He kept his eyes on the wing.
Not because he thought he could do anything about it.
But because he didn't know where else to look anymore.
The clouds outside were no longer just clouds. They'd turned into a wall — thick and unmoving, swallowing light. They moved like molasses, like ash drifting through water. No sun. No land. No horizon. Just the wing... and whatever it was beginning to whisper.
Another tremor rolled through the plane, this one subtle, almost polite — as if the aircraft itself was still trying to pretend.
He felt the vibration through his spine.
The hum had become more than a sound now. It was a sensation.
A feeling of something off, something tilted in the bones of the sky.
Around him, silence reigned.
Even the passengers had fallen still — their chatter replaced by quiet gestures, exchanged glances. Some clutched the seats in front of them. Others touched their seatbelts again, ensuring the clasps were fastened even though they already knew they were.
A man with grey-streaked hair was murmuring something softly to himself, eyes closed, thumb brushing the edge of a rosary.
The boy just watched.
He felt no fear. Only observation.
The kind of numb attention a child gives a thunderstorm when they're too tired to flinch.
Then the plane listed slightly to the left.
Not sharply. Just enough to let you know that something internal had shifted.
That was when the pilot finally spoke — a voice not from a human throat but from the ceiling, crackling, tight.
"Ladies and gentlemen… we've encountered a minor… air pattern shift. Please remain in your seats and ensure all belongings are secured."
That was all.
Just that.
But the tone didn't match the words. The voice wasn't calm.
It was clipped. Shaky. As if rehearsed… but not for this.
The boy leaned closer to the window again.
And now — for the first time — he saw the damage.
A hairline fracture, barely visible, had crept along the underside of the engine paneling. Not large. Not dramatic. But enough.
The way a crack in glass spreads. Silently. Irrevocably.
He exhaled through his nose.
One of the stewardesses returned from the galley, face pale but neutral, her hands gripping the overhead compartments for balance as the plane shook again — just slightly.
People noticed her face.
That's when the whispers began.
Not loud. But real.
And the boy felt the shift in the air.
We've passed the midpoint.
We're too far to turn back.
Not close enough to feel safe.
He could feel the engine now — or rather, the absence of what it should sound like. A slight irregularity, like something skipping a beat. It hadn't failed. Not yet.
But it had changed.
Changed in a way only silence could describe.
The old woman across from him started rubbing her fingers together, eyes unfocused.
Someone behind coughed — or tried to. It came out as a choke. The air was too thin now, not in oxygen, but in calm.
Another tremble.
This one sharper.
Louder.
The metal overhead groaned, like a door being forced open slowly, against its will.
He sat back.
The boy didn't flinch. Didn't reach for anything.
He just sank into his seat — as if descending not into fear, but understanding.
There was no going back.
---
The tremors had not stopped. They'd simply… learned to wait.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
No one spoke.
The clouds remained thick and heavy, dark as dried blood, painting the windows in a grey so endless it almost felt deliberate. No stars. No sea. No signs of life. Just a choking distance that pressed inward from every direction.
Then — it came.
A sound, like the snapping of a steel jaw.
Short. Final. Real.
The left wing jolted downward — not by much, just a breath — but enough to tilt the aircraft slightly to the side. A stewardess fell into the aisle, catching herself, only to be thrown again when the cabin tilted harder.
The boy leaned back in his seat.
His eyes still fixed on the wing.
It was shaking now. Not in rhythm. Not in response to the air.
But as if it were tearing itself apart from the inside.
Another boom — louder. This time passengers screamed. A man shouted for his wife. A child began to cry in a seat behind.
The engine didn't just stutter.
It growled.
And then it snapped.
A great chunk of the left wing — maybe half — was gone, sheared from the body with a shriek that tore through the sky like metal against heaven's own chalkboard. It didn't break cleanly. It ripped, with angry fragments twisting loose in the air, tumbling downward into the nowhere sea.
And then the plane turned.
Hard.
The boy felt his body yanked sideways, seatbelt cutting across his chest as gravity changed its mind and momentum dragged the entire cabin into chaos.
Passengers screamed, violently crashing into one another. Luggage compartments burst open — bags and coats and metal things flying like shrapnel.
Someone hit the emergency call button repeatedly, screaming for help that no one could give.
Alarms blared now — multiple, layered, shrill and ugly.
The red lights above flickered madly.
A steward slammed against the food cart, and blood splattered the back of the seats.
The boy saw the clouds spinning.
Not drifting — spinning.
The whole world outside the window had begun to spiral like a whirlpool of storm, sky, and memory.
