened soon.

The sound of the water rushing became harder to make out, as a buzzing whir came into hearing. Jarg looked up to the sky and saw that a black helicopter was flying above. He had no idea what it was doing here, but he didn't question his blessings, and just began yelling. He jumped as high as he could, he waved his arms around, to get their attention. It appeared that they'd already noticed him though, and another rush of relief seized control of his limbs for a brief moment.

The copter landed down, and he ran towards the door as the pilot slid it open. He felt as if he were a toddler, waddling into mother's open arms, but before he got on, he began to reconsider. Last time he'd boarded an aircraft, it hadn't gone very well for him. He stood still there, catatonic. The pilot, a stocky older man wearing a green coat, was just staring at Jarg, confused and yelling at him, probably telling him to hop on, but he couldn't hear it over the whir of the blades overhead. The pilot decided to grab Jarg by the arm and pulled him onboard. Jarg didn't have enough willpower left to object anymore, so he let himself get pulled on. And in a few seconds time, they were taking to the skies.

***

The helicopter hadn't come for Jarg, obviously; it had just been flying through the area and noticed him, and it would have been rather unkind of it to not pick him up. The two of them sat in the front seats together, questions swimming across their minds. The silence was tense.

After a few seconds, the pilot said... something, something long, in a language Jarg couldn't quite place. Was that Spanish? Portuguese? God, other languages still existed?

“Uhh... yo no... sabo...” Jarg had studied Spanish when he was younger, but his brain refused to work well enough to remember anything now.

The pilot replied, changing to a heavily-accented but perfectly good English, “Ah, didn't understand a word of that, didja? Bloody hell...”

“Oh, thank god.” For the first time in current memory, Jarg had someone to talk to who didn't seem to be hellspawn. “I... Where am I? What is any of this?”

“Peru, above the Amazon Rainforest. But that's enough now. I'd like to know who you are, bub.”

Peru? That wouldn't have been Jarg's first guess. The pilot— who later introduced himself as ‘Lorenzo—‘ flew on quietly, as Jarg unpacked all his thoughts and recounted all he could remember of the how and why. Now that he was telling the story out loud, it really did sound like he was going crazy.

Upon finishing the story, Lorenzo said nothing for a few seconds, before his straight face began cracked down into laughing. “Okay, no, what? I'm stopping you right there. Tell me what actually happened.”

“I don’t think I could give you any other story,” said Jarg. “I’m sorry.”

“… Ah, you know what? Fine, I’ll trust ya. Don’t have any reason not to.”

“I know. That’s what scares me.”

They didn't talk about that for the rest of the way, and kept to themselves, periodically commenting on the birds around. Upon landing near the city of Lima, Jarg was sent to a hospital to check if he was really alright, and the doctors had found no abnormalities at all. It seemed his ‘needs’ had returned, as a feeling slowly crept up through his brain. Hunger.

Despite having initially been written off as a nutcase, things took a turn for the interesting, as Lorenzo figured he should at least contact the airport regarding this, and when a worker checked the archives it was found that, indeed, a man under Jarg's name had bought a ticket for a flight, headed from Luton to Los Angeles, a couple weeks ago.

He wasn't going back there, at least certainly not alone. He begged authorities to go and investigate the area in which he'd initially been found and, eventually, they obliged. They sent out a search team to the precise coordinates, and they did find the plane there. With one small difference. There was nobody in there.

They hadn't taken Jarg along for the search, mainly due to his hysterical breakdown at being prompted to return there, but they did capture photos of the plane. It was very clearly the same one, inside and out, it had the exact same gloom within it, and they found the luggage. All of it. But still, nobody was in the plane. The seats were all empty. The attendants' room was empty. It was void.

The story was publicized, and became a famous unsolved mystery, but no more evidence was ever found.

***

“This is the final boarding call for Jarg Daviese booked on flight 1067 to Los Angeles. Please proceed to gate 63 immediately. The doors to the aircraft will close in approximately two minutes.”

