Your Darkest Fear

Fear of Flying - Aerophobia

I'm about to get on a plane for the first time in my entire life. I have been afraid of flying since I was little after I watched a plane explode on t.v. in a movie. My mother told me that it happens all the time and no one ever survives when it does happen. During my childhood, my parents drove everywhere we went, even if it was across the country to visit my grandparents. At age 12, my dad never came home from work one day and on the news a plane had hit the bridge he was driving across. All were lost including 18 people on the bridge and some in the boats.

I was convinced that planes were dangerous and never ever got on one no matter what, until now. My job as a web security programmer has kept me here in the U.S. without having to go anywhere that I couldn't reach by car, boat or train. My company is expanding its offices to London and I have to go there to oversee the implementing of our software into the servers. I am the only one with the required knowledge and experience in my company, so I was voluntold that I was going. I tried to convince my boss to let me take a ship to London but it was going to take too long to get there and so here I am petrified at the gate.

The ticket lady announced that business and first class could board now. I handed her my ticket but couldn't move passed the door to the skybridge that leads to the plane. Passengers behind me are getting mad because they can't get passed me to get on the plane. I am roughly pushed to the side by an older couple that makes some rude remarks about me loud enough for everyone to hear. I move completely over so that everyone can pass by without hitting into me. One child asked their mom why I was acting like this and she replied that I was afraid to fly. The kid laughed and said that they were a big boy and not afraid of nothin'.

I took a couple of pills out that my doctor prescribed for me to help with my anxiety and fear. She told me that they usually started working rather quickly and to only take them when I was already on the plane because they would make me sleepy. I couldn't wait until then and so I took them now so that I would be able to board the plane. After a few minutes everyone is has already boarded and I am slowly making my way down the skybridge.

The stewardess is being very patient with me as she walks with me talking to me to keep my mind off of the plane. She gets me in the plane and to my seat to the happiness of all of the other passengers. I get my seatbelt on and try to relax. While they are doing the safety brief and locking down all of the overhead compartments, I reach up to turn on the air because I am sweating so bad that my shirt is almost completely soaked. No one can see because I have my jacket still on and don't want to take it off.

I start to feel my heart to beat faster when they close the doors after the rest of the crew get on board. All of a sudden the air stops working and I look up to see if the person beside me had closed the vent. I see a small yellow and black eye looking back at me. I jump back in my seat and hit the button for the stewardess. As I stare up at the eye looking back at me, a man walks up to ask if everything is ok. I point up to the vent and tell him that there is something in the vent. He bends in front of me to look up into the vent and shakes his head. He tells me that there is nothing up there and that it was probably just a reflection from the light. He turns off the light and walks away.

I look up at the vent and there is nothing there but a plastic middle piece with air flowing out. The passenger beside me is staring at me but lifts up a newspaper to separate us and scoots closer to the window. I can feel the plane to start to move forward and just as the plane is about to lift off, my seat all of sudden sits back and hits the person behind me. I look down and see a greenish-brown hand slide back into the seat. The person that I hit is yelling for me to put my seat back up but the pressure from lifting off is keeping it back.

When the plane levels out, I hit the button to put the seat back up just as the stewardess comes over to let me know that I can't have the seat back as we take off or land. I try to tell her that something had hit the button but she just walks away muttering about psycho's being allowed on the plane. The guy beside me has moved as far from me as he can and still be in his seat. I can feel my heart pounding harder than ever before and I try to stand up but forgot to unbuckle my seatbelt so it pulls me back down. Just as I finally get unbuckled, they announce that the movie for the flight will be Gremlins 1 and 2. I remember the movies from years ago and then it clicks that what I am seeing are gremlins.

I hit the button again for the stewardess and see them talking to each other and pointing at me. After a few seconds of arguing the steward comes over. I see the look of resignation on his face that he is the one that has to come over. I start to get very angry that they feel that it is an inconvenience to help me and shoo him away very angrily. The man next to me gets up and goes to the area where they are and talks to them for a few minutes. I am still seething over how they are treating me and that they have a problems with gremlins. I have to do something about this, maybe the pilot will listen to me if I explain the situation with them.

I get up and head towards the cockpit but for some reason my balance is off, I shrug it off as to being my first time on a plane. I can't look out the windows at the clouds confirming it in my mind that we are way above ground. As I get near the cockpit, a man steps in front of me to ask where I am headed. Who does he think he is to stop me from getting to the pilot so that they can land the plane and hunt down the gremlins. I push him away from me because he has gotten too close and he has no right to be near me. The stewardess' and passengers at the front start screaming that I'm crazy and that I'm trying to crash the plane.

As the man wrestles me to ground, my bottle of Clonazepam© falls from my pocket and rolls away from me. Someone sees it and yells that I have a bottle of pills that's for my crazy. I try to explain that I'm just trying to save everyone from the gremlins that are causing the problems. I'm tossed into a bathroom and the door is locked from the outside. I keep yelling that I'm not the problem that the gremlins are trying to crash the plane. I hear a noise coming from the sink and I look over to see a greenish-brown arm coming up from the drain. I start screaming and pounding on the door so they will let me out. It slowly pulls itself from the drain and stands there grinning at me.

I move to the toilet to get away from the gremlin and throw my shoe at it. It passes through the gremlin and hits the door. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest that I feel that I'm going to have a heart attack at what I just saw. I get up slowly and walk over the creature in the sink and put out my hand and feel nothing there. I don't understand what is going on until I remember what the doctor told me about the medication. It can cause hallucinations, drowsiness and balance problem plus a few more but I don't remember them all. I realize that I am experiencing a side effect to the medicine and that it was all in my head. I sit back down on the toilet and think about how I am going to get out of this when I hear a noise coming from the commode.

There is a loud clunking noise and the vacuum clicks on the toilet and starts to pull me against the seat. I grab the bar beside the toilet to try to pull away but the suction is getting stronger and before I can do anything I feel my insides being ripped apart as I pass out from the pain.

*  Later that day the national and local news station put out a story about a man going crazy on a flight to London and then suffers a freak accident by being sucked out the toilet as the computer system malfunctions and dumps the sewage lines.