A shrill sound woke Liza, and she snapped upright with a strangled gasp, looking all around to determine what was happening.
The lights in the plane's cabin were dimmed, but she could still see the flight attendants as they bustled about frantically, their lips moving rapidly as they spoke to one another near the middle of the plane.
Six rows from Liza, she saw a young woman with her mouth open and tears streaming down her face.
It took several seconds for Liza to realize the shrill noise responsible for waking her up was coming from the girl; she was screaming.
Oh.
"This is your captain speaking," the voice was young, and it trembled, and Liza knew it was the perverted man, Mitchell.
Though his previous actions didn't matter when he finished speaking: "Brace for impact."
Liza swallowed down the panic that wanted to escape her throat in the same manner that it had the young woman's.
She couldn't freak out.
She had to remember that. Wasn't an important aspect of survival remaining calm?
She was sure it was.
Oh, God, what about Tim?
Leaning to the side even as she straightened her chair, Liza tried in vain to peer down the aisle, her eyes searching desperately for the man.
Would he be okay? He had to be okay—he needed to get home to Rebecca and the baby.
Wasn't he supposed to sit with Liza?
"Brace positions!" One of the attendants called, though Liza almost couldn't hear her over the sound of crying. She finally obeyed and knelt forward, mimicking the position she had seen the attendants demonstrated before take-off, grateful that she bothered to pay attention and read the safety handouts.
What about the toddler and his mother? Were they okay? She hoped they were bracing.
Oh, but it was probably difficult for a toddler to brace. Hopefully his mother was managing okay.
Liza stared blankly at her shoes, noting idly that the plane had fallen silent save for a strange whooshing sound and the occasional sniffling of a passenger.
What was the whooshing?
Someone released a short, broken sob.
Liza noticed that there was a coffee stain on the toe of one of her white sneakers, and she wondered when it had happened. Had it been there before they'd left the hotel that morning? Surely, it had. She didn't recall drinking coffee after they left.
Maybe she should have; she felt sluggish and detached.
The loudspeaker crackled.
"Prepare for the worst."
His voice was still trembling, and Liza was hit with the sudden, stunning clarity that everyone, even men like Mitchell the douchebag pilot, feared death.
Personally, she hadn't much thought about her own demise.
Had she told her mom she loved her when they'd spoken last? She hoped so.
Death would probably be dark at first, she imagined. She'd like to believe that heaven would let her in, but she hadn't been to church in a while.
With that thought, Liza prayed.
She didn't pray for survival, though. She simply prayed that the families of the passengers—hers included—would find peace. She prayed that they would know that everyone aboard the plane would fly to heaven together, even Mitchell the douchebag pilot, perhaps.
Liza was human, though, and so she was a little selfish; she prayed that somehow, Tim would survive. She prayed that he would live so he could kiss Rebecca hello and go to the first ultrasound appointment with her.
The whooshing grew louder, and Liza understood suddenly that their plane was falling rapidly.
She could only pray now that her death would be quick and painless.
The screaming started again.
Was it her? Was she screaming? She didn't think so, but she did think she might be sweating—something was dripping down her face and onto the floor.
There was crying now, prayers being hollered, and the sound of keening wails as passengers begged with God for just one more try at life before it was snatched from them.
She wasn't screaming, she decided as she shut her eyes, and she didn't want to scream.
Screaming wasn't going to help.
They hit something, and her body jolted upright, her teeth snapping together so harshly that she was sure she'd broken some—if not all—of them.
Was that grinding and crunching? Was that metal breaking?
Another jolt, another scream, and then another and another, before some of them were cut off abruptly.
More grating of metal against metal, and snapping of—God, were those bones?
She would have vomited had she been able to catch her breath.
Another jolt, this one harsher than the last, and then her body was weightless.
She slammed back down into her seat, but it only lasted half-a-second before she was upside down again.
They must have been spinning, rolling down a hill, something.
Over and over and over again, until they stopped so abruptly that her entire body snapped sideways, the movement punctuated by the sound of something—her ribs, maybe?—snapping as she was thrust against the seatbelt.
And then the silence was back.
***
A/N:
Update one of two! Read on!
A. R.