Jarg was quietly cursing under his breath, as he sped though the Duty Free, his trolley bag barely managing to trail by behind him. Of all the days the traffic could have jammed, it just had to pick the day he had a flight to America to catch. The rain had also been absolutely pouring outside, so despite having spent less than a few seconds in it, he was drenched. After nearly bumping into several people, he got through the big shopping area and ran for it. His flight was naturally at the very furthest gate, because why wouldn't it be?

He ran down through the tube that lead into the plane, and barely made it in time to see a skinny dark haired stewardess, who was just about to close the door in his face. Thankfully, she noticed him at the last moment and opened the door back up just enough for him to get in. “Hello!” she said to him, as he burst onto the plane. He had to stop then and there and keel over to catch his breath for a few seconds. “Enjoy the fl... sir, are you okay?”

Jarg responded with difficulty, “I'm fine, thank you.” After a bit, he got a hold of himself and briskly walked down through the aisle. Everyone else was softly eyeing him, and for good reason. He looked beyond disheveled. He got to his seat, which was near the middle of the plane. In one swift motion, he tucked his luggage away into the nook at the top and slid into his seat. He noticed that nobody else was sitting next to him, which suited him just fine. Jarg finally let out a long sigh of relief.

Thank god, I made it.

***

No.

He couldn't leave this behind. He couldn't just not know what had happened. He wanted to go back to the crash site and see with his own two eyes that everybody was gone.

The authorities refused to go again, as it would have taken resources, and Jarg hadn't wanted to go when he'd had a chance. What was he thinking when he'd said no? He also couldn't get in contact with Lorenzo again, so Jarg had to get back on his own. He'd been given a small wallet to get back up on his feet, and find a home and stable job. Apparently in Peru, which was the opposite of a problem; if anything, he was just closer to the destination. He found a job as a cashier at a small fast food joint, and began saving up. He only paid for what he needed. Food and rent. Going on like that, the money piled up quickly. After a few months, he'd saved enough, and was able to rent another private helicopter to take him back to the crash site. The pilot on this ride was far less nice; he never replied to anything Jarg said, trying to start a conversation.

Eventually, they reached the spot in the clearing, by that river. Jarg got off the plane, alone, and he was able to retrace his steps back to the plane; rather ironically, the moment of him finally leaving it behind lived in his head rent-free.

There it was. He went over to the right and walked around the plane, where he found the large hole in the back which he'd escaped through. It was terribly dark inside, so he pulled out a flashlight and flipped the switch on it, but it didn't illuminate, despite him having meticulously replaced its batteries before leaving for the trip. That was fine. He'd go without.

Jarg stepped into it, and merely stood there for a bit, so his eyes could adjust to the dark, which they did quickly. And as the darkness retreated, he made out a few figures standing at the side of the area, mere steps from him. Figures shrouded in shadows, wearing bleak, blank rags. Their faces looked hollow, and where their eyes should have been, were instead black circles. It looked like they hadn't moved one bit since he'd left.

Jarg whispered. “What are you?” He'd asked them this question many times before, and they'd never replied. And they still didn't reply now, which was to be expected. Thankfully, or perhaps unsettlingly, they didn't make any moves on him, either.

Jarg walked past them, to a door, at the end of this area. The attendants didn't object, and simply followed him. Jarg lightly pushed it open, and walked into the aisle beyond. Everyone was there. Still in the same positions. Still asleep.

The aisle was much, much brighter now, though, with the slightest hue of orange. It was still gloomy, but compared to how dark it was before, this was blinding. He could see the shape of beams of light, coming from the windows, which had been pitch black before. He took a turn to the left, and scooted by a family to get to a window and peer through. And he didn't see the rainforest outside.

It was miserable. The plane was amongst a small handful of half built structures of brick. The ruins and the ground were of a dismal gray color, like that of coal. There were people, too. Lots of people. But unlike the ones within the plane, these were wide awake. Some huddled together against the walls of the ruins, holding each other, blanketing themselves. Others danced around in groups, parading fearlessly, almost joyously. Most were alone. They all looked like ghosts, as if their skin was frail, and translucent, and gray.