They were falling.
And the plane wasn't falling straight.
It was spinning, flipping, spiraling uncontrollably like a paper bird set on fire — a whirling, helpless shriek of steel tumbling through freezing air.
People were screaming.
Some clutched loved ones.
Some reached for God.
Others just wept — softly, as if mourning was the only thing they could still do.
A woman fainted mid-scream.
A man in the aisle hit his chin against the armrest so hard it cracked, then didn't get up again.
The left side of the plane began to drag.
The remains of the wing caught wind and scraped, groaning like a dying animal as it clung to the body — then twisted violently, smashing into the fuselage and grinding across rows of passengers.
One man was ripped from his seat — pulled across the aisle and halfway out through a split in the fuselage, body mangled by the grinding edge of what was left. The screams from that section were not words. They were sounds born only in warzones and crashing sky.
The boy's head slammed against the side of the seat.
And still — no land.
Just streaks of grey, sea, and blood in the air.
It went on for too long.
Until finally—
The clouds broke.
And there it was. Land.
Jagged and far.
But there.
A shadow of coastline that would never be reached in time.
The plane hit the water sideways.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
It collided with the ocean like a god punched the world. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. The body of the aircraft twisted sideways, tail bending unnaturally as pieces snapped off like twigs. A flaming piece of engine rocketed skyward, trailing black smoke as it disappeared.
Inside, chaos took a new form.
People were flung.
Bones snapped.
Throats slammed into arms and elbows and plastic seats.
Blood decorated windows.
Someone was torn through an opening — not by fire, but by the wind's rage, shredded before they could scream.
It was not a clean landing.
It was punishment.
It was an ending wrapped in steel.
But the boy —
somehow —
was still there, hanging sideways, breathless, bleeding from his temple.
Strapped in.
Half-conscious.
And somewhere, just barely… in the cracked frame of the window above,
he could see land.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And the world still tilted.
Not just from shock — but quite literally, the entire plane had lodged itself at a broken angle, one wing submerged fully in the sea, the other skewed and useless above, broken metal hunched like a torn spine.
Theophilus's head lolled to the side. His mouth hung slightly open, drawing in air that tasted of salt, oil, and blood. His own blood.
He could taste it.
Not just on his lips, but deeper — like it had already passed down his throat while he was unconscious.
He tried to breathe through his nose.
Sharp pain screamed through his face.
The bridge was likely broken. Maybe fractured. But that wasn't what truly worried him.
His arm.
His right arm — bent.
Not curved.
Not twisted.
Bent. Inward. At the elbow. The wrong way.
He stared at it. Stared at the mess of bruised flesh and crooked bone and trembled not out of fear, but because the nerves finally remembered to scream.
A low breath shuddered through his lips.
He didn't cry.
He didn't call for help.
He only breathed. Gritting his teeth as the pain washed through him like fire.
Then his leg twitched.
Or tried to.
Theophilus glanced downward. The seat in front of him — one that had once held a man who was no longer there — had collapsed backwards during the crash. Its metal frame now pressed down hard against his chest and pinned his left leg beneath it. His boot was caught under some twisted bars, barely visible beneath the angled shadow.
He tried moving his foot.
Nothing.
The pain wasn't there, not yet. Not fully. Just a dull throb. The kind that always came before swelling.
He shifted slightly. That small movement made everything worse.
Something popped in his shoulder.
His bent arm twitched again — and this time, a white-hot streak of pain lit up his vision.
Still strapped in.
Still alive.
He tilted his head. Slowly. Carefully.
That's when he saw them.
The people.
Not moving.
Some still half-hanging from their seats, limp arms dangling over the aisles like broken puppets. Others had been ejected halfway from the shattered frame of the fuselage — heads split open against twisted metal, limbs bent at angles too awful to name. A woman lay just across the aisle from him, her body wedged between seats, her eyes glassy and wide, mouth frozen in the shape of her last scream.
Her scarf floated in the cabin, untethered.
But it wasn't floating because of the wind.
Water.
It was seeping in.
Quickly.
Thick, grey-blue sea water gushed through the cracks in the fuselage and the crumpled doors at the back of the cabin. It didn't roar. It hissed. Creeping steadily like a predator crawling through a broken cage.
The sound of the sea entering metal was unlike anything else.
It gurgled. Groaned. Moaned low and wet like a dying throat.
Theophilus swallowed dryly. His mouth tasted of copper and adrenaline.
He was still there.
Still half-conscious.
But aware.
The ocean was coming.
And the plane was sinking.
And no one was coming to help.