**WATTYS 2022 WINNER** Seventeen-year-old Evelyn Werth is on an endless flight from hell. She's the only person onboard Aloha Airways Flight 1333 who's caught in a 28-minute time loop.
During each cycle, four things happen:
1. The Internet goes out...
Janelle Fiori collapses in the very back row, but she's not my concern right now. She was just a classic redirect from the real, actual threats. Jerry, and his partner in crime, Alex, just behind the cockpit door.
But then, out of nowhere, something unexpected happens.
The baby begins to cry. Or scream would be a more accurate description. It's as if the baby's vocal cords were made of a combination of squealing brakes and forks scraping against glass. It makes my blood freeze.
In shock, I glance into the cabin of the plane and see Evelyn standing near her assigned seat, holding the baby's turquoise pacifier in her hand.
And I realize that while this flight has taught me many things, one of its biggest lessons is that surprises come in many forms.
Like in the dynamic, beautiful girl standing in the aisle in front of me, holding a sticky pacifier.
The mind-splitting shriek breaks Jerry's focus for a sliver of a moment. And in the brief disruption, Lydia reaches into the bag that she carried up here and grabs a can of mace. Without hesitation, she flips open the top and sprays it at Jerry, the misty cloud covering his face.
Jerry yells, blinded, as Mason lunges forward. He grabs Jerry's arm as the blade slices across the cool air, eventually making contact with Bryan's arm. It cuts across his bicep, staining his shirt red.
But Mason doesn't hesitate and grabs Jerry's wrist, twisting it until the blade clatters to the ground, lying on the laminate floor in front of the toilet. Bryan then punches Jerry straight in the nose, knocking him to the ground. He winds his arms behind him and sits on his back, shoving his knee in between his shoulder blades, possibly fracturing a rib or two.
It's like that very first time when I woke and saw him sitting on Evelyn, as her nose bled all over the carpeted aisle floor.
Except this time Mason is finally sitting on the right person.
When I look up, my gaze locks on Evelyn's big brown eyes as she joins me at the front of the plane. She gives me a knowing look.
There's less than a minute left before the plane begins to nosedive.
And now's the time for the hardest part of it all.
It's time to break into the cockpit.
I lean against the aluminum door, and recall the numbers Heather punched into the keypad during the last loop. 96871.
Behind me Lydia and Cheyanne help restrain Jerry's hands with zip ties. Evelyn tells Heather that she has a hunch he's been working with Janelle in the back row, and she needs to be restrained too.
Meanwhile my extended finger shakes as I push the rubber numbers of the keypad. I have to get it right. There's no time for even the slightest of mistakes.
I enter in the last digit and there's a painfully long second where I'm convinced I got something wrong. That I didn't remember – or even see – the correct numbers from the last loop.
But then a green light flashes over the keypad and there's a gentle release. I exhale in relief as the cockpit door cracks open, and then my breath catches in my throat again.
It's time.
I press my weight against the door, pushing it open.
In front of me, two men are wrestling over the multitude of levers, dials and buttons that control the airplane. It's the pilot and co-pilot in a fight for power over the plane.
The co-pilot throws me a surprised look as I burst into the cockpit, and instantly recognition floods through me. It's Alex. It's the third guy I saw arguing with Janelle and Jerry that windy night in the Hawaiian motel. He looks just like I remember. He has the exact same pointed nose, long chin, and greying hair as when I first saw him staring up at me as the greenish pool glowed behind him.
Yet even though I suspected he was inside the cockpit, it's still surreal seeing him here as the co-pilot of this plane. The three of them were all in it together – one to fly the plane and divert any problems, one to watch out for the drugs and make sure nothing went wrong, and one to provide the ultimate distraction, in case it was needed.
But Alex – the man standing in front of me – is the very reason the plane keeps nosediving. The reason that we're all seconds away from dying.
Alex turns and slams the side of his hand against the pilot's neck. A carotid slap. I learned about it in middle school when my mother made me take a class in self-defense. The move, from what I remembered, can cause a dramatic drop in blood pressure and result in a sudden loss of oxygen to the brain.
As the pilot slumps over, collapsing against the controls, Alex faces me.
It's then I realize he's holding a gun.
And it's pointed right at me.
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