The most remarkable part was the horizon, which revealed not hills, but rather an endless wall of fire which cracked the sky. He couldn't see much through the window, but it looked like it reached up endlessly. And it raged. It thrashed about, wickedly, looking as if it might come down any second and shatter the land around it. Like a whip to a china plate. The otherwise blank world was tinged red by the flames. Some of the people outside sat facing the fire. Others walked towards it. Most didn't even acknowledge it.

Jarg got up from the window, and looked back to the attendants, feeling that he understood them a little bit better now.

“How did you get here?” Jarg asked.

Surprisingly, the attendants responded, all talking in sync. “We reached out into this world, and this is where we found ourselves. Here we are. Here we stay. In the passage.”

“How did the flight crash so far off course?”

“We changed the course. We needed to hide. Experiment in secrecy. That's the cost of doing business.”

Jarg nodded along, as he whispered what he thought was the final question. “Why?”

“Because the end approaches, and we will wreak it. We must prepare. Everyone must.”

That wasn't exactly the ‘why’ Jarg was asking about, but he was glad to be given the answer to that too. He rephrased the question; “Why did you keep us here?”

“We don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“We don't know. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

The imprisonment. The sorrow. The hopelessness.

It just felt like the right thing to do.

“It's alright,” they said. “You will understand.”

“It's not alright. I don't understand.”

“We needed nobody to know about us, but we couldn't kill. We’re not heartless. And we hadn't realized humans felt emotions.”

“When did you realize?”

“The moment you left.”

“Why didn't you release them when you realized?”

“Some damages cannot be undone.”

“I seem to have undone mine well enough.”

The female, ashy-haired attendant who stood at the front of the group drew her lips into a tight smile. Jarg felt he recognized her.

He walked further into the aisle, thinking he should feel bad that he wasn't even looking at the passengers anymore. In a second, he'd made his way over to a row of three seats, all empty. The one he'd sat in, and the two that had reminded him just how lonely he was. In his head, he remembered the moment he'd gotten up from that seat, and the moment after that. The feeling of stumbling forward, and hitting his head on the way down, and reaching up to touch the blood that poured from his wound. It came back to him.

He looked down to the ground and saw there was still a small red puddle there, where he'd fallen. He reached down to touch it. It was still warm.

Jarg got back up and this time reached into the compartment above, where his briefcase still sat. He brought it down and opened it, at least as much as he could in the narrow space. All of his stuff was still in there. His clothes, a book or two, a small camera device, his passport, his ID. More.

Should I take it?

No. Forget it. What would be the point anymore?

He got back up on his legs, again, and walked deeper into the plane. Beyond the aisle was the bathroom, where an attendant still laid, her broken face peeking out from under the bashed down door. Her eyes still red gaping pits.

That was the end of the plane. So Jarg turned around, calmly walked back through the rest of the plane, and left without saying another word. He'd gotten what he wanted.

***

Years passed. Decades passed. Jarg lived through the rest of his life normally. At least as normally as he could. He'd fluttered between careers, and never settled on any one thing, and eventually decided to move back to London anyway. He'd had a wife, and one child, but that had ended poorly, and he'd grown distant from both of them. Now he was old, and he was alone. He sat in his living room, dimly lit and yellowed, atop a slightly frayed brown couch. The coffee table was a cluttered mess. He couldn't bother to clean it up. Why should he?

He turned the lights off, and then he turned them on again, and then turned them back off. It was mesmerizing. How he could affect the world at the flick of a switch. He sat in the darkness for a bit.

The peaceful silence was interrupted by the distant sound of an explosion, which was followed up by screams coming from the streets far below. There were no windows in the room, though, so he couldn't see anything outside. Thankfully, the screams died down in a few seconds, and there was silence again. Unblinking, he turned the lights back on.

As he'd done it, he'd just been staring straight ahead at the wall, where a familiar figure now stood. Jarg didn't know when and how it had appeared. “Now?” he found himself asking. The man in the robes looked so different here in this light, yet also utterly unchanged by time.

The man didn't immediately respond, and rather just reached down and rummaged around through the junk strewn all across the table, and finally, pulled a small gray bag out. “Peanuts?”

Jarg couldn't help but smile. “I'd love to.”

The devil in disguise smiled too, as it tore the packet open and spilled them out onto the table.